Two months before my third birthday, my father had a massive stroke that left him in a coma and paralyzed on his left side. He eventually regained a lot of his mobility and functionality but was left changed in the way that being near death tends to do to us. In my childlike way, I didn't understand what had happened but had merged bits and pieces of many related and unrelated stories. I recall telling a friend in fourth grade that my father's problem was that a large piece of our backdoor screen got lodged just under the surface of his chest. The back door was broken and missing the bottom portion of the screen. It all made sense. His life and existence were fragile because of this foreign thing in his body. While I didn't understand medically what had happened, I understood emotionally. Life is fragile, and we must tend to it lovingly and make it last.

 

I received a call from my mother just days before my 34th birthday that my father's death was quickly approaching. I returned to Idaho and had the opportunity to spend his last days with him.

 

We had discussed his death many times before and discussed what we loved and valued about each other. During his last hours, I called on many techniques I had learned while preparing for the births of our two daughters and essentially "coached" him to his death. During Lamaze, we were taught to use a focal point. I had nothing to offer him as a focal point, so I encouraged him to focus on my eyes. A part of me thought that if we held each other's eyes, he would remain alive. It would last. He was gone despite all my efforts to make it last.

 

After his death, when I finally went back to his bedside, his face was different. He was relaxed.

 

All the fear was gone. Every hurt he had ever suffered, all the pain and struggle had been wiped away. The wrinkles around his mouth and the corners of his eyes were still there, and so was the memory of each story we shared.

 

We seem to have choice around what we want to make last by what we recall and hold in our heart and mind. There were many moments that I could choose to make last. To hold that moment of panic during his death held me for some years. Eventually, I understood that I could choose to hold the moment of his relaxed, pain-free face. My father relaxed his face and left all pain and fear on my 34th birthday.