when your parents have been married almost 70 years, when they have grown fragile with the passing of time...from hip replacements and diabetes and diverticulitis and parkinson's...you start to wonder who will die first and what life will be like for the surviving spouse. my father died this sunday, leaving behind his wife of 68 years, my mom. mom has been in a wheelchair for almost a decade, takes a daily mix of medications that only my sister, dee, can keep straight, is dependent on others to feed her, bathe her, take her to the bathroom and put her to bed. she has a caregiver who visits daily, she attends adult daycare three days a week but my father was her lifeline. he entertained her. he cajoled her. he protected her.
yesterday, my mom got confused and told my sister, pam, that she had hoped that dad would go first. no, i mean me. i hoped i would go before dad, she clarified. she and pam laughed at mom's confused statement. but mom is worried now that dad is no longer there to help. she lives with dee and dee goes to work and roxanne, the caregiver, only stays briefly each day. mom has never liked being alone. she has the telephone and she has the emergency support button but she no longer has dad. and my father was her world, had been her world since she first met him at a dance when she was a senior in high school.
but i remember visiting my parents in florida, in 2001. mom had just suffered a massive stroke after an unsuccessful second hip replacement surgery (she had broken her hip dancing with dad), had been in the icu for two weeks, had finally been transferred to a convalescent center to recover. i had said my good byes to mom and dad and was in my hotel room trying to sleep before my long drive back to the southwest. the phone rang at midnight. it was dad. your mom is back at the hospital, they can't wake her, dad said. i agreed to meet him back at the emergency room. the hospital was just up the road from my hotel.
the hospital was deserted at midnight. when i walked through the automated doors. i saw dad standing alone but he didn't see me. my heart broke at the sight of him. he looked so bereft, so forlorn. mostly, he looked vulnerable. i had never seen him look that way. as soon as he saw me, his expression changed and the dad i knew returned. he talked to the staff, there had been a mistake at the nursing home. mom had been given a sleeping pill that had reacted to her other meds. but she was stable. she was groggy. and she was ok. later, i said my goodbyes to my parents and headed home. but i never forgot the look of utter despair on dad's face when he thought he had lost mom. i remember crying as i drove along the florida highway, thinking about mom, about dad, about death. and i remembered a line from a rod mckuen poem...empty are the eyes of a woman when all has been taken from her. empty is me, empty is me. my father's eyes had reflected that deep, dark sorrow. i couldn't stop crying.
i once would have agreed with mom, that dad was the stronger of the two and better equipped to survive alone. i'm not so sure now. my mom has always been the guiding light when dad encountered rough seas. i think he lived the life he did because he had the security of her love. it buoyed him, allowed him to be the adventurer he was. i think my father loved and needed her more than mom ever realized.
i pray that mom finds peace in the life she now has. that she finds comfort in her family. i pray that my dad, too, is at peace. and, as i see my reflection in the mirror, and recognize the grief in my own eyes, i say a quiet prayer for me....
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