Prolonged Silence

Rarely do I see a warm day topping fifty degrees in the middle of January here in the northeast, but it was a perfect opportunity to check my bee hives in all three of my yards. Managing honeybee hives can be tricky in the middle of winter because the temperatures drop, and the bees will starve. Upon finishing with my bee inspections, I walked up to our side porch door. I could hear the phone ringing.

I don’t carry a cell phone because the reception where we live makes it hard to get a signal, even with all the newest technology and cell towers. The mountains of the Eastern Continental Divide are the backdrop to my property. I am one of the holdouts still using a landline. The phone will ring four times and then switch over to voicemail. I casually made it into the house and checked to see if they left a message. When I punched in the security coded numbers, the AI voice told me I had three messages. They were all from my brother-not a good sign.

I hit the speed dial to his cell phone and waited for him to answer. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call all afternoon. Dad’s not good and you need to get to the hospital in Pittsburgh, now!” My mind was racing faster than my hands as I threw clothes and necessities into a small suitcase. I frantically tried to figure out how much to bring and how long I would be there. There were too many unknowns to adequately answer those questions. Jotting down a brief note and leaving it for my wife on the kitchen table, I got in my car and began the two-hour drive to Pittsburgh.

How do you occupy two hours in the middle of an emergency where time is of the essence? Normally, I would turn the radio on or load a CD to listen to music. On this day, it was just me and my thoughts. How bad is he? Will I get there in time? Did I get the room number? My thoughts and constant “flare prayers” were being voiced as I drove along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I don’t even recall seeing another vehicle on the road on a late Saturday afternoon. I just drove.

After a few wrong turns even with the hospital in view, I finally found the entrance to the parking garage. I snaked my way skyward finding all the spaces filled except one open spot on the top deck. I signed in, took a mandatory face mask, and confirmed the floor and room number for dad. That seemed to take much longer than it should have. In a nervous and breathy state, I opened the door to dad’s room.

My mom, brother, and his wife were there, along with the attending nurse on duty. I stepped up to the bed rail and said, “Dad, I got here-” . . . Before I could finish my sentence, the nurse injected her syringe of morphine into dad’s IV, his eyes rolled back into the back of their sockets. Did he see me? Did he know the effort I just went through to get there as fast as I could? Only he and God knew the answer to that. Just thirty seconds sooner could have made all the difference.

Dad’s eyes closed after that shot. He was in a lot of pain. He had been moved to the hospice floor and we all know there is only one way a person leaves that floor. How long would it be? The answer to that really didn’t matter. I planned on being there for as long as it takes to witness dad’s eyes opening back up again and I could say my goodbye.

Three days went by-each the same. Dad’s position in the bed never changed and his eyes never opened. The morphine was at a high enough level to keep him from experiencing pain. The silence of those three days is hard to put into words. There’s all kinds of medical devices and noises, but there is also the silence. For long periods of time, all we could hear was dad’s faint breathing. An occasional whisper between us in the room or a nurse stopping by, but mostly just silence.

On the morning of day four, I was the first family member into the room. My mom wanted to stop by the cafeteria to grab a coffee. My brother said he needed to catch up on a few things at home and would be in later. As I entered the room, I immediately saw that dad’s position in the bed had changed and I was greeted with a smile by a new nurse. She had just returned from vacation. I said, “Dad has moved.” She replied by telling me that she doesn’t like seeing her patients in the same position, so she moved him a bit. I don’t know why, but I felt that her level of patient and family care seemed much more pleasing to me. She seemed wise beyond her years and that brought comfort to me.

Mom came in and the new nurse introduced herself and told us both something I wasn’t expecting to hear. She said most of her patients pass away during her shift. She also said she liked to be in the room with the family when they passed. Oddly, when she said it, I felt at peace. Today started out very differently and I could sense it.

Soon, we were back to a silent room again. Dad’s breathing was slowly becoming more labored. By early afternoon, my brother hadn’t shown up yet and now it was my turn to call him to tell him to get to the hospital. He and his wife walked into the room at 3:00 PM. The nurse must have known dad’s life was coming to an end soon because she stayed with us and talked, breaking the silence that would have otherwise been in the room.

She asked about how mom and dad met, how long they were married, and other family things. I was sitting closest to dad and about 3:30 PM, I said to the nurse that dad’s complexion had changed. She examined him with her stethoscope to his chest and told us he had indeed passed.

The hours in prolonged silence over the past four days were difficult at times. Even though dad never opened his eyes and remained silent, those last thirty minutes in the room were filled with family stories as a special commemoration of the life he lived. Yet, I never got to finish my sentence and will never know if he knew I was there.