By Maddy Levi
Does thickened water taste any different than the stuff that comes out of the faucet? I wondered as I fed some to my dad with a white plastic spoon, momentarily distracting him from watching Paul Muni wriggle out of his shackles. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang was the featured film on Turner Classic Movies that afternoon, which was a film my dad had seen a million times before.
This time, I turned the closed-captioning on because he couldn’t hear anymore, and I wanted his final viewing of it to be optimal. A beer, too, would have been nice, but I don’t think they make thickened versions of Heineken or Bud—and he had trouble swallowing. This happens at the end, I’m told, and my father’s doctor said, “It’ll only be a matter of hours or days.”
I watched my mother die, too, five years before, but somehow this felt different—maybe because she and I never got along, not even a semblance of warmth between us. My dad and I didn’t always see eye to eye either, but he was the parent who tried to love me—even though there were times he found me impossible to like.
I’d like to believe my dad forgave me for transgressions committed in earlier years that gave him and my mother angst, like getting kicked out of camp for underage drinking, or defying the rules for mixed-marrieds at my brother’s Orthodox Jewish wedding. But I’m not sure if he could forgive me for allowing him to languish for two years, imprisoned in a body blighted by an ischemic stroke.
How dare I make him live when all he wanted to do was die! The indignity of diapers, bedrails, and uncaring caretakers could trigger anyone to refuse to eat or take their meds. Why couldn’t I see this sooner?
Did I think this once-merry man who tapped out tunes on his teeth with a pencil was ever coming back? Was my father going to suddenly start spewing out one-liners and filling me with stories from his days in the Navy or the deli he owned with his dad? Will he replicate another Mondrian painting on the side of a shed, grow the sweetest beefsteak tomatoes, or deliver me to school in a canary-yellow AMC Pacer?
“No” was the answer to all.
Dad sat in his wheelchair, defiant at times, waving off physical therapists and others who wished to reteach his ninety-three-year-old body to walk and hold a pen. A grape-sized growth behind his ear, painful and inoperable, further taunted his existence at the facility—a depressing, overpriced place where he and other oldsters lingered until their end.
“What did you have for lunch today?” I’d ask, using a marker and whiteboard to communicate, knowing his state-of-the-art hearing aids would no longer suffice.
Sometimes he’d remember he had cling peaches or meatloaf, other times he’d shrug and say, “I don’t know. What did I have?”
He remembered who I was, however, and was able to identify most of the actors and stills in the cinema history books that my husband and I flipped through with him on our frequent visits.
“That’s Basil Rathbone in The Hound of the Baskervilles,” he’d say, or “I saw The Maltese Falcon with Bruce Aaron and my cousin Johnny at the Loew’s 175th.”
There were no stills in the books from The Exorcist, though—the movie I begged my dad to take me to when I was only thirteen. I can still see him in my mind’s eye, sitting beside me, coolly, munching on Ritz crackers as I reluctantly glimpsed the horror through splayed fingers. There was Linda Blair, bigger than life, with her head spinning around, violating herself with a crucifix and projectile vomiting pea soup at a priest. How is it that Dad could remain so unflappable? I thought then.
Now I think he was a German Jew who fled the Nazis; maybe one little girl’s devil possession didn’t seem so scary from his perspective.
Dad didn’t seem to be afraid of dying either, but I know it was something he thought about. He had his advance directive in place years before I had to serve as his health care proxy—a role I wondered why he didn’t ask my older brother to take on. Perhaps it was because proxying is such an unpleasant business, and my brother doesn’t deal well with unpleasantness. Or more likely, it had to do with a difference in beliefs—would my Orthodox Jewish brother be able to carry out his father’s unorthodox end-of-life wishes?
In any case, it was I, the one more adept at dealing with unpleasantness and the one without any religious leanings, who was assigned the proxy task. And this task kicked
in unexpectedly when I was told that my father’s heart was failing, and if he didn’t get a pacemaker, he was going to die.
Nearing ninety-four, my dad was coming apart at the seams, and it was clear he could no longer be stitched back together. He was ready to retire, he told me—and this time, after two difficult, guilt-ridden years, I accepted it.
“What do you mean you’re not going to have a pacemaker put in him?” the facility’s administrator admonishingly asked. “Does your brother know this?”
“Yes, he does,” I responded, wishing this man, who never showed the least regard for my father—even when he was found on the floor after rolling himself out of bed—would mind his own business.
“Well, he can’t stay here,” he added, after refusing to allow me to bring in hospice workers to care for my dad.
Did I have my dad’s best interest at heart, or was I the villainous daughter, subconsciously wishing to ease my own pain and burden? Despite what I knew to be true, I couldn’t help feeling conflicted after moving my father to a hospice facility to die.
The bed next to his was empty. I wondered who the former occupant was and who’d be next up in the rotation. I pondered how much longer my dad had until it would be his turn to check out.
I was glad to see there was a TV above Dad’s bed; just because you’re dying doesn’t mean you can’t be entertained. And unlike the TV in Dad’s previous room, this one wasn’t perpetually tuned into the Evangelical station his caretaker favored.
“Put on Turner—Channel 97,” I’d repeatedly remind her. “My dad loves watching the old movies!” But, like many of my other requests on Dad’s behalf, they were only honored if I was around to check.
At the start of his hospice stay, the pain was mild enough to be quelled with sporadic doses of something placed strategically under his tongue. They never tell you it’s morphine, but that would be my best guess.
Dad seemed content and even smiled when he watched Paul Muni escape the chain gang for a second time—he saw him blow up a bridge to evade pursuers, bid farewell to his loved one, and then disappear into darkness at the end.
Where will Dad go at the end? I wondered.
The two days that followed were Dad’s last. They were punctuated with pain, delirium, and after a few more doses of morphine, the relief of a very deep sleep. And then came his escape.
When I replay these last days with Dad in my head, I linger on the day he seemed content, enjoying the film, and then fast-forward to the end, where he escaped and disappeared into the darkness. Hopefully, he was able to forgive me.