The Vigil

One. Breath.

One. Breath.

Sitting in this room, watching my stepfather dying in front of me, feels very much like watching an accident unfold. In a few horrifying moments in 1993, I heard a crunch, turned my head, and watched a tiny car performing a 540-degree somersault before smashing down on its windshield on the pavement. The driver of the other vehicle, a light truck, jumped out of his vehicle with his forehead gushing blood, and ran as fast as he could from the scene of the accident.

Luckily, other than being shaken up, the passengers and driver in the small vehicle were wearing their seatbelts and mostly unhurt. We helped them out of their wrecked blue Ford subcompact and brought them little cups of water and first-aid kits to cover up the cuts while awaiting the arrival of the ambulance. I stuck around with my partner to help push the car over on its wheels for the towtruck.

I was powerless to do anything to prevent it. I could not have known what was going to happen. Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist the sense of despair at being unable to do more.

One, two. Breath.

One, two. Breath.

“That smells good. Whatcha’ cookin’ there, Matt?” asks Dennis in his inimitable Idaho drawl.

“It’s some beef stew. Want some?”

“Well, I would. But you know I can’t right now.”

I snap out of my daydream. He hasn’t moved more than labored breathing for several hours. He never talked to me about the plate of beef stew. But I can hear his voice in my head, in distinctive tones. I remember the sound of him hollering support to my kids while they played ball in the backyard.

“All right, Elijah! Way to go little guy!”

“Well, nice job Zack!”

“You did a great job, Sara.”

“Wow, Josh, you sure are fast.”

If nothing else, he was always a very positive person. It felt affected much of the time, like he was really working at being over-the-top cheery, but you have to appreciate the kind of effort that goes into doing that day in and day out for fifty-eight years.

One, two, three. Breath.

A slight choke.

One, two, three. Breath. A deep rattle in his chest.

He’s quiet. The morphine provided by the hospice seems to be working. He’s not flailing around or groaning in pain like he did last night. There’s no way of knowing how near the end is, but about the only things still pumping away are his heart, brain, lungs, and kidneys. Some better than the others, of course.

Dennis had a mild heart attack just a few years back. It barely slowed him down. He went right back to working his insurance business, always finding a way to make a buck. “If you can sell,” he quipped, “you’ll never go hungry. You may not get rich, but you can always support your family.”

Funny, we had been leaning on him to drop some weight and get on the exercise program the doctor told him to follow. Good advice for all.

He told us he didn’t want to go back to the hospital again. He wanted to be home.

One, two, three, four. Breath.

The deep rattle is replaced by a wheeze.

One, two, three, four. Breath.

And the rattle is back. Rattle plus wheeze. His lungs, I think incongruously, sound a bit like my first car.

Shift swap. Krystal takes a turn on the vigil. I sit behind her. I’m really not part of the rotation for Dennis. I’m here for my mom, and we all know it. But ultimately, neither Krystal nor Shirley want to face the inevitable without someone else there.

It’s tribe mentality, I guess.

Heh, Tribes. I used to play that computer game — Starsiege Tribes — way too much. Dennis used to get frustrated that sometimes I’d be playing computer games when he and my mom came to visit.

“You know we’re sitting right here, and there you are playing a game with your back to us. Should we just go home?”

His voice in my head again.

“I’m layin’ here and really wish I could tell you to knock off that infernal typing.”

Guess I’ll go along with the daydream and yield to my conscience. Back to the vigil. That practice sleeping polyphasically will pay off in the next day or two, I suppose.

One, two, three, four, five. Breath.