Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Week of Dad's Death: May 28, 1996: Thrashing

In his last days, Dad, on occasion, thrashed.

It was as of his whole body were having convulsions.  When he thrashed, it was actually hard to tell if he were awake and I never knew if he knew what was going on.

He couldn't say anything and often his eyes had a blank look or a look of fear, but, at the same time, it was as if he were sleeping with his eyes open.

I couldn't let Dad thrash without some kind of intervention because his bed was a twin bed.  He was a big man and the bed didn't leave him much room to thrash.  None of us wanted him to thrash himself off the bed.  The best I could do was lie across his chest and try to pin his arms to the bed.  Even in his last days, Dad was stronger than I.

I did my best to keep him on the bed and reassure him that everything was all right, not knowing if he could hear me.

I didn't really know that everything was all right, but I didn't know anything else to say.

I thought during each episode of thrashing that it was Dad's way of fighting off death.  Whether it was Dad's instinctual will to stay alive or whether it was his fear of dying or whether it was something else, I never experienced Dad's thrashing as merely physical.

I always thought there was something deeper going on, and that something deeper had to do with Dad not wanting to die.

I'm not sure that was the case, but it was what I told myself.

I do remember one day during this last week, Wayne Benson came by to visit Dad and he came to Dad's room and Dad was thrashing.  It was a scary sight.  I was lying on dad, chest to chest, keeping his arms from flailing about.  I think the sight scared Wayne.

Without thinking, I said, "He's gotta a lot of life left in him."

He was just a few days short of dying, but this was how it felt to me.  Dad couldn't talk.  He hardly ate.  He slept a lot.  He could barely get to the bathroom.  He was on death's porch.

But, to me, he had a lot of life in him.

The life in him thrashed.

(I've written two other pieces about the week Dad died, here and here.)

1 comment:

Gathering Around the Table said...

I believe what you believe. He was fighting to live.
Yesterday when I was bending over weeding grass out front I heard a very familiar voice behind me. Wayne and Penny Benson were sitting in their car on the curb. It made my day to visit with them. I loved it when Mom walked out from the back yard and Wayne gave her some good-hearted shit, then turned serious as they talked about various people. He shook my hand and said kind words, then off they went again.