My father died of leukemia in 1992.  I was 22.  I had lived overseas for a year by that time, and came back in time to see him before the end.  I’m not sure how I knew that I had to come back right then, but somehow my mother conveyed that to me clearly.

I remember being in the front seat of an ambulance as it screamed down the highway between Flint and Ann Arbor, the driver swearing as he came up too fast on people who didn’t move out of the way.  

I remember my father at the hospital being confused and speaking French, which no one around him understood.  

We stayed in a hospital hotel room one night.  The next morning we forgot to pay before we left for Dad’s room and then I had to go back.  The lady there was very kind about it.  

With leukemia, you are well, then you get sick, then better, then sicker and finally something really gets you.  They give blood transfusions to raise your white counts and it’s like the cancer eats them for breakfast.  And antibiotics?  Forget it---they’re useless.

I remember driving that 90 miles to Ann Arbor by myself one time, in my father’s little red Ford Festiva which he had paid a mere $5000 for (stick shift, no air conditioning), going way too fast and not giving a damn, wondering what it would feel like to crash.  Would it hurt?  Would I fly through the air?  Would I even know?  Would it matter?

And I didn’t even see the end coming.  I didn’t see it coming.  We had gone back down to A2 in the ambulance, and they gave antibiotics, and they gave blood and nothing helped.  Dad couldn’t breathe unless his mouth was open--- his nose was entirely plugged with mucus.  His mouth was horribly dry because of breathing with it open all the time, and some kind of mucus plug had formed inside it.  We took turns sitting on the bed next to him with a kind of square sponge thing on a plastic stick, dipping the sponge in water and coating that mucus plug in his mouth to try to keep it softened.

He was conscious and aware.  His eyes were open--- He had big blue eyes and even though the whites were yellowed they were still his eyes.  I was waiting for them to figure out the next treatment, the thing that would fix him.  There was a constant stream of nurses and doctors going in and out, and after a discussion in the hallway one of the nurses talked to my mother.  I was sponging Dad’s mouth and didn’t hear what they said.  Then the floor nurse asked my father if he wanted to stay in the hospital or go home.  Just that one question.  He managed to form the word, “home.”  Out in the hallway I saw two of his nurses crying.

He went home in an ambulance that day.  We set up a hospital bed in the living room, with a machine next to it that had some painkiller in it and would release a dose at intervals to his IV.  There was also a button on the machine so that if Dad seemed in pain we could give him a “bolus.”  Which meant an extra dose.

We took turns sitting with him, my mother and me.  One of my younger brothers was away in the Navy and the other was only 13.  

I was frantic on caffeine and adrenelin, staring around at the piled-up furniture in the living room and wondering how we could care for Dad like this, and why we had ever left the hospital when he was this sick.  Mom had gone to rest and I was watching till midnight.  The only light was from a table lamp, creating patterns from the wrought-iron railings on the opposite wall and stretching along the ceiling.  Dad’s air mattress hissed.  The bolus machine ticked.  The house talked.  I sponged in Dad’s mouth.  I wanted to hold his hand but I was too afraid to hurt him so I didn’t.  His breathing had changed.  It was louder and it had a raspy noise to it.  Then he was moaning as he breathed.  I pushed the bolus button and it seemed to help him.  Then he got quiet for a long moment and I was scared that I shouldn’t have pushed the button.  But then he started those rasping breaths again.

What I still didn’t know was, this is what it looks like when someone is about to die.  This is as bad as it gets, and then they die.

Mom came at midnight and I went and lay down in bed.  I was staring at the ceiling 20 minutes later when she opened my bedroom door and told me that Dad was gone.

She made phone calls.  I went into the living room and it was silent.  The air pushed against my ears.  I sat down on the floor against the wall and hugged my knees, feeling like I should cry.  And then I saw him move!  And I thought, no, no, he’s not gone, and Mom is calling people….!   And then the mattress hissed.  It was only the mattress moving.  I sat against the wall until dawn.

It rained the day we buried him, and I remember staring straight up into the rain, the drops spattering against my face and filming my eyes, feeling that it was right God was shedding tears because I could not.