Vigil
I'm sitting next to my father's hospice bed, listening to his breath slowly rattle in his throat. There are times when it stops and I wonder, is this it? But then he catches and it comes back. We've been waiting in some form or another for six months, waiting for discharge, waiting for surgery, waiting for improvement, waiting for a bed, waiting for a transfer, waiting for news, waiting to find out if there was a way forward, if there would be more to his story. But it's come down to sitting vigil. My role is to bear witness, to not look away, as I have done for the last six months to see his suffering and his pain, wishing I could take it all the way, wishing it had never happened to begin with, but knowing that we can never do that for anyone else in this life; at the end of the day, we all walk alone.
My daughter curled up next to me in bed this week and said, “Mama, you must feel like a piece of paper being ripped in half with part of you wanting to be with grandpa and part of you wanting to care for me and Augie…that means you’re just the rip.” I think her grandmother may have talked to her prior to this, though her maturity and empathy are astounding on their own. I told her she was right, that I am in the gap, the liminal space between life and death processing it all. These last days I have been wrapped in the folds of the shifting sheets of memory and regret. The pain of seeing someone so clearly but not soon enough for all your hopes to make it out of the canyons that form between intention and action, trespass and forgiveness, is so palpable to me right now it's a gum my jaws roll around all night.
I'm going to bed but will really be spending the minutes or hours before sleep recounting it all without filter as my brain has exhaustively been doing each night for months. Endlessly flipping through what should have been and could have been and the deep acceptance of what is, the impossible simultaneity of it all. There are so many images and songs and realizations and regrets and gifts that make up a relationship.
He's taught me a lot. For so many years, I refused to acknowledge that, refused to give my father any satisfaction or ownership or pride over anything that I had achieved or become; My success was in spite of my dad, not because of him, I told myself. My whole life has felt like I had to overcome him in order to exist, that there was only room for one of us at any given time. Which psychologist suggested we must annihilate our father to survive? If none, I’m saying that’s how I felt. I know now that I made him feel a similar sense of threat, that my existence somehow undid his. He knew he would never be good enough for me, would never live up to the expectations I had because he had deep self hatred from a lifetime of being unsupported and thinking it was all his fault. He was a bottomless lagoon of inadequacy that threatened to swallow everyone who got close enough to see his truth. He often ended up turning on those that could see him clearly and loved him still, because how could they? He thought he could never be better or what we needed so he resented those that would expect it. He could only pretend until his mask slipped, the fear and panic of being known for all he really was overcoming him. He knew for so long that his kids would exceed him, and part of him maybe resented that, but part of him also just didn't know how to be there for us or support us, because how can you support those you know are fundamentally better than you? What's your role? What do you say to parent a child who rejects all you have to offer on principle?
My kids now refuse all instruction and teaching, and I know that it's just karma coming back around. Squirrels have squirrels, my mother says, and it's true. We can tell ourselves that our children are like clay for molding. But that's not at all true. They're actually more like rocks when they come out, and if we want to change them, we have to chip away at who they are to remake them to our liking. We have to dismantle the precarious potential our children come with in order to direct what we do not even understand towards our own ends and goals. And some parents can do this. They can polish their children up and make them shine after they’ve tumbled them down to almost nothing, scraps of what they once were, and the parents believe they haven’t compromised the integrity of their children. But for us, for me, when it feels like I try to help my kids shine, I risk having them crumble along invisible fault lines I can't predict, so I have to just stand by and let them be what they are, and hope that it's enough, hope that if I model just existing as I am and accepting myself, that they'll be able to do the same. They don't need to excel or be optimal. They don't need to improve. They don't need to be better than me or better than what they're already set to be. They get to exist, as they are, with all their terrible beauty. Watching my father die has taught me how to be a better person, how to raise my kids better, how to let go of needing to remake the world in my likeness. Watching my father die has taught me so much about bravery and resilience and acceptance.
I have so much more to say about all of this. But for now, it’s time to rest.