Me and My Father
by Dead-eye Doug
Poor dad. That’s not how it should have been. Not how it should have happened. That is not how he should have died. I thought this while leaning on the green cement wall of the one-cubicle toilet in the college where I work. The smooth cement cooled my hand. I thought about germs, and then my stomach dropped with the weight of the new thought.
I’d smelled breakfast earlier in my office on the third floor coming from the fresh-air ducts. I hesitated, and then walked down to the basement level to get some. I figured, “What the heck, I can go for breakfast once in a while out here and not just always get straight to work. It’s right downstairs. And it’s only a few bucks.” I had spent a hundred bucks the night before on my wife and kids. Their birthdays. Two of them. November third and fifth. That thought made me pause. “No, maybe I shouldn’t. Oh, why not.” So I went.
I rang the bell that keeps strangers out of the residence kitchen. The sign on the door said, “Under no circumstances should you jam something between the doors to keep them open. Students who are caught doing so may be required to leave residence.” I buzzed. At first no one came. Then a young, black, student-type opened up the door and I walked in. Ian, the cook, a new cook in Saint John’s, called out when he saw me.
“I’ve got a waffle going right now. It’ll be a few minutes. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and relax. I’ll tell you when it’s ready.” I’d talked to Ian only once before, on the stairway. He said, “Hi, “and I said, “Hi. You’re Ian, right?” We’d hardly slowed, speaking.
I waited in the room off the kitchen, a long narrow room wide enough for only a row of round tables along the wall and a walkway. It held half a dozen tables, most of them empty. Two young women approached one and sat down facing me. They ate in silence. Farther behind them, a few students got up and brought their trays of dishes to the stand and, talking, walked out. A lanky island girl left next, straight-backed, in dark brown and in Spice Girls shoes. An island boy, bigger, chubbier, followed her a few seconds later. I saw him switch from walking to running just as he passed the open door through which I looked. Ian called me and I picked up my plate.
“We’ve got some sausages and bacon, too,”
he said. His face glowed from kitchen heat and talk.
“Maybe two sausages and two strips of bacon,” I said, pointing into the stainless containers with a few dozen of each in them. He lifted them out with tongs and laid them out across the waffle, a fat waffle with some butter and syrup on it.
“Enjoy,” he said. He turned back to the black guy with a few words, laughing as he did. After I found my seat, I heard them speaking to a third-party, someone I couldn’t see but who’s mop swished past the open door. They invited the person mopping to eat something.
“You really need to have some breakfast,” I heard Ian say, though I couldn’t see him from where I sat in the dining room.
“We’ve got some bacon, waffles, sausages and some other things,” the young black added. The mopper remained reluctant. I heard his mop flishing along the wall.
I ate, in a hurry, brought my place back, stopped in the staff washroom at the urinal and thought of my dad. He should not have been on morphine at the end, I thought. He should not have been on such a high dose of morphine. He should have died at home.
Father murmured and suddenly smiled when I said, “I think you want me to say that I love Jesus before you die.” I had not seen him smile or respond in any way in the last week. Not since I’d arrived in Abbotsford from Winnipeg.
“Aaaahhhhh,” he said without turning his head or eyes. No words came. He spoke not a word that whole week I spent with him. I spent all day always just sitting near him or lying on his bed beside him, sometimes with my arms around him. The nurse had mentioned earlier that he heard everything so we should be careful what we said.
After he said, “Aaaaahhhhh,” like that, my brother and I, across the bed from each other, put our arms around him, each with one arm under his head, his thin gray hair so soft and neck so warm, and he looked up with those very bright blue eyes of his—not at us, at Heaven—and died. We heard the breaths ending. Three or four breaths came and then they stopped. At first we disbelieved it. He couldn’t die just now after he answered us with his “Aaaaahhhhh.” It seemed unlikely. But he did. And we held him, shocked. Then we began to cry. In a few minutes mother and Nancy, Rudi‘s wife, returning from parking the car, came in and saw us there, holding father and crying.
by Dead-eye Doug
Poor dad. That’s not how it should have been. Not how it should have happened. That is not how he should have died. I thought this while leaning on the green cement wall of the one-cubicle toilet in the college where I work. The smooth cement cooled my hand. I thought about germs, and then my stomach dropped with the weight of the new thought.
I’d smelled breakfast earlier in my office on the third floor coming from the fresh-air ducts. I hesitated, and then walked down to the basement level to get some. I figured, “What the heck, I can go for breakfast once in a while out here and not just always get straight to work. It’s right downstairs. And it’s only a few bucks.” I had spent a hundred bucks the night before on my wife and kids. Their birthdays. Two of them. November third and fifth. That thought made me pause. “No, maybe I shouldn’t. Oh, why not.” So I went.
I rang the bell that keeps strangers out of the residence kitchen. The sign on the door said, “Under no circumstances should you jam something between the doors to keep them open. Students who are caught doing so may be required to leave residence.” I buzzed. At first no one came. Then a young, black, student-type opened up the door and I walked in. Ian, the cook, a new cook in Saint John’s, called out when he saw me.
“I’ve got a waffle going right now. It’ll be a few minutes. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and relax. I’ll tell you when it’s ready.” I’d talked to Ian only once before, on the stairway. He said, “Hi, “and I said, “Hi. You’re Ian, right?” We’d hardly slowed, speaking.
I waited in the room off the kitchen, a long narrow room wide enough for only a row of round tables along the wall and a walkway. It held half a dozen tables, most of them empty. Two young women approached one and sat down facing me. They ate in silence. Farther behind them, a few students got up and brought their trays of dishes to the stand and, talking, walked out. A lanky island girl left next, straight-backed, in dark brown and in Spice Girls shoes. An island boy, bigger, chubbier, followed her a few seconds later. I saw him switch from walking to running just as he passed the open door through which I looked. Ian called me and I picked up my plate.
“We’ve got some sausages and bacon, too,”
he said. His face glowed from kitchen heat and talk.
“Maybe two sausages and two strips of bacon,” I said, pointing into the stainless containers with a few dozen of each in them. He lifted them out with tongs and laid them out across the waffle, a fat waffle with some butter and syrup on it.
“Enjoy,” he said. He turned back to the black guy with a few words, laughing as he did. After I found my seat, I heard them speaking to a third-party, someone I couldn’t see but who’s mop swished past the open door. They invited the person mopping to eat something.
“You really need to have some breakfast,” I heard Ian say, though I couldn’t see him from where I sat in the dining room.
“We’ve got some bacon, waffles, sausages and some other things,” the young black added. The mopper remained reluctant. I heard his mop flishing along the wall.
I ate, in a hurry, brought my place back, stopped in the staff washroom at the urinal and thought of my dad. He should not have been on morphine at the end, I thought. He should not have been on such a high dose of morphine. He should have died at home.
Father murmured and suddenly smiled when I said, “I think you want me to say that I love Jesus before you die.” I had not seen him smile or respond in any way in the last week. Not since I’d arrived in Abbotsford from Winnipeg.
“Aaaahhhhh,” he said without turning his head or eyes. No words came. He spoke not a word that whole week I spent with him. I spent all day always just sitting near him or lying on his bed beside him, sometimes with my arms around him. The nurse had mentioned earlier that he heard everything so we should be careful what we said.
After he said, “Aaaaahhhhh,” like that, my brother and I, across the bed from each other, put our arms around him, each with one arm under his head, his thin gray hair so soft and neck so warm, and he looked up with those very bright blue eyes of his—not at us, at Heaven—and died. We heard the breaths ending. Three or four breaths came and then they stopped. At first we disbelieved it. He couldn’t die just now after he answered us with his “Aaaaahhhhh.” It seemed unlikely. But he did. And we held him, shocked. Then we began to cry. In a few minutes mother and Nancy, Rudi‘s wife, returning from parking the car, came in and saw us there, holding father and crying.
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