As part of my journey in living with heart failure, I have been open to all sorts of suggestions. So far, I’ve gone back to my therapist, I’ve attended a support group, I am working out three times a week with a trainer. I am trying to eat well, thank goodness I already quit drinking, I am praying and being prayed for, I am trying to do a better job at staying in the Word, and I have dabbled in meditation. It is actually quite effective if I can just do it.

Today the meditation exercise was to envision an experience which conjures up heavenly feelings that you can go back to when you need to go to your happy place. (I’m assuming without the aid of mind altering substances.)  It gave numerous suggestions and I went through various alternatives in my mind. First, I saw myself hiking up a mountain on the coast of the Monterey Peninsula, triumphantly looking out over the coastline. Next, I sipped a glass of wine while eating new lamb in the English Lake District. Lastly, I basked in the glow of the sun, something I haven’t done since we found out about skin cancer, while listening to live music. These are all things I’ve done in the past and can no longer do. While they are incredible experiences that I miss like crazy, none quite embodies the sense of nirvana I was going for.

Then it hit me. It was two years ago.  It was more of a sensation than an experience. It was a place of comfort and safety and compassion that I’ve never felt before or since. A feeling I wish I could bottle. And it happened, of all times, on the very day my father died. And the bearer of all these heavenly feelings was a woman I barely knew….Dorothy.

She was one of Dad’s two sitters during his last ten days when we brought him home to die. These sitters are gifts from God. Angels who know what death looks like and they help not only the patient, but the family, transition from this world into the next. Rick has an expression he uses to describe pleasantly plump people – they are built for comfort, not for speed. Dorothy was built for comfort. She had the 7 am to 7 pm shift. The shift while we were all awake. Janice had the nighttime shift. It worked out well, because Janice was not a people person. She cleaned out the refrigerator and talked on the phone. Dorothy, on the other hand, instantly became part of the family. She was fat, talkative, motherly, comforting, unafraid and funny. She told hysterical stories of other families that she had worked for that made us look like the Cleavers. When we were no longer on speaking terms with Dad’s girlfriend, she ran interference for us. She’s seen it all, the obnoxious stuff that happens when a family’s fiber is stretched beyond the breaking point.

Okay, back to heaven. When I heard the guys from the funeral home ring the doorbell, I ran down the stairs to say one last good-bye to Dad. By the time I got there, they had already zipped him into a body bag. I burst into sobbing, heaving, snotty tears and collapsed into Dorothy’s arms. This woman I had known for only ten days. I don’t have much experience with fat people or with hugs, but I tell you what, being enveloped in those arms and burying my head in her hefty bosom was a feeling I will never, ever forget.  It was the safest place I’ve ever been. It was heaven.

“Happy work is as gratifying as sex or hard laughter or love or good drugs.”

Anne Lammott from her book, Hard Laughter.

Looking back on my life, I have few regrets. Surprisingly, everything sort of fell into place on it’s own.  God had His master plan for my life and He did not let my poor decision making stand in His way. It’s been a good life and I am immeasurably blessed.

But one thing I never found is happy work.  I witnessed it up close and personal and I wanted it.  Oh, how I wanted it.  I just never found it.

My dad had happy work.  He was a lucky guy.  He owned his own veterinarian practice.  He got to take care of dogs and cats all day.  He got to be the hero and he got to be the boss. During the holidays, his clients would shower him with their appreciation, filling the break room with homemade baked goods. He brought home the over flow.  

Dad worked 10 hour days, six or seven days a week. He worked alone the first ten years until he took on a partner. He got up in the middle of the night for emergencies.  He went to the scene of the accident when a dog got hit by a car, sometimes taking us with him. When an animal was in critical condition, Dad would bring it home to sleep in a box in our den.  There was no emergency clinic or ICU in those days.

The clinic was our home away from home. Dad hired brothers Mose and Robert while they were both still in high school.  They started out cleaning cages and holding dogs. Robert ended up helping out with the front desk and Mose actually did a lot of vet tech type things.  Peggy and then Mrs. Good answered the phone, kept appointments and did paper work.  They were like a family to us. 

As I got older, I started working at the front desk to make some money before I left for graduate school.  I worked there my last year in Memphis, 1980.  There was a terrible heat wave that summer.  Dogs were dropping like flies. There was also a parvo epidemic.  Robert and I formed a bond as we manned the front desk that hot, busy summer.

Naturally, we had lots of pets all throughout my childhood. Usually strays and rejects.  Someone brought a collie mix in who had heart worms.  The treatment was brutal and expensive. Rather than pay their bill, the owners abandoned the dog and Lassie became our childhood best friend.  She met us at the end of the block everyday when we walked home from school.  When I was in third grade she had puppies and the entire neighborhood crowded into our den to watch. 

We found our cat,Tabby, wandering around the neighborhood when I was about five years old.  Mom told us that if we couldn’t find his owner we could keep him.  We rang a few doorbells and declared him an orphan and he was added to the menagerie.  There was Aster, short for “Eden’s Aster”. Also known as Aster the Disaster.  He was an Airdale born to a breeder who wanted him put down because one of his testicles had not dropped.  Dad brought him home instead. Dad was a softie.

While I was in Austin at graduate school, Mom told me that they had had to put Tabby to sleep.  He was over twenty years old and his health was failing.  The last straw was that he was doing his business on the floor air vents and Mom had her limits.  Pee in the air conditioning was definitely a limit.

I came home for Thanksgiving that year and stopped by the clinic to hang out with Robert and the gang.  The break room was full of the usual holiday loot and we were making pigs of ourselves. I told Robert what a shame it was about Tabby. He asked me what I meant.  I said, you know, about his dying.  “He’s not dead.  He’s here, in the back.  Do you want to see him?”  

Well, Tabby looked awful. It broke my heart. Three months in a cage will do that. It was obvious that he was dying. His eyes pleaded for relief. Robert said that Dad would not put him to sleep. It was a no brainer for me.  I asked Robert to do it. And he did. Dad and I never discussed it. Mom never knew. She thought he had died in August.

My sister called it my alternate universe.  My days had developed a rhythm, a pattern.  It was actually quite comforting in its simplicity.

I slept at the La Quinta.  It met my basic needs.  I got up, ate breakfast, went to the hospital. Sat with Dad. Talked to him.  Watched TV with him. Cut up his food. Helped him go to the bathroom.  I sometimes had time to sneak down to the cafeteria for a bite to eat. Sometimes not.  I went back to the hotel.  Went to bed.  Did it again.

I don’t know how long this lasted.  It was all outside of the dimension of time.  No other people existed in this alternate universe.  It was just me and Dad.  There was no agenda, no friendships, no husband, just us.

It was numbing. I’ve recently come to realize that this alternate universe did not end when dad died.  It has a hold over me.  Re entry has not just been hard, it hasn’t happened. My mind is somewhere else. I need to reclaim the time the locusts took.  I need to make amends.  I need to reconnect.  I need to be present in this world where I live.

Warning.  Do not ever, ever, ever, ever leave a loved one in a hospital room alone.  Not for one minute.  Do not assume that your loved one will be taken care of. Stay there yourself, have other family members stay with them, and if you can, hire sitters.

So she did.  She took the milk juggy thing, put the right parts in the right place and waited for Dad to do his business. There is no dignity in being sick.  Lines are crossed. Roles are reversed.  You see your Dad’s junk. When he was finished, Melisse came back to where we were sitting, turned to me and with wide eyes said “I am scarred for life.” 

As it turns out, Melisse should have given me a lesson before she left. On my first turn with the jug, I closed my eyes and shoved it in the approximate vicinity. Next thing I know, Dad and I are both getting sprayed. Oh my gosh. The damn thing had a lid.

My dad loved a good deal.  He loved getting something for nothing.  He was thrifty to a fault.  He loved money but he did not value material possessions one iota.  Money was a score card.  It separated you from those less intelligent or hard working.  But spending money on ostentatious living was frowned upon.  

When mom was alive, she spent money on the things that she liked to spend money on.  She slipped money to my sister for her children’s tuition, she bought nice presents for her kids and even nicer ones for her grand kids. She liked to dress herself and my dad in designer clothes.  They had a guy at James Davis.  Mom expected Dad to buy her expensive gifts and he did not let her down.

But once mom died, dad settled into a life of frugality that was almost spartan and was certainly comical for a man of his means. He bought his khakis in bulk at Walmart, ditto for his shirts.  He would go all over town looking for the cheapest tomato. But mostly he just did without.

He was a staple at the local Chinese-all-you-can-eat-buffet,
and he would tell me about each day’s offerings, all 58 individual items, even though they rarely changed.  He had a mind like a steel trap.  That comes in handy when you’re blind.  Another story for another day.  Chinese-all-you-can-eat-buffets don’t attract a well heeled clientele.  Dad liked to complain about the other patrons.  One day at the fried catfish section, someone bigger and badder blocked him out and got the last piece.  The lady with the new batch of catfish saw it all go down and she put not one, not two, but THREE pieces of freshly fried catfish on dad’s plate.  He had only planned on getting one piece, but since she had put three pieces on his plate, he decided to eat two and take the third piece home to eat later.  I said, “Dad, these Chinese-all-you-can-eat-buffets generally don’t allow you to take things home.”  He said, “I know, I put it in my pocket.”

Have you ever heard a song that stopped you dead in your tracks?   Most songs have to grow on me.  I listen to them over and over until they are imprinted on my brain.  The repetition is comforting. The Wood Song by the Indigo Girls was the theme song of my mother’s death. I would listen to it ad nauseam and cry buckets. Well, I just found the soundtrack for my dad’s death. This song touched me from the very first moment “The roses came but they took you away.” I’m all in.  I stay in the car until the song is finished.

Dad, you were home in your bedroom just like you wanted. Your last lucid moment had been on Thursday.  Melisse and I were keeping vigil. Waiting. Early Monday the sitter called us down.  It was over.  It was peaceful, it was good.  You were in Heaven and we had no regrets. But then reality kicked in, phone calls, paperwork, funeral home, goons with white gloves.  Melisse took over.  I was spent.  I was up stairs napping when I heard them come to get you.  Two Gothic weirdos right out of central casting.  I swear, one of them had a handle bar mustache and a driving cap.  They zipped you up in a bag and took you away.  They left a single red rose on the bed where you had been.  That part was creepy.

Later that afternoon, I overheard Melisse on the phone with the funeral home. “What do you mean you don’t have him?  Somebody came and got him? Where the heck is he?” Sorry Dad, but we temporarily misplaced you. It turns out “that funeral home up there on Park Avenue” was not specific enough. My bad, I’m from out of town.

Today,pulling into my driveway, I hear this song by The Script.  I sit in my car listening to the rap lyrics, sometimes profane,  until the song is over.  I cry buckets.  I’ve found my theme song for you, Dad.  I miss you.