My family and I last saw my father alive on Wednesday, May 17, 2008 at 8:00pm as he laid in his hospital bed at the San Francisco Veteran’s Administration Medical Center awake, his eyes closed. His breathing was shallow but he looked relaxed and at ease. Unlike the day before, his silver hair was combed and his face was clean shaven but his cheeks were no longer rosy. They were sunken and pale and his lips were dry. His team of doctors told us 2 hours before that he could die anytime. Last week they said it could be days, weeks or months but on May 17, it was imminent.
His blood count was dropping fast, a sign that his cancer caused him to internally bleed. His doctors told us he had lung cancer the third day after he was admitted to the hospital. Well, they believe it’s cancer due to the symptoms of high levels of calcium, chronic sleepiness and emphysema, a byproduct of his 50 plus years of smoking cigarettes. They could have done a cat-scan to look for the lung cancer but the procedure deemed too risky for his weak and fragile 88 year old body.
Our family of 20 brothers, cousins, grandkids, great grand kids, uncles, aunties, nieces and friends crowded his hospital room. They were somber and quiet, their swollen red wet eyes showed their grief. My cousin, Sharon, was sitting on his bed rubbing his feet between the sheets. She kept saying his feet were cold as a steady stream of tears flowed down her cheeks. A cold body is a sign that that body is losing blood and therefore dying. His toffee colored hands had turned into a bruising blue and charcoal shade and he didn’t eat a morsel the whole day – more warning signs that the body is shutting down.
Six hours later, my brother and I are at home when the phone rings at 1:00am. I am wide awake but don’t want to answer it. On the third ring, he runs for the phone. I hold my breath, my heart pounding through my ears and chest wall as my bedroom starts to cave in around me. A minute later he knocks on my door and gives me the phone. Our mother is on the other line. “Daddy passed away peacefully in his sleep”, she says. I scream and fall to the floor.
His blood count was dropping fast, a sign that his cancer caused him to internally bleed. His doctors told us he had lung cancer the third day after he was admitted to the hospital. Well, they believe it’s cancer due to the symptoms of high levels of calcium, chronic sleepiness and emphysema, a byproduct of his 50 plus years of smoking cigarettes. They could have done a cat-scan to look for the lung cancer but the procedure deemed too risky for his weak and fragile 88 year old body.
Our family of 20 brothers, cousins, grandkids, great grand kids, uncles, aunties, nieces and friends crowded his hospital room. They were somber and quiet, their swollen red wet eyes showed their grief. My cousin, Sharon, was sitting on his bed rubbing his feet between the sheets. She kept saying his feet were cold as a steady stream of tears flowed down her cheeks. A cold body is a sign that that body is losing blood and therefore dying. His toffee colored hands had turned into a bruising blue and charcoal shade and he didn’t eat a morsel the whole day – more warning signs that the body is shutting down.
Six hours later, my brother and I are at home when the phone rings at 1:00am. I am wide awake but don’t want to answer it. On the third ring, he runs for the phone. I hold my breath, my heart pounding through my ears and chest wall as my bedroom starts to cave in around me. A minute later he knocks on my door and gives me the phone. Our mother is on the other line. “Daddy passed away peacefully in his sleep”, she says. I scream and fall to the floor.
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