Trying to Get Home

Yesterday was Maundy Thursday, my fifth blogiversary,(follow link and scroll to the bottom) and the fifth year of the war in Iraq. I almost forgot all those things, so caught up are we in one small human drama amongst the millions that go on every single day, in spite (and because) of war, famine, natural disasters, and the mere passage of time. It was a happy day - even joyful - because it feels good to take care of another person so completely that I forget myself.

--

He spent an agitated night, getting up suddenly and insisting on going to the bathroom several times. My sister-in-law stayed with him and got very little sleep; my husband arrived to spell her this morning. When I got here, an hour later, my father-in-law was up in a chair, surrounded by his son and three nurses, one of whom was giving him some anti-anxiety medication from a dropper bottle. Beepers were going off, the phone rang loudly – it was the office calling to say the hospital bed was being delivered.

When the nurses moved away from his chair, J. and I spoke to him and held his shoulder; he looked unhappy and confused. “I need to go outside!” he said. “Get me a cane.” The walker wouldn’t do, he wanted his cane, and was becoming belligerent. “I have to go outside!”

“What’s outside?”

“My uncle’s house, it’s in the street. I need to go there.”

The room was full of commotion, comings and goings as a hospital bed was delivered. “What’s happening?” he kept asking.  I tried to reassure him that he’d be going home soon. He calmed down a little and said it was very strange, he had been in a big house “full of people.” “It’s odd that my parents haven’t been there yet,” he said. “Or Fuad.” (his older brother). I convinced him to sit down for a few minutes but he struggled up again, grasping the handles of the walker. He tried to push it toward the door, and then  turned around and sank down on the seat, putting his head on his arms.

One of the nurses came out of the bedroom and asked him how he was. “I want to go home,” he said, like a little child. “Let’s go.” He rocked the walker underneath him, trying to put it in motion.

“You are home,” she tried. “You’ve lived here at this place with us for a lot for years now."

“No,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Home is Damascus.”

She patted him and went out. Then he looked at me pleadingly and said, “I really want to go home! Have J. push me. I know the way.”

“What’s the way?” I asked him. He spoke slowly, tracing the route in the air ahead of him with his finger:  “We go...across a very beautiful field... then a vast forest... then...home.”

I asked J. to get the wheelchair from the hallway; we put him in it and I rolled him around the apartment a little while they finished setting up the new bed. The motion seemed to help. “Not this way,” he said, when we got near the balcony windows. “There’s no way out that way. And look,” he said, noticing the faces of his great-grandchildren in the pictures on the bookshelves. “Even the grandchildren are here!” “And they have all the same books here as I had in my apartment.” We turned toward the table and the kitchen. “They even have my book here!” he said, noticing the yellow cover of his book on Jesus and sounding astonished.

“Yes!” I said. “Your book is everywhere!” and he laughed. Everyone had finally left. We headed toward his bedroom.

“Is this my bed?” he asked. We told him it was. “OK,” he sighed. “I want to go to sleep.”

He slept soundly  for a couple of hours, then woke up and began yelling very loudly; just noise, no words. I came in immediately, sat down, touched him, and said, “ I’m here, everything’s all right,” and he retorted, “Where were you?”

”I was just doing the dishes,” I said. “I was right in the kitchen.”

“You were both far away,” he complained, and then added, “Why don’t you go home and go to sleep?” J. came in, too, and we reassured him that we were with him, and we’d stay right there. J. went out and was talking to one of the nurses in the hallway. “That’s J.,” he said, listening. Intently. “He’s telling someone a story.”

“Your hearing seems to be making a miraculous recovery!” I said.

“Yes,” he smiled. “Unfortunately!” He shut his eyes again, and I stayed beside him, my hand on his arm, as he drifted off.

In a little while he woke again, much calmer.” I’m really having the strangest experience of my life,” he told me. “I can’t make it out. There’s a big house, very big, full of people I don’t know except for a few. J. is there, and I can see Anwar (his next-to-youngest brother)." He said there were also a lot of chairs – leather ones – and lots of children, who go to sleep and wake up at odd hours.” He opened his eyes again and said, “It’s night, but it looks like day. Were you wearing a dark red dress?”

“I’m wearing a red shirt right now,” I said.

“No, it was a long dress. But that’s funny, because I think of you as a human being.”

He slept again. His friend C. came in mid-afternoon, and the atmosphere became more normal and quiet. At five the hospice doctor arrived. He spoke with the three of us for a while, and then went in to talk to my father-in-law. We listened, astonished: the patient was totally clear, rational, described his symptoms and mental state perfectly. The doctor came back out, a bit bewildered. "Well," he said, "he seems to be doing pretty well..."

So later I made egg-and-yogurt soup and took a small bowl in to him. "This is what your dear wife always sent over to me when I was sick," I said.

"Leban?" he asked, perking up. I nodded.

"OK," he said, holding out his hand. He took a sip, declared, "This is what I eat best!" and drank the whole bowl, scraping the rice and bits of meat from the bottom with a spoon.

And tomorrow...well, tomorrow will be whatever it is. We're very much in the moment right now.

Comments

[Kaycie]

I'm sure it's difficult for you to see him struggle this way. Isn't it a wonder that he was completely in control when the doctor arrived? I would like to know what exactly is going on inside his mind, sleeping and waking. He fascinates me and although I know it's impossible, I would have liked to have known him.

[Chris Clarke]

the oddest moment of envy washed over me, his seeing that vast forest — and his path through it — so clearly.

here with you, allowing unsatisfactory definitions of "here" and "with."

[dale]

Oh my. "That's funny, because I think of you as a human being." Such a richness of inner life revealed by that.

(I think of you as a human being, too, but I know it's just a sideline :->)

[Natalie]

Beth, this is so completely involving and moving. I feel I am there with you and it reminds me of my own parents' last days. My father was also seeing things and having long conversations in Russian with invisible people. My mother also was saying she wanted to 'go home'. At one point she was struggling to get out of bed and said "Je dois prendre ma place" and the intense way she was looking at something made me feel that whatever she saw was real. There is so much we don't know.

Best of blogday wishes for you and long may you continue to write so movingly.

[zuleme]

We had a close call here this week, my father in law passed out and we had the ambulance here. We were here, they live next door to us, and all worked out but it is a taste of things to come.
My in laws are from the north of Sweden and Finland and I wonder if that home will call to them as the time gets near. It is powerful stuff.

[EasyDiverChris]

You describe a vivid picture for me. I see my father in your words. It's hard to read a paragraph that depicts his last months so clearly and simply, knowing the facts are actually about someone else.
I envy your self-confidence and insight to know what to do for your father-in-law. I'd have been standing on the sidelines, wringing my hands, and wishing it would all go away. I had had no previous experience with anyone in the latest stages of live before my own parents were there. Now, reading your words, I think I could have done a better job for them.

[language hat]

Thanks very much for this, for sharing this amazing man and this experience with us. Best wishes to all of you.

[Dave]

Blogging at its best. The "going home" part made me cry. Somehow, I don't think Damascus is anything like what he remembers.

Happy Blogiversary!

[leslee]

Oh my, Beth. I hope this blog continues to give you an outlet in difficult times. It does sound like the old Chinese curse of living in interesting times. But happy blogiversary!

Your photo reminded me of a tarot card (not much into tarot, but I did spend some time trying to learn about it at one time). Anyway, I couldn't member which card, but I just googled the 10 of Swords card and it reads: "It symbolizes old age and the wisdom we have gained through living." At least in the first site I looked at. Maybe that fits.

[rr]

Well I think this is beautiful, Beth. Given that we all have to die, how blessed to make that journey with such loving, caring, understanding and humourous companions - “Your hearing seems to be making a miraculous recovery!” - genius. And how blessed to make that journey with such a man. Sending you, all three of you, such love.

[Pica]

hugs to you all. And happy blogday.

[marja-leena]

Congratulations and thank you so much for five fine years of blogging! And for this very beautiful heart searing series about being there for your father-in-law on what seems to be his last journey - he is blessed to have you and his son there!

[Loretta]

Beth, this is so moving to read and so difficult to read. He is finding his way home, at last, on the road to Damascus. I envy his journey, though I do not want to hasten mine. The love you show for this dear man is the essence of the human experience on earth. I pray that your father in law finds the path across the beautiful field and through the forest with ease and joy. May you all be blessed as you ready him and yourselves for his journey.