Drove up, signed papers, came home.

While there, I saw my dad. Eventually, we will go over everything. But today, I only want to talk about two or three things, so I don’t forget them.

He has lost so much weight he looks like a different person. Or perhaps more accurately, a yellowed skeleton, an animatronic of what my father might look like, were he caricatured by mean-spirited puppeteers to be a guest host on HBO’s Tales From The Crypt.

I don’t mean this to be cruel, but more like every visual cue, even those I’d never consciously been aware of, blared: Death. Death is here. But still my father.

He seemed distressed to see me, but also caught in a dream. You know that expression people get when they have the flu and are getting ready to throw up, but not quite rushing to the bathroom yet, their focus inescapably inward? It was like that. He was eerily lucid, speaking in complete sentences. This fact introduced when I said, “Hey Dad, how are you doing?”

And he said, “I am worried. I am going to die.” Or maybe it was, “I am worried I am going to die.” I guess it doesn’t matter.

Later, I told Middle I thought the important take away was that he didn’t say, “I’m afraid,” or “I don’t want to die.” Although those things are probably true, at least I can hold on to the fact he didn’t seemed desperately fearful, or terribly conflicted, just sad.

Dad complained his throat hurt, and we tried to get him to drink first water and then some root beer. Four of the five sips he took over the course of 90 minutes ended in him dry heaving into a trash can and spitting repetitively into tissue paper. Twice, he pinched his tongue the way a person does when they’ve got an errant hair in their mouth. I came away thinking he’s probably losing overall hydration by drinking. I guess that like terminal lucidity, with some dementias a person can feel as though their throat is closing up at the end.

On the drive home, it occurred to me that as bad as he looks, if they gave him an IV, he might still pull out of this tailspin. I was glad then, about the lucidity. I’m sure my mother will ask him if he wants to do that. It might make it easier, to have the option.

*

After the drinking and spitting had settled down, Dad got upset. “I had something to say.” He held his head in his hands, slouched over. I’ve never seen him make that gesture, like he was defeated.

“You mean to Natalie?” Mom asked.

Dad nodded. “The words are gone. Took my words. I had something to say.” He blinked a couple times, eyes watery. Head back in hands.

“Well you can tell her you love her,” Mom said after a while. Dad shrugged, nodded, still upset. Jeez, I knew that body language from my childhood. He was definitely not letting it go. The phone rang and Mom went to take it.

For the record, I have a lifetime of knowing him. I don’t expect there was anything he could’ve told me I don’t already know in some form. Also for the record, it’s weird being at ground zero of absolute nightmare fodder, the question of what he might’ve said, his despair at being right in front of me and unable to convey it. Maybe this is just the most important thing to know about life, that nothing ever wraps up neatly.

*

After a while of sitting in mostly silence, Dad’s focus seemingly internal, evidently listening to whatever your body tells you as the last guys in your shop are shutting off the lights, powering down the generator, and locking the door behind them (presumably leaving you in there, in the dark, by yourself. Wheeee). My Dad used to like to sing, and I’d read familiar music can be therapeutic for dementia. The only band I could remember my dad ever liking was Three Dog Night (in cassettes in his glove compartment).

I didn’t know jack shit about that band, but thanks to Youtube, I pulled them up and scrolled through their playlist. I recognized exactly one title and played it.

It worked pretty good. Dad was laughing and humming along by the end. Then mom came back, and it was OK.

*

When we got back from the lawyer two hours later, Dad was expressionless, nonverbal, no eye contact. His caretaker said Dad had taken no liquids or the ice cream she’d gotten out for him. Very gruesomely, but having just spent time with Mom and her grief, I suggested we all take pictures. So now I have photos of my mom and dad, and also me, Dad, and Mom together.

Each photo looks like one of those old Victorian memento mori photos (Hey, warning! That link contains photos of dead people). Dad’s alive in the photos, but the absolute stillness, the skin tone, the eyes that never reach the photographer. They say memento mori are creepy in part because the camera technology was so crude back then that the breathing of living subjects made them blurry while the dead were ethereally still. But I would argue that even on my fancy iphone X, there is a stillness to my father that modern technology can’t yet capture in the living.

After, I kissed him on the top of his head and said goodbye. Later in the car ride, I thought, “Jeez, that was probably the last time I’ll ever see him. Why didn’t I take a moment?”

Those are just thoughts to torture myself with, not reality. The truth is, we had a lifetime together. The truth is, whatever good or bad that needed to be said was done so long before this. And the truth is, it only happens one way, and so that was the way it was supposed to happen.

*

I am mostly somewhere between atheism and snooty disinterest with God since Little’s baby died. But also this week? The dog shelter emailed saying they knew I hadn’t signed up for it, but would our family be able to take care of a mom dog and some unknown amount of newborn puppies for the next two months? Like as soon as she whelps?

It might very well be a total disaster, smelly and maybe heartbreaking. Or the mom dog might be a mean, charmless feral thing who bites. But it’s also one of those weird moments where I thought, “I’ll probably never in the normal course of my life get a chance to do this.” So we said yes.

In a very strange but undeniably pleasant way, it feels like whatever God is out there might be a total fuck-all fuck-up, incompetent and powerless, needlessly cruel and full of laterdayzbitches! when it counts, but also maybe feebly lifted a finger and was all, “Hey Anne, I’m gonna make your life a 24/7 puppy gif for a while. So things are gonna get bad, but when they do? Maybe you can just lie down on the floor and let smelly, yippy fuzzballs lick your face and chew on your socks until you feel better.”

This does not generally change my atheism mindset, but it did make me feel better for a moment to think it. What a sucker I am.

PS: I have not replied to any of your precious emails or comments. I feel generally like Smaug (lookit me, fully two HOBBIT references in one post!), sitting on a pile of treasure. They make me happy! Or perhaps happy is not the right word. But something good. So generally bright-spot-in-stressful-world-good, in fact, that I don’t want to answer them. See, if I answer them, then the interaction is complete. If I don’t answer them, then I know I have to go back and read each one to respond. So like I said, I am sitting on them all, hoarding all their good thoughts for a second dose, knowing they are waiting for me. Cannot apologize or further explain. Just wanted you to know that’s what I’m doing.