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After he died, his doctor told me how impressed he was that I was there so often, that
it was unusual for a son to do that for a father, and though I thanked him for what I knew
was meant as a compliment, it didn't make me feel any less worn-out, or any less guilty
for not doing more, for not having done more over many, many years. And I wondered,
as long as this was going to be the end no matter what I did, what did it matter what I
had or hadn't done? All those other people the doctor was talking about, who couldn't or
wouldn't or didn't show up to help their parents live their last days—were they wrong
to shield themselves from a grueling and bitter experience?
He finally went into the hospital, and after a few days he was transported to a palli-
ative care facility, coincidentally in the Bronx, where he was born and grew up. I don't
know if that ever occurred to him, though it gave me a morsel of solace. He was barely
conscious by the time they moved him.
It was pouring rain that day. I sat in the back of the ambulance with him, whispering
the things you whisper: “Are you okay, Dad? Anything I can do? We'll be there soon,
don't worry. It's a nice place, you'll see. You'll be comfortable.”
We drove up the West Side Highway and exited toward the Cross Bronx Expressway.
Cars were backed up on the ramp, and as we edged forward to enter the stream of fast-
moving traffic, the ambulance was rammed from behind by another car. My father lifted
his head, his eyes opened, and he moaned.
This is a joke, I thought, and I actually laughed and said, “Are you kidding me?” It
was a moment that made me think of God. Who else would the “you” in that sentence
be? I was never a believer, but that was the moment I dispensed with him for good. (I
can't even get myself to capitalize the pronouns.) Our lives are in no one's hands but our
own.
The accident, it turned out, wasn't serious in any other way. The drivers got out and
barked at each other briefly in the rain, but we arrived at Calvary Hospital without fur-
ther incident and my father lived for a week in the care of kind, skillful people. (And
yes, I'm aware of the irony of the name.) The news that he had died came on the phone
in the middle of the night.
I thanked the nurse who called and hung up. Coco was asleep at the foot of the bed,
and her presence, the knowledge of her heartbeat, was comforting. I've felt sadder in my
life, more desperate, more frightened, but never more lonely.
My father's funeral, on a warm day in June two and a half years after my mother's, was
held in the same funeral home in White Plains as my mother's, in the same morose room
with the stiflingly low ceiling. The same funeral director, with the same well-practiced
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