The Week of Dad's Death: May 29, 1996: Mango Body Butter

I looked back at the record and it was on May 28, 1996 that the Utah Jazz defeated the Seattle SuperSonics 98-95 in overtime to tighten the series, 3-2.  That game played on the little television on the chest of drawers in Dad's room.

When the game was over, I checked in with Dad and said, "Dad.  The Jazz won tonight in overtime."

Dad nodded with all the vigor he had.

In his last days, Dad needed the care of an in-home nurse to come by every other day and bathe him in his bed and to talk with the rest of us about how Dad was doing.

We were most fortunate that Dad's nurse was Betty Mercato, Buff's mom.  I'd known Buff for many years, but hadn't seen him for quite a while, and actually wouldn't see him again until a few years later when Ed went to work for him loading logs and driving log truck for Buff's small company.

But it was a connection.

Betty's treatment of Dad took me back to a 1984 British television production of King Lear, with Laurence Olivier playing the title role.

In that production, in Act IV, after King Lear had faced up to and suffered through the night of the tempest on the heath, he was transformed and when we see him in the woods of the Olivier production he shines with the light of a new born baby.  He does have new life and the lighting chosen in this production makes King Lear's face and nearly bald head shine with a light that seems to come from within, from his revivified and tender soul.

I don't know when someone purchased the Body Shop Mango Body Butter or why it was in Mom and Dad's room, but to soften Dad's drying skin and to refresh him, Betty used the Mango Body Butter.

When Betty finished, I went in Dad's room to check up on him and the Mango Body Butter gave his face that same look that Olivier's King Lear had.  While the shine of the butter was still on Dad's face and when the afternoon sun lit his room, he seemed sixty years younger, like a child, and his face radiated and I could see the goodness of his soul reflected in his face more clearly than I ever had.

I'd never spent day after day and hour after hour with a dying person before.  Betty was helped us a lot with her explanations of what was going on.

We family members talked with her about Dad's restlessness sometimes at night.  It wasn't quite to the thrashing level, but there were periods of time when Dad seemed troubled, unable to sleep and unable to talk about it.

Betty had a word for this that I don't remember.  Maybe Christy does.  It was a word like weebie-geebies and she told us that dying people often have troubling thoughts or memories come upon them at night, not so much during the day.

I tried to imagine what might be coming back to Dad:  his father abandoning his family?  the accident as a child that left him blind in one eye?  the drinking that contributed to his liver damage?  the intemperate behavior of his younger days?  Or was it simpler than that?  Did knowing he was dying bring on these weebie-geebies?

We'll never know.

It's often said that when facing death, persons see their life pass before them.

I had the experience as Dad died of seeing glimpses of his whole life pass in front of us:  the shining face of a child, the tender father and husband he could be, the intemperate thrasher, and the man with fears that regrets that haunted him.

Oddly enough, the tropical smell of  Mango Body Butter tied this all together for me.  Its aroma sometimes dominated Dad's room and the jar was always at his bedside.  Sometimes I would open the jar and smell it and it helped me face the reality of my father dying just inches away.

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