Unresolved Endings: Death Isn’t Tied Up In A Bow

In fiction writing we learn to tie up loose ends, resolve problems in the finale. But in reality endings aren’t typically tied up in a neat bow. In fact they often flip you upside down and shake you out for loose change then throw you in the spin cycle.

Of course you could look at a death as a sort of catalyst. And if that’s the case your story’s just beginning. But it’s hard to see that far ahead when you’re in it. And I am in it.

Yesterday my dad died. I had booked a flight to be with him and my mom today. I thought we had more time. He’d been given six months two years ago and had held on so much longer than expected.

I’m in Walgreens buying cough drops for my daughter when my mom’s photo lights up my phone. Her breath hitches as she tells me to cancel my flight. “Dad’s taking his last breaths,” she says. For the first time in my life my mom, who has always been self possessed and steadfast, sounds scared and frantic. I learned later Dad was unconscious and his heartbeat had slowed.

“Mom, are you alone?”

“Oh no, hospice is here.”

Anyone there that you want to hug? I want to say, but she hangs up.

I have a class to teach in half an hour. I think of cancelling but then a picture of my dad in his suit and tie comes to mind. What would he do? He’d keep working, soldier on. So I call my sister who gives me the pep talk I need to get through the next two hours.

“This is why we have siblings,” I say. “So we don’t go through this alone.”

On my way to the university I stop for coffee. I’m standing in the middle of a tiny cafe when my phone lights up again.

“Dad’s awake,” Mom says. “I’m putting the phone next to his ear so you can say goodbye.”

What? No!

Tears spring from my eyes like some cartoon character. I dive outside to escape the crowd in the coffee shop and stand facing the stone wall of the building in too bright sunlight.

“I love you so much” is all I can think of saying.

What comes back sounds like my dad has been swallowed by an alien – garbled and unintelligible.

“He says he loves you too and sorry his voice sounds so weird,” Mom translates.
Forty five minutes later I’m in the middle of teaching when I receive the text. I pretend I don’t see it, finish class, close my presentation, and do 4-7-8 breathing all the way to my car before I let the dam break and call my husband Matt.

For 52 years of my life I’ve known a world with my Dad in it and now he’s gone. Mind you, I wasn’t always close with my dad, blamed him for a lot until I had kids of my own. He’d be the first to admit he wasn’t a perfect dad, leaving most of the parenting to my mom.

But in the last months of his life we had grown closer meeting for exercise dates over FaceTime twice a week. We’d catch up while doing our knee raises and wall push ups. He’d ask me about progress on my book or how the girls were doing and I’d ask him what he was getting mom for their anniversary or compliment him on a new sweater. He loved online shopping. At the end of each call he’d say, I’m so grateful for you.

After Matt meets me at home he suggests a walk around the neighborhood. “I just can’t believe he’s not here,” I say.

Later that night when I’ve cried so hard my left eye won’t stop twitching, Matt says, “there’s something I want to tell you but I’m not sure this is the right time.”

“Just say it.”

“When we were walking, I saw your dad put a hand on your back and say, ‘I’m right here.’” I release a loud sob and Matt hugs me and whispers in my ear, “you can still have the relationship you’ve always wanted with your dad now.”

I’ve put this essay away for the last two weeks to be with family, help my mom plan dad’s service and fall apart. My grief is a little less raw. I even find myself forgetting for a second that he’s passed and then remembering all over again and the emptiness punches me in the chest. I wear his large gray sweater around the house and imagine it like one of his hugs.

I think about people I interviewed for 2 Lives Jessica Waite, Michelle Grua and Kiersten Parsons Hathcock who have found ways to connect with loved ones after they’ve gone.

I say to a friend, “no one prepares you for this – the heart stomping.” But there actually are people who attempt to prepare people for the end of life. They’re called death doulas and grief counselors and we featured an amazing one on 2 Lives recently, Sairey Luterman.

I’ve had a chance to talk to my own therapist who has encouraged me to be patient and gentle with myself, maybe invite my dad back into my life in some spiritual way. So while I may not have the intuitive sixth sense my husband has, I am trying to talk to my Dad. I don’t know yet if the conversation is one sided, but it feels possible that he is listening.