The National

Scenes from a deathbed.

To populate our Substack page, we remix and republish some old TSB essays on Fridays to give newer readers a sense of what we do here. 

My father died on January 11, 2023, at 3:30 a.m. This is the essay I wrote a week later after watching the slow, maddening, beautiful thing happen in person. Thanks to everyone who wrote in to say nice things after it ran. Thanks to everyone who wrote in to welcome me into the parental death club. There was genuine warmth there.

So, grief. I experienced it, but it was not what I expected. I'm still waiting for something seriously profound, but the fact that I'm annoyed by that may, in fact, be the grief. On this Sunday's paid version of TSB, I'll write a wrap-up about the year in grief and fear between then and now and gather all the Nick Cave quotes I can fit onto the page for you.

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If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?

— Kabir

I was briefly in New York City last week but had to cut the trip short because my father’s health had nosedived. Over the holidays, he caught pneumonia. He eventually recovered from that, but he had trouble swallowing food and liquids after, so his strength never returned. A week later, he got Covid.

The information from my mother was spotty—I couldn’t tell if the hospice they were sending him to in West Palm Beach was temporary or permanent. But my sister was flying down from Philadelphia. So was my father’s brother. I landed in New York City on Friday night, and by Saturday morning, I’d booked a flight to West Palm Beach for Sunday afternoon. 

While in the air, my sister texted me that my father’s organs were failing quickly. What felt like an egg settled inside my throat as I typed back, asking if I would make it in time. “In my heart, I believe he is waiting for you.” I wondered if there was some protocol for this type of end-of-life drama. I imagined this: me pulling the flight attendant aside, urging them to make the pilot “Step on it!” 

Luckily, the hospice center was a quick ten-minute ride from the airport. Uncle Jimmy was waiting outside my dad’s room, stunned and unrested. “It’s not good in there.” He pointed me towards a table with several brown paper bags and the necessary uniform inside. There was a paper gown, an N95 mask, and a face shield. On my first attempt to put the gown on, I accidentally ripped it in half. 

Inside the room, my sister was lying on the other end of his hospital bed, barefoot and with her mask down. My mother sat beside my father’s bed, her mask clumsily off her nose, the shield smashed to her face. I said a quick, quiet hello and sat on the opposite side of his bed. When I grabbed his hand, his body shuddered. There were no drips or machines that beep, only oxygen tubes sticking halfway out of his nose. His breathing was loud and jagged. I leaned in close and squeezed his fingers. “I’m here!” 

I didn’t expect him to float away immediately, a soft smile on his face, white lights flashing above us, but then again, I did. He was waiting for me, after all. I had the text message right there in my pocket. 

My foot knocked into his bag of urine, which was brown-yellow and stringy, like the bottom of an uncared-for aquarium. I tugged on him a bit more. “Time to let go now!” I thought. But he did not. 

After we ate dinner (or nothing, who knows?), my mom returned home to shower, and my uncle returned to his hotel. It was just my sister and me propped up in uncomfortable chairs. We talked freely, frustratingly, about this ending—how this all was so unnecessary. 

My father’s eyes looked painted shut. His mouth slacked open. His eyebrows and fingernails were out of control. His feet had several sores, and some of his toes had turned purple. But, technically, he was still alive.

“This seems barbaric,” my sister said. I agreed. “Please don’t let this happen to me,” I said. She asked the same of me.

Instead, I asked her to have me shot out of a cannon, perhaps over a large body of water. Make a spectacle of it. Get me into the Guinness Book of World Records. “Just not this,” I said. “Just not this,” she said back. 

Eventually, the nurse would come in, lift his right gown sleeve, fill the plug with Ativan and morphine, adjust his pillow, and pull his blanket tighter. Robert was the name of the nurse on duty. Or maybe it was Roger. He had glasses on his face and a subtle Florida twang. Those are the only details I can remember. We’ll go with Robert. 

“Yer gonna be awwllright, Mr. Dah-lair-o.” 

I wanted to correct his pronunciation, but he was close enough. There are way too many vowels in it, anyway.

Then we got educated about “breakthrough pain” and were encouraged to hit the red call button if he experienced discomfort. 

“He seems comfortable now,” Robert said. 

He did not seem comfortable to me. My father groaned, winced, and made all the faces you’d expect an alive person would make when they’re incredibly uncomfortable. It looked like agony. 

I asked how long this would take. Robert was confused. “What, for the morphine to kick in?” He looked at me as he squished around on my father’s neck. 

I shook my head. “No. Um, you know–it?” 

He looked down at my dad, then sighed, searching for the most satisfying answer, kind of the way an auto mechanic would before they gave an estimate on how much a clunky old car would cost to fix. “It’s a God thing,” he said. 

*****

I had several dreams about my father—visitations, I believe they’re called—over the past year, and many of them were hostile. One that I have had several times is us at a dinner table, maybe the house I grew up in or a stranger’s castle. It doesn’t matter. Sunlight blasted through a window behind him, so I could only see half his face. He’s wearing big tinted glasses and a thick mustache–think Reggie Jackson ’77. I tried to alert him to how quickly he was hurtling toward dementia—that it would be awful and he needed to get on top of it now, or he would end up just like his father did. My father laughed at me, clearly annoyed, and shoveled food into his face. I grabbed his arm. “This is serious. Remember what happened to Pop-Pop.” 

My father brushed me off again. “I’m alright,” he said. Then he told me he had a physical just last week, and everything was okay. 

“It’s not okay,” I said. But I had no voice.

During Pop-Pop’s final days in hospice, I could tell my dad knew he’d gone about their relationship wrong. My father grew more desperate for reconciliation and love; his leg bounced up and down the way it always did when he got nervous. “I’m here. I’m right here. You’re having a good day.” It was unbearable.

I thought of this moment as I sat next to my father’s hospice bed, the same open-mouthed expression on his face, my leg bouncing the same way. “I told you,” I said, hopefully not out loud. How did I let this happen?

*****

At the onset of Day Two, last Monday, I began to question if my father was genuinely comfortable or if this was what they told us—what they told everyone—because there seemed to be more breakthrough pain than the day before. In addition to his twisting and shuddering, he made intermittent croaking sounds. Imagine someone trying to do a seal impersonation. He sounded like a damn seal. 

Eventually, the rotating doctor pulled us outside and assured us again that my father was comfortable. “He’s comfortable right now,” the doctor said because that’s what is supposed to be said.

I asked him how long it could take—you know, it. “Could be within the hour, or it could be a week,” he said.

He encouraged my mother to go home, shower, and eat a hot meal. “Sometimes the patient is waiting for their loved ones to leave.” 

My mother processed this information and decided to go home. I left with her, and my sister spent the night alone with him. Her flight was at noon the next day. 

I ended up on a pull-out couch in my mother’s small apartment at her independent living facility. I couldn’t sleep well because the metal frame jabbed my back no matter how many pillows I placed underneath me. I watched “Boogie Nights” on my laptop. I drifted off: Ricky Springfield. Gunshots. Chaos.

I woke up at 8 a.m. the following day and texted my sister to see how the night was. 

“He was quiet. He squirmed a little. He has a low fever. He’s getting there slowly, which is how he moved through life, so why would this be different.” 

When we got there, it was almost time for her to leave. I told my mother we should step outside while she said goodbye. When she was finished, I walked my sister out to the parking lot, and we sat on a small bench. I rubbed her back as we waited for her Uber. 

My mother headed back to her apartment, but I stayed behind. “He shouldn’t be alone,” I said. 

At 8 p.m., it was finally just the two of us. My father’s breathing was loud and slow, but it soothed me. I grabbed his wrist and assured him I was there. And then it hits me, and I chuckle. “Can you believe I am here?”

I’ve read a few memoirs by comedians, primarily men, who claim that their fathers were the funniest people they knew—even if their dads were real abusive sons of bitches. My father was not physically abusive outside of the here-and-there poke, grab, and shake. But when he was furious, his silence and distance were even louder than the yells, and my father could yell. So this is to say: his shame about me always left a mark. 

But my dad was also hilarious. He was not a joke-teller or silly, but he was oddly subversive. His best bit was if he noticed me (or my mother) eating a big dessert after dinner or an extra helping of eggs at breakfast, he would bellow something like, “Hog market!” This got me every time. He was the best when he wasn’t the worst. 

When I was younger, he scared me into quiet nervousness. Whenever he was home, there was always the possibility that I would be scolded or punished. Many times, he’d throw my special toys in the trash. He tossed my favorite sneakers out the window of a moving car once. He kept my electric guitar—my one escape as a moody 12-year-old—in his trunk for a whole semester because he thought it distracted me too much, from what I’ll never know. He was a bully, but that’s how he showed love and fear.

After I left rehab, I went to their condo in Florida and we got into a physical fight to settle things once and for all. In my memory, he charged at me, but he insisted that I was crazed and came for his throat. We didn’t speak for a long time after that one. Not honestly to one another. Maybe we never did.

But I’m too tired to think about the worst parts of him now. I do not need to investigate it any further—re-litigate my side, if you will—since, as any Al-Anon attendee knows, we are not at fault here. Still, we also must re-parent ourselves to avoid being constantly waterboarded by awful memories. I’ve become a forgiving person—forgiving him and, more importantly, me, along the way, embracing us both as dumb, earthbound humans. I can say this now: we loved each other more often than we hated each other. 

I began to count his breaths. “Now, on the count of ten, I want you to rest.” I counted to ten, then to 50, then to 1,000, but he did not rest.

*****

At about 9 p.m., I ate an awful turkey dinner from a styrofoam container in under three minutes. His gasps grew increasingly pronounced, but there was barely any movement—he wasn’t as jumpy as the last couple of nights. There were no more noises either. He shuddered again, and I scooted up near him, grabbed his arm, and touched his chest. “I am still here,” I whispered. “And so are you.” 

I scrolled through Spotify for songs that would be cinematic enough for whatever was to come. To Google: “Which songs are good ones to listen to when your father is about to die?” 

His belly is so distended. I examined three blemishes on his head and thought, “He should get those checked out.” His beard was growing in, looking distinguished and form-fitting to his face. “He should keep growing this beard,” I thought. His mouth was open, and I could see the bottoms of his teeth, dusty with plaque. “He should go to the dentist,” I thought. 

At 10 p.m., I Googled again: “When does the death rattle happen?” And then: “Does the death rattle sound like a seal barking?” I kept leaning into him and whispering encouragement.

“Come on, Dad. It’s okay to let go.” 

Our babysitter sent me a video message from my young kids squealing, “I love you, Grandpa!” I’d hold it up to my father’s hairy earhole and replay it repeatedly. I wondered if their voices were peaceful sounds to him, a gentle nudge into the afterworld, or that, given how zonked out he was, it would have the opposite effect. Maybe this isn’t peaceful at all—maybe it’s torturous, like when those rotten soldiers blasted Metallica at the Guantanamo Bay prisoners.  

And then some liquid formed in the right corner of his eye. Back to Google: “Does a tear in the corner of a right eye mean that death is near?” The answers were inconclusive. It’s a God thing.

As it inched toward midnight, I grew antsy, but I was also bursting with what I can only describe as pure gratitude. So I called some Al-Anon friends, who asked me if I was okay. “Yes, yes!” I said. “This is one of the most beautiful things—I’m watching the snow fall outside my window and waiting for it to stop, hoping to catch the last snowflake.” 

I called my AA sponsor to thank him for helping me get to this place. He’s thrilled for me. 

I did the Wordle a little after midnight, hoping for PEACE, but the answer was SEDAN. At about 1 a.m., I started to fade. My eyes got heavy as I focused on my father’s breathing and fell asleep in the chair. 

*****

That night, I dreamed about my father again, but I dreamed he was closer beside me, breathing loudly and calmly. And I dreamed that I was meditating in my chair next to him. His breath was my breath. The snow. The softness. The space for both of us. The whole night was a dream within a dream within a dream.

At 3:25 a.m., I woke up because I didn’t hear him breathing anymore. I leaned over the side of the bed, looked into his mouth, and touched his hand. I walked out to the nurse’s station. Robert had gone home hours ago, and now a woman was seated behind the glass, scrolling on her phone. “I think it’s over,” I said. She adjusted her mask and got up from her chair to see for herself. 

I stood near the bed as she looked him over. She picked up his wrist and felt for a pulse. She put his arm down. “My condolences to you and your family,” she said. “I’ll give you your time.” She left the room. 

I leaned over my father, touched his chest, and rubbed his head. “We did it, pal.”

Then I made my first call.  

*****

All illustrations by Edith Zimmerman.

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This is The Small Bow newsletter. It is mainly written and edited by A.J. Daulerio. And Edith Zimmerman always illustrates it. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday.

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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:

Grace

by David Berman

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As one who, reading late into the night,
When overcome by sleep, turns off the light
And yields whatever he can sense by sight

To what the gates of ivory or of horn
Will send him, sightless as a child unborn,
To goad, amuse, remind, reveal or warn,

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With resignation, better still with grace,
The dreamless sleep that all awake must face.

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