It was a perfect death and a nearly perfect birth. When my father, George, died hours after I had been in the hospital giving birth to my son Aidan, I didn’t quite realize that my belief system would be turned upside down. I still don’t know the meaning of life or what happens when we die, but one thing I now know for sure: we are more than our bodies.
My dad was top-notch as far as dads go. He was the kind of dad who turned up the thermostat absurdly high on a cold winter night, fired up the grill, put on shorts and a T-shirt, and pretended it was summer. He was the man who told his daughter she “should throw like a girl” because girls can do anything boys can and do it better. He was the type of guy who spent hours with his five-year-old daughter, counting leaves just to pass the time.
That level of attachment and adoration made it even more painful to watch him die a slow death. He had been declining cognitively and physically for nearly a decade due to what his doctors theorized was Atypical Parkinson’s. And I was pregnant with my second child. I am and have always been tough. It was in my DNA and I had spent almost 20 years prior to this moment as a news producer reacting to the most unpredictable and often volatile of circumstances. I told myself I could handle this.
At 5.45 am on the day of my scheduled c-section, the plan I’d produced for this moment set in motion: I brushed my teeth, finished packing my bag, got our three-year-old daughter Finn ready for our caregiver to take her to and from school. My mom would stay with her in the afternoon at our apartment in Brooklyn. The dog walker would handle the overprotective ten-year-old hundred-plus-pound Black Russian Terrier. My dad’s childhood best friend, Armond, and my mom’s closest confidant, Jane, would keep an eye on my father at his assisted living facility outside Washington, D.C.. And I even had his hospice nurse texting us regular updates.
By 6:30 am, my husband, Andrew, and I were in an Uber and headed to the hospital. I tried to call my dad. But in the last forty-eight hours, he had significantly declined, and was barely opening his eyes. I felt horrible asking my mom to leave his bedside to come and help out with Finn, but I needed her. A week prior my daughter had been really sick and landed in the emergency room after having a febrile seizure. She was fine minutes later and the doctors assured us this is more common that you would think, but it scared the hell out of us and we needed all hands on deck.
The last time I had spoken to my dad was three days prior; we FaceTimed. He had trouble speaking, and my mom anxiously kept trying to put words in his mouth, “George, George, can you hear her?” I asked him, “Are you tired, Dad?” He said, “Yes,” barely nodding his head. I looked through the camera and straight into his eyes; I said, “I love you, Dad.” He said, “I love you, Cul.”
It was a perfect way to leave words with a dying man, but still, I wanted more. My life was about to change, and I wanted to hear his voice again. I hoped that he might have some final wisdom. He was full of one-liners that were overly simple but stuck in your head. “Learn to forgive yourself over and over again,” or “It’s called fishing, not catching.” Or, when there was a conflict (particularly with kids), he would start a lively group chant yelling, “It just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter!” But that morning, his phone went straight to voicemail. My throat tightened, and I teared up, but I knew I had to stay focused. It didn’t matter what I wanted at that moment. We had to get this kid out, and we had to get my mom home to be by my dad’s deathbed.
When we arrived at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the security guards directed us to the 14th floor, where I was prepped for surgery. Andrew and I waited and waited and waited and waited; so much for that 8:30 am start time, I thought. We looked at pictures of our daughter walking to school and fantasized about all the food we would order later that night: sushi, maybe some prosciutto, unpasteurized cheese, and wine. It was a must to have some good wine. All the things I had been (kind of) depriving myself of for the last ten months.
It was a welcome distraction. Until this moment, it had always worked for me. In the face of fear and adversity, I would make contingency plans for every possible scenario. When I hit a wall of bad things that could occur, I would permit myself to dream about what I would eat for dinner that night or fantasize about a great vacation or a perfectly curated home we would live in one day.
So when I was waddling into an operating room two hours later, I was not surprised that all of my plans were coming together in a perfectly produced birth. Unlike most New York City hospitals, the operating room was large, pristine, and full of what appeared to be cutting-edge medical equipment. I quickly scanned the space and realized the entire operating room staff were all women. I immediately felt safe. I had two anesthesiologists. They had studied my chart and had a plan.
Twenty minutes later, we heard, “It’s a boy!” (we had known this for some time) as our son Aidan peed all over our delivery doctor, and she laughed. At first, everything was lighter. “Do you want to hold him?” the nurses asked me as they continued to put me back together from the inside out.
They put him on my chest. I was instantly in love and petrified. “He’s shaking,” I told the nurse. “No, that’s you,” said the nurse. “Yes, I’m shaking,” I told the nurse, “but so is he, and he’s purple.” I tried to remain calm, but I could hear Aidan wailing across the OR as they poked and prodded him, and the worst-case scenarios looped in my mind. This was not part of the plan. He was 39 weeks on the dot and fully developed. He should be fine. The pediatrician explained that Aidan’s blood sugar was low and his breathing was fast. They gave him glucose and checked his sugar levels every thirty minutes. She wasn’t panicked or overly concerned, but we had some hills to climb.
When they finished putting me back together, we were both sent to recovery. Aidan’s color returned to normal. I breathed a sigh of relief, and we took our first official photo.
Andrew texted the image far and wide to announce the prodigal son’s arrival. Meanwhile, in Virginia, my father’s lifelong best friend, Armond, quickly drove to see him with the photo in hand. “She’s okay,” Armond told my dad. “He’s okay, and his name is Aidan.” My father briefly opened his eyes and nodded. Everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. My perfectly produced plan was working.
An hour or so later, Andrew, Aidan, and I were taken to our room. I was struck by the quiet. The room had an incredible view of the 59th Street Bridge. I immediately thought of my Dad. He was a huge Paul Simon fan, and I could hear him in my head singing:
“Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy.”
Then, out of nowhere, my warm and fuzzy feeling shifted to fear. It was like my body told my brain, ‘Prepare for pending doom.’ The hospital pediatrician was making her rounds, and she was examining Aidan. “His blood sugar is improving, but he’s still pretty shaky.” She explained that “his startle reflex was overactive, and his breathing was still fast.” They would have to take him to the nursery to keep a closer watch on him for the next hour, and “if he didn’t improve, they’d have to send him to the NICU overnight.” There it was again, that sinking feeling of fear. I knew we were in the best hands, but I still felt panic.
I had been fluctuating all day between fear and contentment, and my nerves were shot. What I didn’t know was that as my son was fighting to begin his life, my father was working on letting go of his.
An hour later, Aidan’s breathing improved, and he was returned to our room to spend the night. I thought my exhale could be heard down the hall. Everything was going to be okay. We could finally order that 24-month aged prosciutto and spicy scallop handroll I had been craving for nearly a year and enjoy the intoxicating vibes of our adorable newborn son.
Minutes after my son returned to my arms, my phone rang again. This time, it was my mom. She was sobbing. “He’s gone,” she said. Even though I had known this moment was coming eventually, I never thought it would be today. I was gutted. I was relieved. I was in shock.
How was I ever going to make sense of losing my father hours after giving birth to my son? Was it kismet, a giant joke, or maybe a Dad’s final life lesson? The storyteller in me wants to believe this is an epic tale of both of their intertwined destinies. The pragmatist in me sees just facts, a sad and happy coincidence.
But since the day these guys switched places, my fear has been going through a metamorphosis, and I have developed an inexplicable belief that we simultaneously have more and less control than we think. Have I been able to totally let go? Of course not, but that doesn’t matter because the story I will tell Aidan is the epic tale of his bumpy entry and his grandfather’s poetic exit. As for me, the last words to my dad were, “I love you,” and the last thing he saw was a picture of me holding my son.
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