The Week of Dad's Death: June 1, 1996: Dad Died

Midnight.  June 1, 1996.  It wasn't much different from the other midnights over the last several days.

I was the only person up and awake and settled into another night of being ready to help Dad if he needed attention.

Mom got up at her usual time.  It must have been around five and I went upstairs to bed.

A short time passed. 

"Bill, we need your help!"  Mom called to me up the stairs. "Your father is off the bed."

What Mom meant didn't quite register until I got to Mom and Dad's room.

Dad had been thrashing.  Really thrashing.  He had slid, with the mattress, off the boxspring, and he and the mattress were mostly off the bed at an awkward angle.

Dad was immovable.  He was not conscious.  Mom and Christy couldn't move him.  I tried to help, but, together, we were unsuccessful.  We were upset.  We couldn't just leave Dad in this awkward position, mostly off the bed.

The next door neighbor, Jane, is a nurse and Christy went over to ask her to help us.  She had experience moving patients, getting the right angle, getting in the right position, and we hoped she could help us.

Jane came over and with much effort, we got Dad back on his bed and got his covers rearranged, but he was battling himself.

Dad thrashed and not predictably.  I remember worrying that he might be a danger to himself.

He fell into fitful sleep, but, periodically, he snapped himself awake, sat up, as much as he could, his unconscious eyes open, both blank and, I thought, afraid. 

It reminded me what has happened out on the freeway when I've been too tired to drive, but I push it and I start to fall asleep and I SNAP! catch myself, and wake up.  My whole body snaps.  It convulses.

Dad was doing something like this and we were concerned that he might hurt himself, and none of  was physically strong enough to constrain him.

We called the nurse practitioner in charge of Dad's medication and asked for help.

He said if we gave Dad a certain dosage of his pain medicine, it would help him relax.

I managed to pour a spoonful of crushed pill and warm water into Dad's mouth and he swallowed it.

Before long, he relaxed.  His breathing got steady.

The timeline isn't clear to me.  I think it was late morning when he settled down and we all relaxed a bit.

I either stayed in Dad's room or was checking in on him regularly.  He breathed in as he slept and his exhales were the sound of a tiny whistle.  His mouth seemed to shrink into a tiny O and the inhaling and exhaling came at longer intervals.

I didn't know it then, but now we are quite sure that Dad was slowly, and now, peacefully suffocating.  The nurse practitioner later told us it was likely that a tumor was closing his wind pipe.  The smaller and smaller wind pipe opening whistled.  The whistles were farther apart.

Then the whistling stopped.

I had the little television on in Dad's room.  I was watching VH1.  Dad died while Paul McCartney and Wings were performing.  I don't know what song.

I stared at Dad for a short while.

"Mom." Hushed tones. "I think Dad is gone."

She came in the room.  So did Christy.  Mom felt Dad's forehead growing cold.

She closed his eyes.

I called the police.  Someone called the funeral home. An officer confirmed his death.  A form got filled out.

The men from the funeral home arrived and carefully put Dad in a body bag and strapped him to a two-wheeled dolly and slowly wheeled him through the tight quarters of our small home.  I watched them drive Dad away.

My sorrow, knowing I would lose my father, began a year and a half earlier when his health began to fail and I just knew, in my heart, he wouldn't live a long time. 

The day after Christmas, 1995, Christy had arranged for George Goetzman to come to our home to take a family portrait.  Looking at the picture confirmed to me that Dad was in serious decline.  It turned out to be even more serious than I could tell.

My more immediate feeling on the day Dad died was more unexpected.

I was proud, even happy in a quiet way.

I was proud and happy because Pert Woolum's family did the right thing.

Dad died at home, in his own bed.

Friends were free to visit him.

He had the company of Mom, his kids, his grandchildren, and, for a while, his brother.

We pulled together to help Dad die and to support each other.

Dad left behind a family that has even grown stronger and happier together over the last seventeen years.

Pert Woolum would be proud.


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