Death of a father

My father's death

Part I: Anticipation

I am not sane. I know this, act in accordance with this. It’s been like this for months now. Small things get magnified. My normal patience seems to have shrivelled up and fallen off like a dessicated skin. My emotions, always intense, feel like turbulent storms, and I weather them - wishing that I could just turn them off - fearing that they will turn off and leave me alone.

I have a temper. I have always had a temper, though this surprises people. I carry my anger like a blade, slicing it where it matters, a single sharp strike that makes change. I don’t rage against the insurmountable, don’t batter myself against problems too large to alter, my anger rises up and scorpion-like strikes to make a difference.

But these days - it’s different. Less like a blade, and more like a fire. My girlfriend weathers my moods with the patience I once showed her, and I retreat into silence lest my words break everything precious to me. Once, humming to destruction I flee her, my metal sword clutched in my hand - out, out, out into the woods where I could batter my rage against fallen tree branches. Hurt no one but myself.

The anger is complimented by a deep dry aching pain that comes up in my stomach sometimes. A stillness, a stuckness. It is only when Papa needs me, the desire to please him before he goes, that pulls me out of these places. I tell him about the darkness, but never feel it when he is about. I bring him wood, I carry in groceries, I change the water, I do the dishes. When he needs me a great strength comes upon me.

I have a hard time attributing any of my turbulent emotions to his impending death. Certainly when I first learned his cancer had been pronounced terminal I felt that intensely. Yet by the time Eithne dragged me to a grief retreat on Orcas Island, I found myself unstable but not in the depths of grief. I grieved other things - my invisibility, my weakness, the ways no one else will ever be able to take care of me - but not Papa.

As I would explain over and over again, I have always known he was going to die. Papa has been suicidal since he was seventeen. I remember the week he left and didn’t come back, the week Mama explained what suicide is. She explained that he was prone to it. She was worried, trying to hide it and failing, in the way of mothers and their sons.

It could have broken me, but it didn’t. A child raised as skillfully as I was has a lot of resources to pull from. At eleven my relationship with him shifted. He hadn’t killed himself, but I knew I wouldn’t have him forever. Worse - I knew that he might go anytime I was away - and so I began consciously trying to leave without regrets.

Slowly I stopped lying to him. I confessed every lie I’d ever told him. I told him everything. In turn he listened.

So began the best relationship between father and son I know. I started telling him I loved him, leaving with acceptance that if this were the last time I ever saw him, that would be enough. We would have parted without regrets.

When the news came that he was going to take his own life with a poison given to him by a doctor, with his loved ones around him, and a time and place of our choosing, it felt in many ways like a blessing. I had lived in a way without regrets, but how much better to be there, and rock him through this inevitability. What an honor for a son who had lived his life in preparation for his father’s death.

Part II: Treefall

I awake. Today, I think, today my father dies.

Yesterday I didn’t want to get out of bed, face the overwhelming anticipation - but now, today, I get up easily. It is Eithne beside me who rises more slowly. She’s bundled up in her sweater, coat, and jacket, and is still cold. I’m hot, ready, alive. A great strength has come upon me. I get dressed quickly, peeking out of the tent I’ve retreated to, to give Papa space in the house in his last month, and find that it’s a beautiful day. A beautiful day to die.

I come back and sit on the bed. Eithne trails a hand across my shoulders, pausing, working her thumb into the tightness contained there.

“I got your back,” she says. I nod, knowing. Soon we’re heading towards the house. She lets the chickens out as I gather horta for breakfast, a mix of nettles, dandelions, nipplewort, and cat’s ear today. I heat up the pancakes I made for this occasion yesterday, discovering that it’s harder to reheat pancakes than to just make them fresh.

I burn several, and put these on my plate, splitting the bacon evenly between Eithne and I, and giving each of us an egg cooked to our specification. Mine runny, and hers cooked into oblivion. It’s 10:20 when I dish us up. Later than I should be. We were supposed to convene for our death party at 10:30. I sit down and begin eating unhurriedly - counting on Peccalah and Viccarius to be late.

They are, but not by very much. We’re just finishing breakfast as they come in, Peccalah bearing altar items, and Viccarrius his guitar. I’d checked on Papa when I came in, found him uncharacteristically still asleep. He makes his way into the kitchen around the same time, greeting them with enthusiasm.

“How are you feeling?” Peccalah inquires,
“Great! The plan with the Fentanyl worked!” he exclaims. He’d put on a new patch last night with a higher dose in the hope it would give him a painless last day.

We all explode into motion now that he’s arrived. Eithne and Peccalah head up to “the magic room” where he’d been sleeping, to set up an altar there. Viccarius helps me get Papa’s comfy chair outside, so we can hold court there. I help Papa address a letter to one of his oldest friends, watching as he puts the stamp on the wrong side and adds another one to make sure the post office will take it.

Then he has to file some last papers - the photocopy of the letter he would have me send to his brother has to go into the correct file. I promise to do it and just put it on top. We’ll be taking all these out and going through them anyway. He sends me to go find a talking stick, and then I trail him as he collects a journal he needs and begins looking through it. There’s the feeling as if he’s going off on a trip and he’s doing all the last minute little things he needed to do. I finally get him outside where the others are waiting. He’s looking for a comic he pasted into this journal. I take it from him and begin going through page by page when he can’t find it.

“I meant to locate this weeks ago,” he apologizes.

As I look, the group falls into the easy banter they excel in. Gentle teasing, sharing dreams. I sit on the ground with Eithne supporting me, hand resting sweetly on my shoulder. I can’t find the comic.

“Well damn,” Papa says, “I’ll have to describe it.” He takes in a breath. “So there’s an old man in a bed with all of his family around him, and he says “My dears, it’s time for me to go beddy-bye.” There’s silence as we try and figure out the joke, “Wait, no, Deady-bye! He says it’s time for me to go Deady-bye!” We laugh, “I’ve been waiting - oh - 42 years to say that joke,” he adds.
“And you fucked it up? 42 years and you finally got your chance and you messed it up?” Viccarius teases.
“Hrmph, well -” Papa shuffles his journal. “Are we ready?”

We ascent. He explains that we’re going to each get a chance to speak and then we can have another turn if we have more to say. He begins with a description of the possibilities of what happens after death. From the Mormonism he was raised in to Castaneda’s eagle, to the nothingness science seems to espouse. He describes that he’s comfortable with most ideas of the afterlife - everything but eternal torture.

Peccalah takes the talking stick next, a talking crystal really. She speaks to her love of him, of their respective ages and the ways that has allowed her to love him all the more. She keeps saying she has more to say - doesn’t want to say it all at once. Too much left unsaid.

I go next. There is little unsaid. I tell him that I could not have asked for a better father. How much I respect him. How grateful I am for him. He tears up a little, as I hoped he might. Throughout the afternoon I see others words move him too.

When Viccarius goes, we’re all a little surprised, I think, when he begins to cry. He’s been the easiest of us all - sharing Papa’s vision of his death as a beautiful thing - a release from pain. Now though he speaks of the unreality I’m sure we all feel. How now all of a sudden he has to confront his own death in this one. How he’s afraid.

Eithne goes last, and we all expected her to cry. I put a hand on her knee over my shoulder. She voices the feeling that she’s been unwanted here, and then the gratitude that she is here, and then the miracle that she got to be a piece of this. She thanks him through tears for the gift of witness he brought to her journals, and the ways he’s seen her that nobody else has dared.

When we’ve all spoken, he has me go and get his premeds - anti-throwup drugs - that he’s to take 45 minutes before the death cocktail. He swallows them, and suddenly we have a time limit. We take pictures with each other in every configuration. Viccarius pulls up the three songs Papa put on a mixed tape for his memorial, on his internet savvy phone, and we listen to them together. Papa gives a little introduction for each “I like the mood,” he says of Crescent Noon, “I like the way this one flows,” as we move to Peace Like a River, and “This one I do like the words” - as we come round to Love Over Gold.

We sit and listen in silence together. Sinking into the music, sinking into this. I watch everyone’s faces. Eithne sits behind me but when I glance at her she seems intent, Peccalah sits contemplative, Viccarius has his eyes closed, and Papa taps his foot to the beat. When the last notes of the last song have trailed away we sit in silence for a moment and then Papa breaks it has he always does. “That was great! Why haven’t we ever just sat and listened to each other’s music before?”
“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” Viccarius jokes.

“How much time do we have?” Papa asks, I check my timer. Fifteen minutes. “I have something to confess,” I admit.
“Oh? Bring it on!”
“My phone connects to internet. It was my compromise when you wouldn’t let me bring a satellite dish out. I’ve been hiding it from you - I didn’t think you’d be that upset but . . .”
“I’m not upset at all,” he says, “That was a very unobtrusive compromise.”
I sigh a breath of relief. Full honesty restored.

When my alarm sounds, we step into the transition of moving him upstairs to the Magic Room. He’s gone through many iterations of how this is to go, but finally decided on dying with just me and Paccalah beside him. One on each hand. Eithne and Viccarius come up and say goodbye, then retreat to the porch. I bring Papa his apple juice and the little glass canning jar he has decided to drink from.

Papa takes out the package, a little orange pharmacy bottle, pours his apple juice, dumps in the powder, and then mixes it with a little spoon. It reminds me of all the times he’s mixed an Emergen-C, the little vitamin C packets he loves to drink. It’s so normal.

Then he kneels down before the altar table, and takes his cup in both hands, the swollen hand covering the boney one that grips tight to the glass.

“A great strength has come upon me,” he says. “This feels again like the right thing to do.” Then he smiles, says “La-Morte,” and tipping his glass in solute takes a gulp - and pauses. . .

“You have to drink it all at once!” Peccalah says panicked - we’ve heard horror stories of people falling asleep halfway through and taking twelve hours to die.
“No I don’t,” he retorts. “The package says I have a minute to drink it,” he takes another gulp, pauses, and finishes it in the third.

“Do you think it’s okay to chase it with more apple juice?” He asks. “This stuff really burns in my throat.” Peccalah and I look at each other helplessly. We’ve been warned about the possibility of throwing up, but it’s also a last request.
“Sure,” I say. The little glass he used has residual poison in the bottom, so i run downstairs and grab the cocktail glass a friend got him for him to drink his “death cocktail” from. I fill it with apple juice and he drinks.
“Much better.”

He goes and kneels down in front of the altar. He turns first to Peccalah who holds his right hand, his good arm, and makes a joke about doing all this just so he can hold her hand. Then he thanks her for the privilege of having known her these last two years. She reciprocates the feeling, and they share a moment together before he turns to me at his left arm, fingers cupping his swollen fingers, and tells me he loves me, that he’s honored to have had me as his son.

“I’ve been trying to write a piece to memorialize you,” I tell him. “I wanted to finish it before you died so I could share it with you - but I didn’t.”
“The story’s not finished yet,” he explains.

He turns his head to the altar, where a bell sits, and reaches out and rings it. “I have one of these,” he says, standing to find his. I get up to look for it too, but he finds it first and begins ringing it. Peccalah takes up her toning bell and begins tapping it, and I grab the bell on the altar and sound in. He does a little turn giving bell’s music to the directions.

“That piece of driftwood really looks like a fish,” he enthuses over something on the altar. Then he rocks, feeling dizzy, and comes to his knees again. I come close, grabbing his hand. There’s a moment of silence, as he begins to drift away from us. He feels like someone who’s sick or has had too much to drink.

“Do you know that I love you?” I ask.
“No,” he slurs
“Well I do,” I tell him.
“I believe you,” he murmurs.

Another pause, he slips forward, I try and pull him back and into the chair we had prepared for him, but he gives a little “Noooo” so I let him pull forward resting his head on the altar in a way that doesn’t look comfortable. I try to stuff a pillow under him, but it doesn’t help much. His head is turned towards me as he continues to sink down.

“Goodnight,” I begin, our nighttime ritual, “Sleep well, Sweet dreams, may all Gods and goddesses bless you, I love you . . .” at this point I would normally say ‘I will see you in the morning.’ Will I?
“I may or may not see you in the morning,” I compromise. “Metaphors be with you.”

He seems to rise into consciousness a little bit, but not enough to say his piece ‘Thank you, and also to you,’ but his eyes flutter open a moment and I think he hears. From the other side I hear Peccalah murmuring “I love you.”

I curl up next to him, and watch as his breathing slows. I reach out my hand and touch his face, something I haven’t done since I was a child. His beard is soft under my fingers. After a few minutes I go downstairs and tell the others. “He’s asleep,” I say in a voice Eithne will later describe to me as one I might use to announce dinner is ready. I promptly head back upstairs and lie down again.

In silence, Viccarius comes up the stairs. He pauses, putting a heavy hand on my shoulder and holding it in a ‘I’ve got your back,’ sort of way, and then he moves over to lie behind Peccalah. Eithne comes up a little later and lies behind, arms around me. I keep my eyes on Papa’s face, matching my breathing to his, long, slow, and sometimes staccato. There are pauses that go on so long I think that’s it, but then he’ll take a long streigned breath, and begin again. I don’t know how long I listen to his breath in silence, but it’s a long time.

I break the silence, I’m not sure what with, maybe an observation about him. Peccalah smiles and adds an observation of her own. Time is different, but hours pass. I ring the bell again. I get up to get a banana, and Eithne takes a photograph of me eating a banana next to my dying father. I don’t feel as I expected to feel.

I whisper into his ear again and again the encouragement. “It’s okay to let go. You chose this, you can follow this. We’re going to be okay.” We were warned this could take hours, but it feels, to me, like he’s holding on.

Viccarius goes downstairs. Peccalah follows him briefly and then comes back up. I take Papa’s drum and begin drumming inexpertly. My offbeat drumming matching his offbeat breathing. Drumming is one thing I hope to inherit from him. I want this drum.

I’ve just finished drumming to whisper in his ear again: Love. Permission. You can go. We’ll miss you but you can go. - when Viccarius comes up.

“These two women just showed up. They claimed to be old friends of Kimble’s and I told them ‘this is the worst possible time for you to have come.’ I told them what was going on, and one of the women collapsed.”
“I’ll come down,” I tell him.
I touch Papa again, make sure I’m at peace if he dies when I’m gone, and head downstairs. Old friends of Papa’s? Who?

When I come outside the woman has recovered.
“Hi, I’m Pan,” I say.
“My name is Maevyn,” she says “I’m -”
“You’re the ‘Michael and Maevyn’ - Maevyn,” I say putting it together. Maevyn is the woman to whom I owe my name. She was Papa’s witch lover in his thirties - a relationship they dragged out for ten years, ending just before he met my mother. He helped raise her two daughters, and half his stories began or ended with this woman.

“Yes, that’s right,” she smiles - all warmth. I study her face. The pictures of her I have are all her in her thirties. This woman has white hair and a crinkled face, but I can see the likeness now. Maevyn lives nearby in Seattle but she’s never come visit before. The last contact she had with Papa was at least seven years ago. I have never met her, though she held me as a baby. How strange!

She introduces the other woman as her wife, who tells me that she knew Papa too, though not as well.

“Why don’t you come up?” I invite.
“Oh, we wouldn’t be intruding? I don’t want to intrude.”
“Clearly you’re supposed to be here.”

I come up the stairs and they follow me. As they come up, I feel Peccalah bristle at the intrusion, but when Maevyn sees Papa like that, and throws herself to cry on his back, kissing it, hugging him, telling him she loves him over and over with perhaps more emotion than any of us have expressed, Peccalah softens a little.

“Do you know who this is?” I mouth
She shakes her head.
“Maevyn - THE Maevyn.”
Her eyes widen, and her jaw drops a little.
“Oh -Wow.”

Maevyn is all smiles and tears. Her soft hands caress his back with the intimacy of a lover. Her wife stands behind her supporting her back.

When she has finished crying she sits up a little taller, and says in a more powerful voice “Hecate, goddess of the crossroads, be present in this crossing!”

Ah, of course. This is the Wiccan priestess who got Papa into Wicca. Of any religion to usher him out, this is perhaps the one most suitable.

“I can’t believe we showed up just now,” Maevyn keeps expressing in different ways.

“We almost got lost a couple times, and we thought we’d turn back,” her wife adds. “We just happened to be in Brinnon and thought we’d stop by and reconnect. We had no idea he was even sick.”

“I wish I had a song for him,” Maevyn says - it’s almost coming to me.”
“I have one," Eithne says - and sings:

Stand tall

By the water

Know no fear

Or loneliness

Let this love

Cross you over

Let this song

Bid you well, I can recall the love you give

Well, I can recall the times

Well, I can recall the love you give

Well, I can recall the times.

We join in on the parts that we can catch. When the song is over I check Papa to find that he’s completely still, his skin is cooling. I have Eithne - the trained first responder - check for a pulse, and she can’t find one. He’s dead.

Part III: Aftermath

“The measuring cup is gone,” I sob into Eithne’s arms. She’s wrapped around me as I lay in a puddle on the Magic Room floor. It’s a week after the death. I was okay earlier, now it seems that I am not.
“And the flashlight, and the lighter - Peccalah has that - but things just keep disappearing and I don’t know where!”
Eithne just softly holds me. Her hand nestles under my shirt skin on skin, and it’s the only thing making it so I can keep talking, stay afloat.
“I know you’re not ready for this place to change, you want me to slow down, let things be as they are for a while . . . but he held so much together! Just being here. He’d never stand for the measuring cup being gone. He’d throw a fit. But it’s gone, all of his systems are rotting, decaying, dying. If I’m changing everything it’s so that I don’t have to watch this house die.”

Eithne brushes my hair with her fingertips, listening as I shake and mutter. If she judges me for caring so much for the measuring cup, she doesn’t show it. I know she resents the amount I’ve been giving away, the speed at which I’ve changed this space, but for now she just listens as I silently shake. She breaths evenly, audibly, as my breath catches and I forget to breath over and over again.

I find my emotions different from how they were before. The day after he died I was filled with relief, joy at the beauty of it, awe at the magic of it.

Then the world bled away and everything I had clung to so fiercely seemed small. I almost broke up with Eithne that day - unwilling to go out of my way to preserve something so seemingly made of ash.

The land remains important, as are the plants and my relationships with them. My home I am building - like a beaver building his dam. My future as a father, family, chickens, place as a teacher. Children are important, in all their forms.

Everything else isn’t important. Where before I found myself getting upset over small things, now I find small things insignificant. If I cry for a measuring cup it is because it speaks of the existence of death. If before I was looking at everything with a microscope, now I am looking at everything through a telescope.

And life keeps hitting me. Ten days after Papa’s death, my aunt died - Papa’s sister - the one I am probably closest to. A couple days before that I learned I’d built my driveway to the home I am building on my crazy neighbor’s land and now he’s threatening to sue me. Papa walked me through the steps I would need to take with his finances time and time again, but they’re still overwhelming. So much is overwhelming.

My one great joy is in telling the story. The most miraculous thing I think I have ever witnessed. I tell how my father had taken his Hemlock when his Witch lover of twenty-five years ago - she who he’d been with all through his thirties - she who he hadn’t talked to in seven - she who had dreams, we later learned, of showing up places he had been but had just left - this woman showed up in the last half hour of his life. She invoked Hecate, goddess of the crossroads, and ten minutes after that he crossed over.

That story, that Miracle, brings a great strength upon me. I am sane. Magic is real.