The Fist Bump

I didn’t want to drive to the hospital, but something deep inside commanded me to go. I was shattered from the anxiety of watching my father grow sicker, wasting away...

I didn’t want to drive to the hospital, but something deep inside commanded me to go. I was shattered from the anxiety of watching my father grow sicker, wasting away. He was immobile in his hospital bed, lethargic, emaciated from not being able to eat for weeks due to a ruthless case of epiglottitis, his throat swelling up like a balloon. He was barely speaking because it stole too much energy from his severely depleted body.

Dad was behaving strangely the evening before, firing off disjointed texts about me taking hold of his bank accounts, and where I could find his debit card, saying it would be mine in the future. Those words hurled shivers down my spine. I responded that he was scaring me, like he didn’t believe he would be coming home. I never got a response.

With those cryptic messages rattling around in my brain, I embarked on the forty-five-minute journey to the hospital. When I arrived, the man that I witnessed was not the person I equated with my father and hadn’t been for some time. He appeared confused and exceptionally thin, as if whatever life his body still grasped for was being siphoned out of him. When he saw me, he smiled. I smiled back, but inside, I was crying, knowing he had descended further on a downward spiral of no seeming respite since just the day before.

“How are you doing, Dad?” I asked awkwardly, even though the answer was apparent. Yet, in my father’s typical upbeat fashion that was a staple of his temperament, he pepped up for a second as he nodded his head indicating he was okay, but I knew that was a lie. He didn’t want me to worry, but I was far past that point.

Even though Dad didn’t speak much, I regaled him with tales about my son, his beloved grandson, struggling to inject happiness into his fading spirit. He smiled faintly as he listened to my stories, but most of the time, we sat in silence. Dad would fight to keep his eyes open as weakness and exhaustion assailed him. When his eyes closed, I gazed at him, wondering if he would ever be able to come home, and if he did, would he ever be the same again.

Occasionally, his nurse would appear to ensure all was well, and even though he was hauling the heavy yolk of his mortality, he was polite, smiling feebly, and squeaking out a barely perceptible thank you to her. Until the very end, my father was kind even when he had every reason not to be. I clutched onto those moments like exquisite pearls as they fed into my ravenous denial that my father would soon be back to himself, and this horror would be a faraway memory.

Dad broke the stillness between us like glass, and whispered, “I’m starting to get disoriented,” as sepsis ravaged his body. My heart was cleaved to the core. I wanted my father back. I couldn’t reconcile the man I knew as my father to the one wasting away before my eyes. Watching a loved one die is something I’ll never forget. The pain is palpable. My heart broke. He didn’t deserve this fate. Why was this happening?

While Dad slept, I lingered by his bedside. At that time, I was in the throes of potty training my son who was then three years old. I bolstered my defiance of dad’s circumstances further as I scanned Amazon for training underwear for my son, struggling to take my mind off my pain. I reasoned that maybe if I engage in a routine task, things will revert to normal which couldn’t have been further from the truth. Having decided on Lightening McQueen, I purchased a pack of underwear. Even though my son outgrew them a while ago, I saved a couple pairs as a reminder of the last day I saw my father alive.

Since Dad was napping, I decided to leave. I know he hadn’t been sleeping well, and even though I desperately wanted to say goodbye, I didn’t want to wake him and steal precious moments of slumber. As I was collecting my things, Dad’s eyes opened, and relief washed over me like a soft summer rain. I apologized for waking him up. He didn’t answer. He could barely keep his eyes open, yet he managed to smile.

Every time I visited my dad, when I left, the last thing I would say was that I loved him. That was the most important thing to me, that he knew the depths of my love for him, something that platitudes, such as “everything is going to be fine,” or “you’ll be better soon,” would never convey even though I wanted to believe those things so badly. He always responded that he loved me, too, but on this day, he just couldn’t find the strength.

What he did though was something that meant so much more and was something he always did. Whenever we would see each other, or upon parting ways, we would usually embrace, and then he would follow that up with a fist bump, saying something like, “see you later, dude.” My father was a jokester by nature, with the soul of a perpetual child, and a wild sense of humor to boot.

The final day I saw my father, he granted me that proverbial fist bump, as if to reassure me that while his body was dying, his spirit, the person he was, was still very alive. Even though he was slowly fading away, his internal flame burned brightly. Up until the end, my father was resilient, even in the face of death.

With the last memory I have of my father, I perceived him as his quintessential self, although the signs of his demise were lurking all around us. He wanted to live. He was always a fighter. The gratitude I harbor for that final moment with him is beyond anything words can describe. It’s as if he said to death that day, “you can take my body, but you’ll never take my spirit.” I’m so thankful he woke up from his sleep, and that despite the fact he was clearly passing on, he wanted me to know that he was still there with me at that precious moment.