Waiting - A Personal Story

I didn't cry at my father's funeral – not even one tear.

It was a wet, cold day when we buried him. Six men from Fort Knox, dressed in army uniforms, carried him from the hearse to the grave site, next to my brother. David died in a car wreck when he was 28, leaving a wife, a 4-year-old daughter and a 3-week-old son. Another man, wearing an army uniform, started the burial service with Taps, playing on a bugle. After the preacher said a few last words, each pallbearer walked in front of the casket and saluted my father. As the rain continued, they presented my mother with a precisely folded flag and the service concluded with a 21-gun salute. It was an awesome tribute to a man who had served in the Army for 21 years.

My parents had been married for 46 years. For as long as I can remember, my mother worried about my dad's health and pleaded with him to see a doctor. My mother became unusually concerned one morning – they were drinking coffee and he was smoking his first cigarette for the day – when she noticed a lump on the side of his neck. He knew the lump was there but he ignored it, like the persistent cough he always had. With symptoms of hoarseness and weight loss, it took two years to convince him to see a doctor and by this time, the news was not good.

He finally went to the doctor in August 1996. The doctor took my mother into the hallway and told her, "It's bad." Without hesitation, he made an appointment with a specialist in cancer surgery and treatment. When the specialist examined him, he knew right away -- before the biopsy – it was cancer. My dad had a massive tumor on the right side of his neck, just below his chin. He was diagnosed with the most common throat cancer, cancer of the larynx or voice box. With throat cancer, early diagnosis is the key to recovery. If diagnosed early, when only one vocal cord is affected, there is a good chance the cancer can be cured. By the time he was diagnosed, it had spread much farther than one vocal cord. Surgery was promptly scheduled to remove the voice box – a laryngectomy – and to remove any other cancer the doctors expected to find.

At the time, Mike and I lived in Mississippi, 650 miles from our hometown in Indiana. Our normal excitement was missing as we drove north on the interstate to be with my family during the surgery. At the Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, we waited ten hours while seven surgeons operated on my father. I tried to keep my mind occupied with reading but most of the time was spent pacing the floor and comforting my mother. Knowing that I would never hear my dad's voice again, I prayed that he would make it through this difficult surgery and have a normal life.

During the surgery, the doctors found cancer everywhere on the inside of his mouth, even on his lips. They removed his voice box along with one third of his tongue. They also removed lymph nodes in his neck and a portion of his jaw. After removing all the cancerous areas, skin grafts were taken from his chest and used to reconstruct his mouth and his face. Half-way into the surgery, they found cancer near the brain and the surgery became life-threatening. After my mother signed a permission form to continue with the procedure, the doctors removed a vein leading to my dad's brain and replaced it with a vein from his leg. The next several hours were sheer agony as we waited. Finally, a doctor came to the waiting room and announced to the family, "The surgery was successful, we removed all the cancer."

After the surgery, it was time for the recovery room. When it was my turn to see my dad, I hesitated but I went because I was expected to. I had never been in a recovery room and I had never seen someone right after a major surgery. I was not sure what to expect. I walked past other patients in the room, trying not to look, and made it to my dad. I looked at him and left the room, in tears. I knew my dad would never be the same.

That night, Mike and I slept in my parents' bed while my mom slept in the hospital waiting room. When we walked into the house, I gathered up all the ashtrays and threw them away. After 53 years, my father had finally quit smoking.

Following surgery, he (and my mother) continued to fight the cancer. After a certain amount of healing, he tried to learn to talk using prosthesis. It never worked right and he became frustrated with it. He tried to write notes to my mother, but even this was frustrating so he gave up. My parents lived in a world of silence, unable to communicate with each other.

Before the cancer, my dad only weighed 140 pounds. As he underwent radiation treatments, he lost his desire for food, and it was hard to keep his weight steady. To keep him going, meals were fed through a feeding tube and Ensure became a part of his regular diet. Thirty-nine radiation treatments later, my dad was tired and weak. His clothes began to hang on him and as he lost weight, we knew the cancer was gaining control.

Eight months after my dad's surgery – more bad news – he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctor told my mother, "The only thing left to do is to make him comfortable." They gave him a week to six months to live. My mother took him home and became his nurse, doing everything she could for him. After a year of fighting the cancer, their fight was about to end.

I had moved away from Indiana in 1990 and when we visited my parents, my dad was always the first person we saw. When he knew we were coming, he would wait on the glassed-in front porch, always wearing a cap and drinking iced tea. When we approached the house, we could see him from our mini-van. As soon as he saw us, he would get up, get my mother, and she would meet us at the back door.

"It's about time," Dad always said, as if we were late.

We enjoyed our visits, and goodbyes were never easy. We made several trips to Indiana during my dad's illness—he even made one trip to see us. Each time I saw him, I could see him getting worse. I was constantly preoccupied with my dad's condition and it was especially hard being so far away.  I waited every day, expecting a phone call.

It was a Sunday afternoon when I knew it was time to go home. Mike and I were packing and making plans to drive to Indiana when my mother called. With desperation in her voice, she told me, "It's time to come home." She didn’t know that we were already packing and getting ready to leave.

Not knowing if we would make it in time, we drove nonstop on the interstate. On the way, I told Mike, "I am not going to see Dad. I only want to be with Mom." I had no intention of seeing my father and my mother knew this; we had talked about it on the phone. I had seen him in the recovery room after surgery and I knew this would be much worse. I would not put myself through that again.

After the ten-hour drive, we arrived at the house and for the first time, my dad was not waiting on the front porch. He had been in bed for more than two weeks, without food and unable to even swallow a teaspoon of water. My mother greeted us at the back door and immediately said to me, "Come see your dad,” which made me mad. I told her no and I unpacked our suitcases. He knew I was there and that was enough.

We waited that night, not sleeping and expecting him to die before morning. Morning came and he was still holding on. The Hospice nurse visited as she had been doing for weeks. Checking his vital signs, she could not get a blood pressure or a pulse rate. According to his vital signs, he was dead. But his eyes were open, staring into space, and his heart was beating. The nurse didn't understand it. She suggested that he be placed in a nursing home but my mother quickly dismissed that idea. We continued to wait in silence.

To avoid going in my parent's bedroom – where the shower was – I left that morning and drove 20 minutes to my mother-in-law's house. After my shower, we went back. My sister was waiting with my mother and decided to leave. Before she left, she told Dad goodbye, like she always did.

After she left, standing at the kitchen sink, I knew what I needed to do. Taking a deep breath and without saying a word to anyone, I walked into the bedroom, the place I had tried so hard to avoid.

My father was lying on the bed wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. He was skinnier than I ever imagined. Weighing less than 60 pounds, he was unable to move his skeletal body. His bony arm was raised up on his elbow, fixed in one position. When I stepped into the bedroom, I was not shocked by what I saw and I was not upset. I had a feeling of peace as I walked over and laid down beside him. Holding his frail hand, I told him how much I loved him and what a good father he had been. I told him not to worry about Mom, we would take good care of her and she would be fine. He moved his lower lip and tried to talk. He heard every word I said to him and in the best way he could, he told me he loved me.

We said our goodbyes and after lying next to him for a few more minutes, I left the room.

Suddenly, within 5 minutes after I left the bedroom, we heard a noise. Dad had fallen off the bed. My mother hurried to the bedroom. She lifted his feet while Mike held his head and they lifted him back on the bed. At this moment, as if on cue, the doorbell rang. It was Reverend Downey, my mother's pastor. We all went to the bedroom where my mother placed her hand on his chest and felt his heart take its last beat. An amazing peace filled the room, as we felt the presence of God. My dad was healed – his cancer was gone.

My father was waiting on me – just like the many times he waited on the front porch. He was determined not to leave this world without seeing me, one more time. I realized, the day he died, how much my father loved me. I cried during my dad's battle with cancer but not when the fight was over. My dad's death was a celebration because he had put his faith in Jesus before he died. One day, I will see my father again. He's waiting for me now, on the front porch in heaven, and when I get there, I expect him to smile and say, "It's about time."

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." ~John 3:16