I got the call Thursday morning that it was a matter of hours, and frantically got packed and got a flight and raced down there again (I had just gotten back from TX a few days earlier after spending a week there because "it was a matter of hours" but I digress).
I was terrified I wouldn't make it, since I couldn't get there until about 11 p.m., but thankfully I was there in time, walked in around 11:30 p.m.
He was a bit restless and was fighting off an oxygen mask. When I got there, and they removed the mask and just replaced it with the little tube thingys that go in the nostrils, he calmed right down. I *think* he knew I was there -- I know he made eye contact and would periodically look over at me -- but he wasn't speaking by then and I couldn't tell for sure.
I sat and held his hand (it was very cold) and talked to him periodically. Now and then he'd look over at me and I'd just nod and smile and say, "Yes, I'm here... try to rest, OK?" and he'd lay back and close his eyes. After an hour or so he didn't look over any more. He was breathing quietly; sometimes there'd be a long pause between breaths and it would freak me out, but then another would come.
Around 2 a.m. I was starting to fall asleep and I thought I would just close my eyes for a second. Not 20 minutes later, I was awakened by the nurse and the aide coming into the room and saying his heart had stopped (they had telemetry monitors) and he wasn't breathing. Sure enough, he was gone.
I called my cousin and she got there shortly, and we sat and waited for... whoever, the funeral home guy. It was sad, but it was a relief not to have all those machines attached to Dad pinging away. He really did look peaceful.
Anyway, some chaplain guy comes in around 4:30 a.m. I still don't know if he was affiliated with the hospital or the funeral home... He talks with us a bit, says a nice prayer (my cousin is EXTREEEEMELY Catholic and I knew that even though Dad wasn't religious it would be comforting to her).
THEN... he starts rambling about some song that is supposedly played a lot at funerals there, written by "a native son... Kris Kristofferson!" (Brownsville, TX). I started thinking "oh dear God, please don't sing... please don't sing..." and then he whips something out of his pocket. I thought it was an iPod and he was going to just play a Kris Kristofferson song, which was bad enough. But it was a HARMONICA. He proceeds to play the hell out of some extremely maudlin wheezy tune (presumably a Kris Kristofferson song?) and I was torn between extreme horror and an urge to burst out laughing.
THEN he sang. It was horrific. I was petrified -- my cousin was clearly moved, and I didn't want to spoil the moment for her, but all I could think was that if my dad could see and hear this guy he would sit right up and order this lunatic out of the room (probably with a generous helping of English AND Spanish cursing), and that made me want to laugh even more. I was nearly choking, trying not to just burst out guffawing.
Finally he and his assistant and, I think, the nurse, gave us a few minutes alone with Dad's body, then had us leave the room and they did whatever it is they do to put the body on the funeral home gurney and cover it up with the fancy funeral home cloth/rug/whatever.
THEN we follow him to the staff elevator (because as he said, "We can't walk the dead bodies out of the front door of the hospital". No shit...?) and his assistant punches the elevator button. The door opens almost immediately, but Chaplain Dude stands there and proceeds to tell us a long, long story about how we should wash our hands, faces and lips after saying our final goodbyes, because bodies start to exude toxins as soon as the heart stops beating, and apparently this one lady in a family he helped take care of got deathly ill from kissing her husband goodbye before they took him to the funeral home.
AND THE WHOLE TIME HE'S TELLING US THIS HE'S LEANING ON MY DAD. I mean, he has one elbow lightly resting on Dad's chest, like it's a counter or something. I finally just interrupted him and said, "Dude -- could you please not lean on my father?" He immediately straightened up and without missing a beat continued his story.
By this time, I'd been up for close to 24 hours, so it was just getting crazier. We left the hospital, and I followed my cousin back to her house, and I was laughing like a fool all the way there (luckily I was alone in my rented PT Cruiser -- another touch of the surreal...).
Anyway, it was weird the next day or so, because I kept thinking "We have to get back to the hospital and check on Dad... oh, wait".
I did have a nice time visiting my cousins there. We spent time together, ate like pigs, and talked about Dad and told all kinds of stories. I ate nothing but Mexican food -- chorizo and beans and fresh flour tortillas for breakfast, enchiladas, homemade tamales, barbacoa, botanas... you name it.
I do not want to eat Mexican food in any way, shape or form again for at least a month, by the way.
Per his request, Dad was cremated and we are going to plan a memorial service down there sometime in the spring. Also, I was contacted tonight by someone at Michigan State University (where Dad was an anthropology professor) and it sounds like they want to do some kind of memorial thing for him there, and perhaps endow a lecture series or library collection in his name.
It's been weird. I'm still processing it all.
/blahgity blahg blahg
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