The words you are about to read were first written over a year ago but the emotional wounds they invoked are still raw. They were never published. I put them away. Until now.
On March 11, 2015, at approximately 1:10 a.m., I watched the greatest man I’ve ever known slip away from this world.
His passing was peaceful, with only the relentless hiss of an oxygen tube filling the room. His passing was without pain, a merciful coma ensured he would no longer have to suffer the trials of COPD and pneumonia. His passing was observed by three family members, of which I was one. I was there for his final moment, however and it has changed me forever in ways I would never have anticipated.
Until that morning I had never watched another human being leave this world, much less one that had such an impact on my life.
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My biological father was never a “dad.”
He didn’t teach me to when to stand up and fight and when to display true strength by remaining silent. My childhood was definitely not the stuff of television comedies or dramas, with a lesson emerging at the end.
I walked away from my adolescence with scars inside and out.
To the world, Jack Fisher was my father-in-law, but for all intents and purposes I lost the only true father, the only true guiding light I’ve ever known when he drew his last breath. To me, he will always be Dad. He lived in the house next door (insert the “Everybody Loves Raymond” jokes here), but when his health began to deteriorate we converted our dining room into a bedroom.
A first-floor bathroom ensured Dad wouldn’t have to battle his arch-nemesis, the stairs, every day. It may not have been ideal but he grew to love it.
For five years we grew accustomed to yelling at him to turn the TV down at night. Creeping downstairs and slowly removing the television remote from his hand as he slept so the set could finally get a rest became second-nature. He’d bang on the walls if he needed something.
We all became nurses, administering oxygen treatments to him every few hours as his lungs grew weaker and weaker.
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The last night he spent at home was a nightmare. I sat up with him as he babbled; apparently this was a common occurrence with people his age that are slipping away, even if it is days before the end.
We settled into a routine:
- I’d lift him out of bed every and place him on the commode beside his bed.
- I would put him back in bed.
- He’d yell, “Give me some of that shit!” and I’d fill his oxygen mask with small tubes of liquid designed to open his lungs when inhaled.
- His portable oxygen tank would be carefully adjusted and an all-too familiar sound would break the silence.
- He’d breathe in, fighting for his life with every breath until the medicine was exhausted.
This went on every twenty minutes until morning, at which point we had no choice but to get dad to the hospital where he spent the last week of his eight decades of his life on this plane of reality. This decision, coupled with exhaustion and frustration, nearly broke me. I felt like I was giving up on a man I loved dearly.
He made my house a home.
He made my family complete.
He made me a better man by his example.
There is so much I want to say about John Edward “Jack” Fisher, but I find myself broken inside, my ability to articulate deeply-emotional moments severed from my consciousness, seemingly forever.
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The house is quiet at the moment.
My family is gone to the movies and this is the one of those rare moments when a father has the house to himself. It feels “wrong” is the only word that comes to mind—for the house to be void of the constant mechanical breathing of an oxygen machine and the presence of an 87-year-old man with more fire and gumption than anyone I’ve ever encountered.
But this is our new reality.
We did all we could for Dad when he was with us. I hope it was enough. For now, I am stepping back, from work and the virtual world. There is nothing more to say; I simply don’t have the words. I’m sure they’ll come eventually. I’m sure I’ll be be back sooner or later.
But not today.
Postscript:
Despite what you’ve heard, time does not heal all wounds. However, it does give you a chance to catch your breath and get back into the big game we call life. Jack Fisher may have shuffled off this mortal coil but he’s with me every day.
It’s getting a little crowded in my head, but I’m willing to clear out a few unproductive thoughts to make space.
Dad’s worth it.
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Photo: Ben Seidelman/Flickr
“I felt like I was giving up on a man I loved dearly.I feel ya.”
Yeah. Don’t do that.
Been there before. About to go through it with my mom.
You never think that you did enough. That’s what love does, but they know, and we know. We just love them so much that we want to, think we can do more.
This is terribly difficult for me to write, to think about, but we do get through the grief, and we honor them by being the men they taught us to be.