Topic: Family

The mother of my sons James and Christopher
lost her fight against cancer this a.m. She had
battled for five years, and only in the last couple
of weeks did it gain an edge on her. Although we
were divorced 35 years ago, we had managed to
be friends these past twenty years even though
I rarely ever saw her.

I arrived at my sister Beth's house at 0300
on 8 June, an hour or so before she had to
go to work (she's a surgical nurse in a
nearby hospital that I saw a couple of days
later but could not tell you the name of),
and somehow the thirty-two and a half years
apart melted away. We were almost as we
had been when quite young - her the more
mischevious and assertive, me the more
passive and reflective - but from the first
moment, we began talking.

Charlie Dell was an engineer, a gun maker, a shooter,
an inventor, a traveler, a dog lover, an experimenter,
a mentor, a writer and a father.

Most of those things he did superlatively, and in the
weeks and months before his death on 14 March,
2006, a number of individuals came forth with stories
about his life and doings during that life, many of
which this writer had never heard.

finally lost the battle of life a week ago today,
at 1545 ET. He went quietly, clean, dry, at home
and in his own bed very peacefully. His friend
John Bancroft stood by him for six whole days,
me for four, doing our very best to provide Dad
with all the comfort possible and to preserve his
privacy and dignity. I was really just the assistant,
John had things well in hand when I arrived on
Friday the 10th at 0400. By then, my father was
only barely conscious and had become incontinent,
but we cleaned him up and changed clothes and
sheets eleven times in the next four days while
sleeping fitfully and trying to keep people from
disturbing him very much, which really pretty
much was observed.

Just before I go to bed on Wednesday, the 8th,
I'll be going nomail on all of the lists I'm active on
or the equivalent until at least the 19th. My leaving
is for a saddish reason, and somewhat unanticipated
- my father is apparently dying, or close to same,
and I'm going to Virginia Thursday afternoon (getting
to Dad's in the middle of the night on Friday) so that
at least one member of the family is with him at life's
close.

He said vehemently earlier today he wants "to die
alone," and for the last time I'll be willfully disobeying
him, as will, I suspect, the nice fellow I spoke to on
the phone today (John B, I hope you'll forgive me
not being sure who you were) and a host of Dad's
other longtime gun and shooting friends he knows
up and down the East Coast. He is deeply cared
for by a great group of folks, but is almost
completely estranged from the family, and one of
us ought to be with him when he passes on as
I think he will do all too soon. I'm just hoping he
will still be alive when I get there two and a half
days from now.

Dad has been gone five days now, and I've
been alone here fior the first time since he died.
The past three hours have been haunting. There's
a bit of a wind, and it's cool, about 45 even with
the sun out. The quiet is extraordinary, save for
the thrice-daily train whistles. This house was
once dad's house, now it is but an empty shell
where a man I called "dad" once lived.

My father died yesterday at 1545, after a six
day battle he quietly left this plane firmly
believing in his last coherent moments that he
was headed to heaven. He died with peace,
his friends and son in attendance, and without
pain. I spoke to him two minutes before his death,
and told him (again) that I loved him and it was OK
to go. I had just walked outside I was summoned
back in, and saw him draw his last breath.

My dad is barely responsive. I'm told only
yesterday he was up and about, but today
he has been down for the count save for
two very brief encounters of ten minutes
each where he sat up and took some
morphine, but almost no speech and
quickly back to sleep.

His primary caretaker this week has been
John Bancroft from North Carolina, and
a greater guy you couldn't meet. A fireman
of 33 years, he has been wonderful with
Dad - gentle, persistant, caring, and sensitive.

He told me today the doctor gave dad a week
to ten days, his kidney function is at about 1/8
normal, and he hasn't eaten for about three
days. Today was the first day he was
generally non-responsive.and more or less
incontinent.

I spent nine days minus two hours with
my Dad, up in the hills outside of
Christiansburg VA from the 7th to the
16th. We spent a great deal of that time
sitting on his front porch, facing north,
looking at a green "mountain" of some
2500-2700 feet to the northeast of his
place, talking.

September's end has had significance
to me ever since the pleasant afternoon
in 1969 when my first son Jim was born,
and I recall driving the eleven miles to my
in-law's house to tell them, and getting a
real blase reaction from my
then-father-in-law, the late Joe Enright.
But, within days, it registered on Joe that
he was a grandfather for the first time,
and then we couldn't keep him out of our
house, despite the fact he hated that we
lived in an integrated neighborhood, and
he hadn't been real fond of me up to that
point.