January 22, 1992

His black, drugged, bottomless eyes follow me. They await when I wake. They sometimes join me in sleep.
The presence isn't a nightmare, just a strong memory.

My father died January 22, 1992.

I'm a person who has been blessed with good health and above average intelligence. I’ve drifted through a lifetime of small successes and almost consistent happiness. Then came the divorce. An amiable one by most standards, there were no bitter child custody fights, a minimum of still-painful accusations. And I came home to die.

It’s embarassing as I look back. Troubling.

The innate wisdom of my parents may have saved me. The emotional burden they assumed may have contributed to my father's death.

Once I explained, "When I want to talk of Michelle, I have a compulsion to talk. But, if you bring her up when I am not ready, it hurts almost too much to bear."

That was selfish -- they were hurting, too. My father, in particular, had seemed to form a bond with Michelle, a child-like woman of intelligence and creativity, and vast insecurity.

My parents listened during the bad times, supported, tried to understand -- they were there for me when they were needed. I realize now I never doubted they would do that.

Dec. 23, 1991. My parents are leaving to spend Christmas week with my brother Carl, sister-in-law Theresa and their three sons. Despite the fact I am to be alone on Christmas, I look forward to the solitude.

The phone at my news room desk suddenly rings. It is the manager of the newspaper, Don Culbertson. "Dale, I'm at the hospital. Your father's here. He's had some chest pains."

"How is he?" I'm not scared, just numb.

"You'd better come right out."

I don't remember the short trip to the emergency room. One of the benefits of living in Sikeston, Missouri, is you are five minutes from any place in town.

My mother meets me at the door and hugs me hard, mumbling indecipherable words. Is he dead already? It's a question I can't ask. The answer will come soon enough.

From around the corner I hear my father moaning. Though on his back, he keeps trying to assume the fetal position. He talks later, grudgingly, of the intense pain.

You can't get close. People are trying to help him and you don't want to get in the way. Missouri Delta Medical Center is a small town hospital, but the attention is professional, the treatment quick and sure.

Surprisingly, they take time to step to my side. Heart attack. Not severe. Most of the danger is over.

The 40 year old adult male, who expects to be in control during crises -- who has been in the past -- steps to the foot of the bed and lightly touches his father's leg.

"Don't die," I whisper. Nobody hears, but our eyes meet. I give him what I hope is a reassuring look.

"We're here, Dad." My voice sounds thin, uncertain.

He is admitted and there follows an excruciating month. Sometimes my father is his old self, laughing and smiling; sometimes I see him flinch as the nurse comes into the room to take blood. Recessed veins make that a special torture. His kind soul leads him to laugh with them, easing their conscience at the necessity of probing for veins that seem to jump away from the needle.

His sense of humor quickly makes him a floor favorite. Arthritis and old age have added a tinge of bitterness to Dad's attitude at times, but he remains a person good to be near.

Hope comes in early January when he is moved to a hospital in Cape Girardeau known for its treatment of heart problems. And, just as his depression at being cooped up in hospital rooms starts to deepen, doctors agree to send him home. He will return in a month, when an angioplasty will be done to clear the blockage in the veins to his heart.

The doctors are not sending him home because he is better; they are doing it because he is too weak even for the less-traumatic balloon surgery. I don't know this as I take the 30 mile trip to bring my father home. It is the happiest time in weeks. We make the trip in companionable silence.

While in the hospital my father has acquired a lingering virus. One of the reasons his doctor transferred him to Cape was the ineffectiveness of antibiotics she had tried. Homecoming is January 17, a Thursday. The coughing resumes that night. He probably gets less than 10 hours sleep that weekend.

Nor do I.

My father is stubborn. When it's suggested he see a doctor, he refuses. "They'd just put me back in," he grumbles.

From pure joy at his return home, the weekend turns into a horror, an extension of the seemingly happy marriage gone sour, the loving wife turned antagonist.

---

My ex-wife is asthmatic. During the marriage I was often awake while she slept. She was a morning person, I a night owl. There is a struggle to the breathing process for some asthmatics. When she would sleep, especially during illness, I would find myself standing vigil, listening to her breathe, willing her next draught of air.

It probably wasn't as difficult for her as it sounded to me, but it was a reality of that far away life. Somehow, I worried if I didn't listen for that next breath, she wouldn't take it.

---

I listen now for my father's loud, rasping breath and hacking cough. I stand down the hall, sometimes holding my own breath, willing the cough away. His lungs are filling with moisture. He can't bear to lie on his back. The infection is virulent, the cough relentless. He has left his bed and moved to the couch in the living room so Mom can sleep.

I stand in the hall listening. A vigil again.

Should I just bundle him up and force him back to the hospital? Because I want it to be so, I convince myself he simply has a cold. We are compliant with his chosen path.

A fatal mistake.

He finally agrees to see the doctor Monday. I get this call at work about 10 a.m. The doctor has said he is in congestive heart failure and immediately had him transported to the hospital. I leave work for what seems to be the 10th time in the last month. My employer won't hear the half-hearted apologies. "You do what you have to do," publisher Mike Jensen says, his concern obvious.

On arrival, my father gives me a sheepish half-grin. "I guess it was worse than I thought."

And, later that night, the doctor calls us at home. "I'm really worried about Mr. Forbis," she says. "Maybe you'd better call in the relatives.

"I'm not saying he's going to die," she continues, "but, I'd hate for you to wait, then regret it later."

My brother is on the road from St. Louis just minutes later. My mother and I return to the hospital, expecting the worst. Instead, my father is sitting up in bed, talking with the nurses, telling a joke or two. They circle his bed as he regales them with some anecdote. It's not a party, but they are chuckling quietly as they file out to resume the nightly routine.

What's this, I wonder? I thought he was dying?

The doctor has changed his medication and the improvement is apparent. His demeanor is positive, upbeat. We talk for 10 minutes, the limit in ICU, and then it’s time to leave. From stark fear to a calm brought on by his improvement, I still feel I have to let him know.

"Dad," I start, almost afraid to look him in the eye. The guys don't speak of love much in my family, at least not to each other.

"I know I'm just saying this because of this situation." I'm running words together; I don't want to cry. "But, that doesn't mean I mean it any less. Dad, it's important to me that you know how much I love you."

My brother arrives later that night, then leaves bright and early the next morning for the return home to St. Louis. Just before Carl leaves, Dad says, "I was scared there, for a little while. But, I'll be all right now. Tell those boys their grandpa will be up to see them soon. I'm going to make it now."

My mother and I visit Dad later that Tuesday morning. He's jovial, kidding. He tells me, basically, what he told my brother: the worst is over.

It's a bad diagnosis.

I take my mother home and tell her I have to get back to work. I sit down at the desk at 11:45 a.m. and start to type an editorial. The phone rings.

This trip to the hospital seems to take forever.

Six people are in the small ICU room, working feverishly. Tubes protrude, machines whir, the thrust of the metal monster breathing for him makes my father's body lurch off the bed at a regular rate.

A cardiac specialist is there. We watch, carrying with us the helpless feeling of people who know there is nothing they can do.

His body arches up again, straining for -- for life? For the fish that got away from that trot line on Lake Wappapello 20 years ago? For the girl he loved at the defense plant in 1940s -- the one he has spent nearly a half-century with?

Is he remembering good times, bad times, or just enduring? Fearing for the future? Musing about death and the final, ultimate experience? Is my father, who never showed real fear, experiencing it? Is he feeling the indignity of his body being violated in a futile attempt to save him?

He is conscious. The plastic tube keeps him from speaking, but he can communicate. When possible, we hold his hand.

About 3:30 p.m. the doctor calls us into a small room and speaks bluntly, but not unkindly. "I've shocked him about 20 times in the last two hours. I have no hope to offer. His systems have shut down. His kidneys have stopped working. At 69 he's not a candidate for a heart transplant; he's so weak, he wouldn't survive the operation anyway.

"It's time to pray," Dr. Pfefferkorn says, “for a miracle. I won't rule anything out. I've seen miracles before, but I really don't think he's going to make it."

The quiet is deafening, the ticking of an electric clock on the wall and the echoes of business as usual in the room behind us the only things audible.

The doctor goes on, "It's time to decide how drastic a measure you want me to take to treat him. You also have to consider what quality of life he will have if we take those measures."

To myself I think: quality of life isn't the question. Life is. Any quality of life is better than death. But I hear myself say, "Don't hurt him any more."

My brother, mother and sister-in-law have voiced the same thought. If anyone deserves a miracle it is my father. But, we just don't want the extreme, degrading, painful battering of the aged body to continue.

It has done it's work. It is worn out.

"Mr. Forbis," an ICU nurse touches my arm, tentatively. "We, uh, we thought he could make it," she says, tears in her eyes. "He's such a good man. I'll help you pray, if you'd like?"

Later, I realize it isn't only a job to the people in ICU, and I wonder how they ride that emotional roller coaster and maintain sanity.

The death watch starts. ICU rules are eliminated. Instead of 10 minutes each hour, we are allowed to come and go as we please, as long as we stay out of the nurses' way.

I race home to call relatives and friends. "My father is dying," I tell each, to gasps and quiet consolations. Then, back to the hospital, fearing he has died while I was gone.

My mind is a turmoil. God, I think, I don't know if I can do this. I barely survived the divorce. Michelle had been my best friend. I feel I have no one to lean on, to share the grief, and many responsibilities I now have to meet. I'm not really alone, but I feel so for a time.

"We have to stay with him," I say to no one in particular. "He shouldn't die alone."

Back at the hospital we circle the bed, the noisy machinery forgotten. The searching, dark eyes seem to scan our faces. Looking for an answer?

Am I dying? Is this what it's like?

My mother leans over and brushes his forehead with her lips. "Lloyd Forbis, you're the best thing that ever happened to me."

When we convince Mom to go home, worried her frail physical condition will finally make her deathly sick, too, we tell my father. He vigorously nods his head in agreement. On his death bed, his main concern is still for my mother's welfare.

Who will take care of her? It has been his main job for 10 years, since Mom was inflicted with Parkinson's disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. She has been near death on occasion and we have worried about her dying. My father has seemed eternal, perhaps because his father lived to be 94.

Nearing 2 a.m. my brother and I go to the room again. My father jerks awake as we enter, even though we try to be silent. We speak quietly for a few moments, holding fiercely to his hands, standing on either side of bed, looking down, trying to will him to find that miracle. Please, God.

Please.

After long, silent minutes, Carl returns to the now-empty waiting room that is our temporary home. I linger, holding onto my father's hand, staring into those eyes. The years fall away and I feel as a small boy. "I'm so sorry," I murmur, "so sorry you had to go through this."

It is to be our last conversation. "I wish I could have done more. I love you, Pop."

He squeezes my hand.

Though we stay the rest of the night, we don't go back in. Dad forces himself awake every time we enter. At 5 a.m. my father opened his eyes. "Would you like me to turn on the television?" the nurse asked, and my father nodded.

CNN was on the flickering screen in the darkened room. "I think maybe he just wanted to know what day it was," the nurse speculates later, "to know how long it had been going on."

At 7 a.m. they come for us, nurses and my mother arriving at the waiting room at almost the same time. "We're losing him," they say. For 30 minutes we stand by the bed, waiting for the inevitable.

"I'm sorry," says one nurse, "but the monitor is just reflecting what the machine is doing. His heart has already stopped functioning on its own."

His skin is yellow and jaundiced. Splotches, where circulation has stopped, mark extremities. The heart that gave so much finally finishes its work at 7:36 a.m. Wednesday, January 22.

Response is almost immediate. Many show up at the funeral home, making me realize it wasn't just the hero worship of a son for his father. My father, on a modest scale, was a great man. He could be close-minded, stubborn, and frustrate family members at times. But, he also spread smiles and happiness.

It seems everyone who ever cared for him comes to the funeral home, sends flowers, or a card. The response is justification for my life long pride in the man who was parent, and more importantly, friend.

He still guides me. My father told me he was proud of me. At the time I felt unworthy. No more.