The last time

The last time I heard him speak he used his final words to tell his crying mess of a family, “I’m sorry”, before he faded into a drug induced coma. Apparently the pain from organs failing is so excrutiating, Doctor’s give you the option to either stay somewhat conscious and experience this agony, or be so heavily medicated you slip into a morphine dream until it’s all over. Of course we made him choose the latter. It gave us less time to be with him, but he had already suffered enough. With that farewell he chose to apologize for the pain he knew would soon spill over onto us.

The last time I could see he was still there in his half lidded eyes was 2 days later. I knew he was in there still. I knew he had been the moment I saw his eyes stop moving like eyes do when in the dreaming stage. He was still breathing, but when you’ve been around a person long enough to see the life in their eyes... you can tell the moment it’s gone.

The last time I saw him breathing was a day later. It was laboured, that horrible croaking noise hospital’s aptly labeled the “death rattle”. I can never forget the sound, and how much I hated it. Partly because it was awful, and partly (mostly) because I was terrified for when it would stop. When it did stop, I held my breath too. I think our whole family stopped breathing for a moment, like we were unsure if we still should when he couldn’t. It was as if we all acknowledged that a huge piece of us died.

The last time I saw him was in an open casket. He looked so peaceful, wearing one of his favorite outfits, some tattered old clothes he rarely was seen without. No 3 piece suits for him, that wouldn’t have been right. He was resting from this life, when I kissed his forehead one last time and said my goodbyes.

That was 11 years ago, and now, 11 years later, I keep the hope that someday, it won’t be the last time.