Limits:
My father didn’t know any limits. He was a Warm Springs survivor. He had polio at age 4, and at that point, he was told he was going to be in wheelchair the rest of his life. Barely a week or two ago, on a Sunday night, I was watching as he careened down the hallway in a motorized wheelchair, taking out hanging artwork as he went.
“Guess I need a little practice,” he said.
I wasn’t aware that his polio was even a problem until the year I graduated high school. Shrouded in family myth, mystery and lore, there was a hiking trip we made that summer. Not a typical activity for man who was told he belonged in a wheelchair. On that hiking trip – in reality I can’t recall this – it has been alleged – I carried his pack, making a second trip up the mountain to help ferry his gear.
There’s a large gap in time, huge distance between that trip after high school to when I eventually graduated university. I saw my father for the first time in few years, met him at the airport, that evening. We had to walk to the car, from one terminal building to the next, and that was the first time I recall ever seeing him give pause because he needed to rest his leg.
That was also the first time I realized his mortality. The first time I ever got any kind of hint of limiting factors.
It got, for the last dozen years or more, that every time I saw my father, I was worried it would be the last time. However, after worrying like that for almost fifteen years, the ache and pain is dulled by familiarity.
We planned a fishing trip last spring. While we got rained out for fishing, and narrow time constraints, the full effort was there to be together. He was up and dressed, ready to go, getting to the dining room under his own steam, each morning at 6 AM. He was always an early riser.
In a panic, my mother called me on Thursday, “Your Dad’s checked into the hospital,” with long and drawn out details. Which included me flying in to observe his health. Which, on the previous weekend, had seemed fine. Or as good as could be expected. Remember the motorized wheelchair careening down a hallway, the chair’s arm taking artwork with him.
His last cogent day? I spent with him – it started as a stomach problem – his doctors told him no food or water, but he could have ice to chew on. So I was feeding him ice, and he was his merry, mischievous self. Or irascible old fart. All about the same these days.
The point I was worried about, the last time alive? The way I’ll remember him, in the hospital room, still asking me for ice, only, there was an attendant there, and I didn’t want to give my father ice while we were watched.
I’m staying in his office, the home office, the spare bedroom for a few days. One of his in-boxes, covered with projects and scientific journals? There’s a small, glass hummingbird, still in a plastic wrapper. Think I’ll hang it up.
This one? This one’s for Dad. He never gave up and never listened when he was told he had limits.
Omnia explorate, Meliore retinete:
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