Dying Mad

"And if his last breath should come soon he will use it to scream at a nurse or doctor or aide who is trying to help him. Such misery is no life, but it just might be his fitting end."


PINELLAS PARK, FL - I am writing this in Florida. Not the good Florida, the fantasy land we all dream about right around mid-February, but the trailer park, aimless youth, flea market and dingy strip mall Florida. The kind of place where even sunshine seems to smell like generic cigarettes and scratch-off wax under the fingernails; where being tat-less and body puncture-less means you are old and just trying to stay below the radar else those with destructive appetites notice you and make you a victim.

In other words, this is no Disney vacation. I haven't seen anything close to a beach in the days I have been here and would love nothing more than to see my breath condensing as I warm up the car after a 10 hour day in West Akron. I am serious.

So why am I here? Many of us are gappers, that is we fall between generations. One is just getting their footing, if we are lucky, and the other is on their last leg. We are here because of the latter.

Two things have been reinforced on this trip. For one, my wife Monika is a saint - not an angel, she does not bear the burden softly - and my 98-year-old father-in-law remains mad at the world, perhaps to the bitter end.

Even getting up when he should have known better while in nursing care and slipping on his own waste is somebody else's fault. Breaking his hip and being rushed to emergency is someone else's fault. And if his last breath should come soon he will use it to scream at a nurse or doctor or aide who is trying to help him. Such misery is no life, but it just might be his fitting end.

My mom died two years ago in December. She was not angry nor frightened nor remorseful. She was 92 and if she could have predicted it, her last breath would have been a laugh; a good old fashioned belly laugh.

I don't know how much time Danny has left. I would like to think he has enough time to recapture the charm he can show others and the determination that afforded him nearly 30 to 40 years more life than the average American man. We were ready to bring Monika's mom home with us to Hudson and leave Danny in the capable hands of the long-term care professionals. That has changed. Monika cannot leave him with such uncertainty and I will return alone on Tuesday.

There are lots of ways we are dispatched from this life. And few of us have a choice or a chance to choreograph the event. If I learned anything from the gracious and accepting people I have seen in their final moments it is this: don't stay mad at the world.

Exit laughing.