There is a lot to share here, and it may or may not be brief. I sit now in my father’s house, with the clamor of people and machines diminished. No, not diminished. Gone. The oxygen compressor is silent, the hospital bed makes no more breathy adjustments to relieve pressure points. The man that was my father is gone.

The day started in chaos. I knew it would be a difficult day. The night was filled with noise – firecrackers, Roman candles, moans and coughs from the hospital bed, a c-pap machine and soft music that never shut off. I remember looking at the clock at 1:37AM and going out to check on him. He lay on his back, as he had for days, moaning through his breathing. I sat on the chair beside him and watched, feeling more than a little helpless. I knew this was hard for him. I also knew this was one thing I couldn’t take from him. I meandered back to bed, not really sleeping much.

Finally, at just before 5:00AM I went into the living room where the hospital bed was. He was in pain. Poking at his rib cage, he could not enunciate the words. The dying speak to us in primordial or primal ways. Grunts and pointing, moaning and cries, it speaks to the deeper compassion we share as humans. I got the morphine and gave him a full dose. One hour later, furrowed brow; the pain was still there, one more dose. It’s funny the dread the living have for something like morphine. I thought, this is too much. I gave it to him because it was all I knew how to do. Relieve the pain, extinguish the fear.

At 7:00AM, his breathing was labored and he was beginning to cough quite a bit. I’ll leave out particulars, I promise. At 10:30, I felt the deeper chaos coming over me. What could I do, who could I ask, what is next? I’m not equipped to deal with this, I thought. I don’t know what to do. Jessica, at TRU Hospice, was a voice of reason. She walked me through some things to try, stayed on the speaker phone when his coughing became very bad and he just couldn’t catch his breath. She said “It’s tense, I know. I’m with you.” A clear call in so much unrelenting activity.

Things were swirling by 11. We sat him up, then on his side, then back up. He looked at me with very wide eyes – wider than I have seen him open them in weeks. I was struck by the beautiful green and rheumy whites of his stare. They were red-rimmed. I held his head and said I was there for him. My sister took one side, and I took the other, holding his hands. I could tell when his breathing changed and then suddenly, like someone shutting off a light, he was gone. Just. Gone. My mind took a moment to acknowledge. I had my hand on his chest, then on his neck, checked his breathing. Silence. I asked Doyle, who was there, to check my sanity and his responses. No, I was right, he was gone.

It is startling how soon last breaths come, and how fast they find their way to the atmosphere. How quickly peace descends. How silent silence really is. My sister began to cry quietly, and me? I sat in wonder of the human life. The birth, the death, the long stretch in between. I wonder why we have children, only to allow them to die. I kept thinking “what is he thinking now?” He knew that I was fast approaching the point of not being able to care for him alone. And the stubborn old coot said he wanted to die at home, so damn it, he was going to die at home. Well, he did get his way and here’s a toast to him.

I sat with him for a while and recited some of the Bardo Thodol to him, as much as I could with so many people around, trying to help him ferry the passage to “The Intermediate Stage.” He was angry that Death had come for him. Shouldn’t he have been spared? He wanted 15 more years and why couldn’t he have them? He was fearful that Death had come for him, too. If you take no time to form some opinions and hold your thoughts about the next Great Adventure, of course you will be afraid. A life of dodging death is not a life ready to die. The eternal question and answer await all of us. It behooves us to figure out what we believe because at the end, it’s the same journey we all must take.

I don’t believe my father’s journey has ended. I believe that his essence, that animus that sinks into our very tissues, is energy that is never wasted. It settles back on the air, the earth, the rain, and the fire, feeding those new beings yet to be thrust into this world. Perhaps it is an apple, to feed the young child, or it’s the sparrow that is singing in the June sunshine. Perhaps it is both. I would like to think that the terrors of this world are over for him, the uncertainty and fear are vanished.

One of his cats now stands on the empty hospital bed. She had stayed with him the last few days, sleeping with him and occasionally pawed him. She’s looking for someone and it’s not me. I am tried. Bone tired. Doyle said to me, “the hard part is over. Now you do what you do best.”Organize. Project manage. Whip the ship into shape and make it ready to sail. I will sleep tonight and tomorrow deal with the leftovers of this world. I hope that he sleeps very well tonight, in the Light and adventure of a new life.

For me, I sleep surrounded by the love of so many people, shared with me over the last few days. I cannot reply to you all, not with adequate words of gratefulness. Just know that you journeying with me and my father on this road has been a comfort, a blanket if you will, of solidity and love. I never knew the depths of love that surround me. I promise not to be foolish with it as we move through the rest of our days and nights together. I really do love you all.

Namaste, lovely father. You were beloved and loved by many, and a joy to my heart. I’m glad of the time we had together.

H. Leonard Baker – August 15, 1932 – July 5, 2018