Home Is Burning (46 page)

My dad looked at Tiffany. Tiffany tried very hard to not cry. The intense effort reddened her face, which she covered with her hand. She finally broke down and exploded into moans. Her rare expression of intense emotion caused us all to cry, even the saluting birds in the trees. My dad said to her, “Tiffany, some of my best days in life were spent on the mountain with you, watching you carve through the snow with grace and ease. I always loved the mountains, and of all my kids, you were the only one who loved them as much as I did. You will do great things in life and end up exactly where you want to be, even if you doubt yourself right now. Know that I'm always looking after you. You are beautiful and I love you.” Tiffany cried and promised to think of him every time she was about to descend into a fresh batch of powder, beating all the tourists and wannabes to the punch.

Finally, my dad looked at my mom, his wife. Her mouth was a perfect upside down U, and her eyes were darkened by a genuine sadness. My mom said, “Don't do this, Bob. Please. Please. Don't leave me.” My dad said, “Deb, I love you so much. I did from the second I met you. You are an inspiration to us all. Don't give up the fight even though you now have to battle it for both of us. I know you were the sick one, the one with cancer who was supposed to go before me, but it didn't work that way. I'm sorry to leave you, but I hope you understand and accept my decision without being angry. You now inherit the family that we created together, and that family will be there for you and help you through this. Hold our grandchildren for the both of us, and spoil the shit out of them. Remarry if you must. I understand. Take your mind off me. Start eating things other than yogurt; you'll need the strength to keep up the fight. Buy yourself anything you want. Don't feel alone. Your kids, our kids, will look after you because they have inherited kindness from both of us. Clean up your language so you don't pass on your bad habit to others, like you did with that shithead, tit-fucker Danny. You are the bravest, strongest, feistiest woman I have ever known, but most important, you are a survivor who has never given up. Don't give up now. I love you with all my heart.” My mom burst into tears and squeezed my dad's shoulder. They looked at each other, having cleared their eyes of the blurring tears, and thanked each other for making thirty years of marriage so easy.

We were all silent for a moment to take it all in, to feel the sadness but also the joy of being together one last time.

Suddenly, just as we were finishing our last family meal, Sam appeared out of nowhere, also in his running gear. He shook his head in disbelief. “Man, Bob, this all seems so surreal.” My dad agreed. Then, my dad stood up, his bones creaking and popping back to life. He stretched his arms and legs, and just like that, he was back on his trusty old feet.

He looked over at Sam and said, “How about one last run, my old friend?”

“You got it, buddy,” Sam said.

They ran out of our backyard and through Salt Lake City, up Millcreek Canyon along the river, down by the Delta Center where we used to go to Jazz games and talk about life, then back along the base of Mount Olympus. Sam laughed the whole way.

Suddenly, the surroundings started to change, and my dad and Sam were no longer running through Salt Lake, but rather through my dad's whole life. First they ran through his childhood in Pocatello. They ran down the elm-tree-lined streets, packed with kids full of youth and life. They ran past my dad's family sitting at the dinner table, all of his siblings passing plates around and discussing the day's events. They ran past my dad's dependable father, who always arrived at home right around five o'clock to emphasize the important balance between work life and family life.

My dad and Sam continued their run, now through my dad's adolescence. They ran past my dad talking to his brother Jack on the back patio in Camano. They ran past my dad beginning to take an interest in women, and even getting his first hand job from Caroline Summers. They ran past my dad and Jack working long hours at their family's nearby ranch, where they learned, “Your work is not done until the last bale of hay is in the barn.” They then ran past my dad's family waving him off to Drake University.

My dad and Sam continued through his adulthood. There was a blur of random and formative events: college. The fuzz surrounding college disappeared and they ran past my dad asking my mom's hand in marriage on her parents' back porch. She said “yes” as a tear of joy rolled down her cheek and onto her lip, which he promptly kissed. They ran past all his children being born and growing more and more capable. They then ran past my dad helping his children whenever they needed it the most, but allowing them to fight through their own trials and tribulations. And finally, they ran past my dad and my mom watching their kids leave the house to begin to build their own lives.

Then, finally, my dad and Sam ended their epic run and returned to our neighborhood and back to the gazebo. My dad looked over all he had done over the years and realized that he'd lived a very good life.

“That was a great run, Sam,” my dad said.

“It sure was, Bob. The best yet.”

Just as they were catching their breaths, everyone who my dad had ever loved and who had ever loved my dad appeared out of nowhere and started filling all the empty space around us. People even climbed to our rooftop because it was the only available vantage point. My dad yelled, “I'm not done yet!” Everyone clapped and screamed. “We love you, Bob!” people shouted at the top of their lungs. He threw both of his arms up in the air and spun around until he was dizzy, as confetti streamed from the clouds above and fireworks lit up the sky. He ran onto our tennis court, which was also surrounded by people he had loved and influenced over the course of his life, and back-flipped onto the net after serving up an ace that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal's child couldn't have touched with a tennis racket the size of a fishing boat. My dad began tightrope walking across the net while juggling all sorts of poisonous animals. He stopped tightrope walking and began a set of one-armed push-ups on the net. One spectator said, “Bob is amazing. He can truly do anything.” Another yelled, “I hope this never ends.” He then back-flipped off the tennis court net and stuck the landing so well that the judges in the crowd had no score available for his one-step-above-perfection performance.

He then ran out to the crowd of friends and family, now a thousand fans deep. He maneuvered through the people and kissed everyone on their forehead and reminded them that they could make a difference in the world. He told jokes and shook hands in a way that would be remembered forever. He pulled all the sadness out of everyone's hearts and wadded it up into a soccer-ball-shaped object, then kicked it into outer space with his powerful leg.

Eventually, his triumphant performance had to come to an end. He told everyone that they had made a positive difference in his life and that he hoped he had done the same in theirs. They started to chant, “You have!” and “We'll miss you, Bob!” He reminded them all that his spirit would live on in theirs, and that life is about the relationships you form with other people and not about collecting material things to fill the void. He encouraged each and every person to turn to their neighbor and hug him or her. Everyone performed this request and then agreed that it was nice.

He thanked everyone for the love and support they had shown him, blowing kisses their way. He then looked at his watch and said, “Shit, I really have to go.” Everyone understood as they watched him walk back to his wheelchair, take a deep breath, and back-flip into it. The hole in his trach reappeared. He hooked himself back to the respirator. His body went limp again. Everyone, even Sam, slowly faded away. The birds started chirping again.

“BEEP. BEEP. BEEP,” said the respirator. “It's time to face reality. It's time for your dad, your pal, to finally die.”

Sunny from hospice showed up and brought with her a chilly set of clouds. She carried a little black backpack full of all the chemicals that would be used to numb my dad so the respirator could be shut off.

It was time to go back inside.

We wheeled my dad around to the front of the house, past all the children who were collecting outside for the balloon release, back into the garage, then finally into the elevator. I got in with him. The accordion door closed. It was just Dad and me again, the last moment we'd spend alone together. He looked up at me and said, “Thank you,” as he does every time we return from an outing.

I'm usually a smug asshole and say, “Oh, you're welcome. I know I'm fantastic, a hero of sorts,” but this time I just said, “No, thank you.”

I started to feel a little sappy, so I decided to steal the last line he had uttered to his mom on her deathbed. “I'm glad you were my dad,” I said.

“I'm glad you were my son,” he said.

I rolled him through his bedroom. He took one last look out the window at colorful Mount Olympus looming above our house, the changing leaves reminding him that it was fall, the start of his favorite time of the year.

We entered his room and transferred him out of his wheelchair and back into his bed for the last time. The whole family was there, plus Gary, my mom's friend Kelly, Dr. Buys, Stana, Regina, Sunny from hospice, and Dr. Bromberg.

“Okay, so, Bob, we're going to start the morphine drip. You're going to start to feel numb and will slowly fade out of consciousness. Then Dr. Bromberg will turn down the respirator and you will, well, you will pass on,” said Sunny.

We all took turns hugging and saying good-bye to my dad. It was hard. It was really hard. I wished he could talk so he could impart some last words of wisdom to each of us. Instead, we mostly just said, “I love you,” and he looked at us with his warm, generous, big, wet eyes. We had said everything we wanted to say to him before this moment, so we didn't have to cram it all in now. He knew how much we loved him.

My mom finally accepted what was happening. She snuggled up to my dad as close as physically possible, then said, “I love you, Bob. You are so strong and we all understand this decision. Thank you for such a wonderful life. You always were my marathon man, even before you ran marathons. It's okay for you to go. It's okay for you to go now.” She started to cry. We all did. “It's okay for you to go.”

Jessica and Chelsea both piled into bed with my dad as they cried. Each of us touched a part of him, whatever part we could get to. Tiffany grabbed a finger. Greg touched his head. Regina had a hairy calf. I grabbed a big toe. Stana had the other big toe. Dr. Buys, Kelly, and Gary all stood in the background watching.

Sunny hooked up all the chemical pouches and the morphine began to drip.

My dad looked over his battle-tested family one last time. Better people have been through worse, but we had finally finished going through this. It had been a bumpy road, but the struggle made us stronger. We treasured our dad more than anything. He had given us so much love, laughter, and life. We would never forget all that he had done for us, all that he had taught us, all the happiness he had brought us. But it was time to finally let him go.

Soon, my dad was unconscious. Dr. Bromberg looked us all over with sad eyes. This was the worst part of his job, but it had to be done. He started turning off the respirator. Its rhythmic sound began to slow—the time between artificial breaths getting longer and longer.

“It's okay for you to go,” my mom said one last time.

The respirator pushed its last breath into my wonderful dad, then stopped. The children released the balloons into the blue sky.

 

EPILOGUE

“Goddamn it, Mom. This is so embarrassing,” I barked as we struggled to keep up with a pack of prospective writing students marching through the University of Southern California rich-bitch campus—the endless Los Angeles sun beating down on our tired souls. I had applied and been accepted to their Master of Fine Arts screenwriting program. We were at an orientation day, checking out the school to see if it was a good fit for me.

“I'm trying my best,” she said back. She was a mess, carrying her shoe and limping. “I just had surgery to remove cancer from my leg, you little shit,” she noted.

“Well, I told you not to come. But you insisted,” I said as I strutted well ahead of her, trying to catch up to my potential classmates.

“I'm sorry,” she yelled.

I looked back at her—a frail, widowed woman just trying to cling onto a little morsel of happiness and support her son's minor achievement. I walked back and helped her walk. “Come on. I don't want to miss the speech from Dean Daley,” I said as she placed her hand on my shoulder for support and limped toward the group.

*   *   *

We had had a rough couple of years, dumping everything into caring for my dad. After his peaceful death, a strange silence settled over our house. We had been so used to hearing the hum of all the medical devices keeping him alive, and now everything was shut off. The traffic of visitors stampeding in and out of our house had stopped. Neighbors no longer brought over lasagnas. Regina's cheerful laugh had faded away. It was just us. Alone. Looking over the damage Lou Gehrig's disease had caused to our home, our lives, our world. Stana put it best: “Home is so, so quiet now Daddy is no more.”

We were tired. There were bags under our eyes. Our shoulders were slumped. We needed to sleep for the rest of our lives. We walked around our house as if it had been burned to the ground, inspecting all the damage. Our carpets were stained with cat piss. The yard was littered with leaves and dog shit. We had a raccoon problem. Balls of unswept animal hair passed over our feet like tumbleweeds in an endless desert. Boxes of unused medical supplies cluttered up rooms already full of commodes, cans of Promote, and wheelchairs. Our sad, confused dogs wandered the house, not sure what had happened, wondering why no one was petting them. It was as though everyone and everything had aged ten years. It had become a dilapidated museum of our once prosperous life.