wake me up when september ends

**IF detour ahead**

I've told different versions of the story many times in the last 10 years.

It was 1999 and I was 25. My first nephew was born in May, M and I moved to CA (from NE) for graduate school in June, and my dad passed away in September. (I've written about him before here and here.)

I don't generally have never really talked about all the little flashes that go through my head when I think back to that time...you know those personal glimpses that aren't really relevant for telling the story, but are the things that pop in your head while you say things like, "Yeah, it was a really hard time." Today I want need to share a few. Soon I'll be back to my IF roots.

We had been down this road many times before - dad was suddenly sick and admitted to the hospital. It was par for the course with his MS. I had mastered the art of hospital waiting room self entertainment during my childhood, even celebrating my first birthday there. It was our "normal". This was the first time though that I was over 1600 miles away with a support network of 1 (M).

When I hadn't heard back from my mom one day I called my SIL to see how things were going. I don't remember any specific comment, but something in my gut told me during that conversation that I needed to go home instantly. I booked the first flight out for the next morning and spent the evening in a raging lunatic like panic. Somehow I already knew.

I got to my window seat the next morning and when the sweet older woman next to me asked if I was going home or on vacation I burst into tears telling her my dad was really sick again. She was an angel and spent a good portion of the flight just talking and listening and distracting me with questions about my schooling and research and family and everything in between. My thoughts were racing and I remember telling her that this time just felt so different from all the rest. I always tear up just thinking about her compassion and kindness. I needed someone that day to just "be there" and never imagined it would come from a total stranger.

My brother, SIL, and sweet 4-month-old nephew picked me up at the airport. I don't remember much of the 3 hour drive, but soon we were at the hospital. It was the same hospital that I was born in (1 of 2 babies in the nursery at the time), where my dad had spent his 40 day-40 night stay (affectionately nicknamed his Noah hospital stay) battling pneumonia when I was young, and where I had my appendix out when I was 16. They no longer delivered babies and half of the 25 rooms were now assisted living. Yes, only 25 rooms in the whole hospital.

Things were looking grim and we were already at the point of "We are doing everything that we can." It wasn't our first time hearing these words, but somehow that didn't make it any easier.

How he always became so deathly ill so quickly was never understood. This particular time he had woken up one morning very upset telling my mom that he needed to go to the hospital. My mom cared for his every need and knew immediately something was off. She started getting him ready, telling him that they would be off to see the doctor shortly, but he sobbed telling her it didn't matter now and that he wasn't going to make it. He seemed pretty disoriented like he had a vision or dream and knew this was it. Not much after being admitted and loaded up on meds, he drifted into an unconscious state. This is how he was when I arrived.

We pretty much lived in the hospital for the next week only leaving to grab a quick bite to eat at the local diner or to run home to shower. We slept in the "family" waiting room which consisted of a recliner and love seat that were likely the same ones my dad sat in while I was being born - really, no joking. We took turns sitting at his side, talking to him, sharing stories with and about him, holding his hand, and just clinging to each other. We walked the halls with my nephew taking him to see the fish tank in the community room in the wee hours of the night. We spent time together and let one another wander as needed to collect our own thoughts.

When the doctor came in one morning, I saw the big red DNR sticker on my dad's chart. I guess I always knew those were his wishes, but to see the sticker on a piece of paper with his name while he was in a coma just feet away really hit me in the gut. I kept looking at it, trying to will it off the page so they would not just let him die, but I knew that was only selfishly for me. He had suffered so much through his 25 years with MS and even threw in a brain tumor at one point to boot. I wanted him here, yet hated how he was suffering and knew how much more deteriorated he became after each of these hospitalizations. He couldn't do anything physical for himself anymore (from eating to getting to the bathroom to shaving). He had been this way for years. His speech had declined so much that those outside our family had trouble understanding him at all and on his harder days, even my mom was challenged in getting things on the first attempt. It was a horribly miserable thing to witness over my entire childhood and into early adulthood. The words unfair, unjust, and unimaginable don't hold a candle to the anger and confusion built up over the years.

My mom and I took a break one day to run to the closest town to pick up a few odds and ends. It was the same town where my brother and SIL lived so we grabbed something "to go" and went to their house to eat. It was then that my mom told us that she had spoken to the doctor and the prognosis was that he really already was gone. Even if they were able to rid him of the multiple infections that ravaged through his body and get him back to breathing room air, his brain would never be the same. He would never be the same. She decided to stop the aggressive treatments and just keep him as comfortable as possible. Probably the hardest words she ever spoke and the hardest ones I ever heard.

As I sat alone with my dad one night, I told him how much I loved him and wanted him to stay, but also wanted him to not be in pain anymore. I told him it was okay for him to go now. I told him that we would take care of one another and make sure my nephew knew who his Grandpa was. I have to believe he knew I was there. I studied his face, stroked his hair, ran my fingers over his tattoos trying to absorb every detail in a way that it would never leave. I gave him a foot massage much like I had done throughout my childhood. His feet were as soft and smooth as a baby's as he hadn't walked on them in over 20 years. Aside from them not working, the look and feel were foot model perfect.

We continued sleeping at the hospital, but decided on about night 7 or 8 to get some rest at home. I hate that we left, but we were so exhausted. It was around day 10 of his coma that the hospital called us early one morning to tell us that he had passed. I was standing next to my mom holding her hand as she took the call. I think we both already knew who it was before she answered. We hugged and cried and I told my mom that he was walking and talking again now and no longer in pain. She followed it up with, "And probably kicking Grandpa Joe's ass* if I know your dad..." For some maybe not appropriate, but our family has always ranked very high on the sarcasm meter to get through the tough stuff. (*Grandpa Joe was my dad's dad who had passed away the year before leaving his 90 some odd years of a house hoarding nightmare behind.)

We went to the hospital where we remained in the waiting room until my brother arrived. We all wanted to go in to see dad together. His room was quiet now with no more beeps or oxygen masks or IV lines. He looked so peaceful. I hadn't even considered that he would feel differently when I grabbed his hand one last time. It was cold and a bit stiff and I was taken back with emotions that everything about him was now gone. The shell of his body was so familiar and yet suddenly so foreign.

The next few days and months could be a whole new post on their own. It was a hard transition to lose him and return to our new "home" in CA where I had missed the first week of graduate classes and was now behind a couple weeks on my research. I would highly recommend not learning nonlinear partial differential equations and studying the Navier Stokes equations while grieving the loss of your father in a new state where you have no friends and only know of one other female in your program. (Crap, just writing that nightmare of a run-on sentence was hard.) It was a set-up for some deep rooted denial and depression. I'm still not sure how I made it through and hate remembering back to that time at all. I think it was the strength, drive, and attitude that I learned from my dad that pushed me through.

I am so grateful that our last good-bye while he was still alive and well was one of those longer hugs and extra kisses kinds of good-byes when we left for CA. I have no regrets about any of my time with him and only wish there was more of it.

I can hardly believe September 25, 1999 has turned into September 25, 2009. It's hard to grasp that it has really been 10 years and sometimes I still picture him at home propped up with pillows in his recliner, cracking jokes with my mom, and dozing while watching his 'huskers play.

The song "Wake me up when September ends" by Green Day was written by the lead singer who lost his father on September 10, 1982 when he was only 10 years old. It was really popular and played all the time on the radio between years 6 and 7 of being without my dad. It instantly became "my song" for him, especially the line:

Like my father's come to pass

Seven years has gone so fast

Wake me up when September ends

I can't yet imagine what it will be like at twenty (another verse in the song)...

I'm still thinking of and remembering you every day, Dad. You are missed more than I ever thought was possible. Loving you today and always...