My tears too began to fall as I put my arm around my dad’s shaking, shrunken shoulders.
“I just… I just….” he wept, his gray head hanging. Occasionally he looked up and out the window to the bright inviting day outside. The tall summer grass was laying over in the breeze, the flowers on the porch alternately dimmed and illuminated by the patchy clouds moving swiftly in and out of the path of the sun’s rays.
With effort, he pulled his shoulders up to draw a ragged breath. “I just feel so restless, to be outside,” he said, pausing to pull in more air between phrases. “I hate sitting here, lying here, dying.”
For a man who arguably spent two-thirds of his life, and certainly his best hours, out of doors, the greatest theft ALS has wrought to date is that of his freedom to be working outside on our farm. So much of his day is now spent resting in bed, or forever anticipating a bowel movement, or waiting for my availability to convey him to the porch to enjoy what nature he can from the porch.
And I, as always, am torn. I hug my dad tight, kissing the protruding vertebrae at the top of his bony back, but I hear angry squeals from the other end of the house, and the thunder of several pairs of preschool feet tearing toward me for justice. Sure enough, the door to my dad’s room bursts open and their pleas and accusations pour forth as they pile through the door. I order them out, and my dad pats my leg and gestures after them, releasing me to tend to their needs. I give him a lingering look as I head for the door. His face is still wet. I want to stay and give in to the sorrow, to walk with him through this loss. But my four kids, his grandchildren, call me away. So I return to them, to living and growing and learning and squabbling and playing, while my dad curls up on his bed again, staring out the window.
Posted on June 16th, 2009 by Dove
Filed under: ALS
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