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Heart & Soul
January 1, 2001
The night I learned what really matters.
I watched a man die last night. Hospice Room 436 lay unusually quiet—except for labored breathing, a sound like a man running a long final lap. His blue hospital gown rose and fell on the heaving chest.
The black magic marker tag above the bed read: "Gillis, Algerd." Al was the father of Michael, my friend. When my dad died eight years ago, Michael stood by me. When the sympathy cards had stopped coming and I began the terrifying freefall into grief, Michael had been my parachute. Now I could stand with him in vigil at his father's deathbed.
I tried to look into Al's eyes, which had always been playful. He had reminded me of Pinocchio's Gepetto. Under his silver eyebrows, dark now circled the eyes; his lids were slightly open, but the eyes were rolled back and showed only white. Clear plastic tubing snaked from the wall to a mask covering his nose and mouth. The nurses said he might make it through the night; they weren't sure. His kidneys were shutting down. His fingertips and earlobes were tinged blue.
Out in the shiny hospital hallway, laundry carts stood silent. It was deep past midnight, and we were alone: a son, a wife, a dying dad, a friend.
Hearing is the last sense to fade, so Michael and his wife, Stephanie, spoke to his dad—beautiful words, tender words. "I love you, Dad," Michael said. "I'm here with you, and you won't be abandoned. You won't be left alone."
"Thank you for all you've given us," Stephanie added, holding his hand, which occasionally twitched, from the stroke or the morphine. Al had always been generous, helping with school expenses or other needs.
"Whenever you helped us," Michael said, "and we said thank you, you just told us, 'That's what dads are for.' " He paused, then repeated, "That's what dads are for."
Michael and Stephanie caressed Al's forehead and hands and arms with all the tenderness of a mother for her newborn.
When I finally had to leave Hospice Room 436 and walk down the quiet, shiny hallway to the elevators, I thought about what I'd seen.
Death changes the conversation. It strips away cheap social conventions and calls us either to be silent or to speak from the heart. In that room, the only words that seemed appropriate were the kind that are deep and clear and true.
Death changes the calculation. Whatever seemed so important during life—job or money or house or success—doesn't matter now. When you're in extremis, the most important thing, apart from being ready to meet God, is to be surrounded by people who love you.
I walked out the emergency room exit, the only one still open, praying for Al and Michael and Stephanie. And praying for myself.
My life story is still being written, but the pages had just been flipped forward: I saw my next-to-last chapter. The essential skills in that moment will be to give and receive love.
Am I willing to take the risk? Can I speak more often from the heart, tender words that leave me fully open? Can I receive love from others—openly receive —or do I shuffle and protest?
People long for community, for authenticity. If we are to lead them, we need to learn the lessons of Hospice Room 436.
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