I am at home, 200 miles from Mom & Dad’s home, tapping away on my keyboard, much like I am doing right now as I write and proofread this. But I am having difficulty concentrating on the task at hand. My wife is in her home office, on the phone with one of her students. My sister and her husband are at their home in Colorado about one thousand miles from Mom & Dad’s home.
It is a little before 11 am CST, Thursday, May 23, 2019.
My phone rings. It is my sister. It is difficult to understand what she is saying. She is crying.
“Mom fell in the shower last night.”
“She’s in the hospital”
“She’s been in the ICU all night”
“They just moved her to a regular room.”
“They don’t expect her to survive.”
I feel like I just got punched in the stomach. The wind is gone from my sails. I am deflated. I am numb. “NO” I am not ready to lose Mom. I still need her.
“Where’s Dad?”
“I don’t know, home I think.”
Mom’s lying in the hospital, dying. Dad’s not there. Why?
Mom & Dad had just celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary, two months before. Mom was 88 years old. Dad turned 89 just before their anniversary. Why is Dad not at the hospital with Mom?
My mind was racing. I was just there for a day trip, 2 weeks ago. My sister was just there from Colorado, 4 days ago. Everything was as fine as an 88-year-old parent with a few health issues, can be. This was unexpected. What happened?
Dad got it into his head 12 years earlier that Mom was going to die. At that moment, he stopped eating consistently and started losing weight. In those 12 years, Dad had starved himself to the point of being a 6-foot tall walking skeleton. We expected Dad to die soon. Not Mom.
Immediately, we packed for the trip. The dogs went to the kennel — they are not welcome at Mom and Dad’s home. My wife will be off work at 5 pm and we will leave immediately after that.
A few minutes after 5 pm, the phone rang. It was the nurse on Mom’s floor in the hospital. Mom had died. She was alone. Dad was not there. I am upset with Mom’s passing and very angry at Dad — why wasn’t he there? I am upset with me, “Why couldn’t I have been there?” “Why didn’t Dad call last night when she went to the hospital?” I am a blubbering idiot.
What Happened
Mom had a massive stroke the night before and for reasons that have never become completely clear, Dad did not call the ambulance. Piecing the timeline together in hindsight, Dad did not call the ambulance for nearly 9 hours. The first-responders offered to take Dad to the hospital so he could be with Mom, but he declined. He said he would get himself there.
Dad lost his driver’s license in March 2018 because he could no longer see well enough to drive. He had been very mad about that. He seized upon this opportunity to drive himself to the hospital. He found Mom’s purse, took her car keys — she did not drive either, but the car was in her name, so she had keys — and tried to drive to the hospital. When Dad did not show up at the hospital within a few hours, the hospital sent a police car to Dad’s house to do a wellness check on him. They found him in the garage trying to open the car door, but he could not figure out how to use the switchblade key to get into the car, let alone, start it, and drive it. Dementia is a brutal disease.
When the police officer got Dad to the hospital, the doctor explained that Dad waited too long to call the ambulance. It was too late to save Mom’s life. They had him sign a “Do Not Resuscitate” order, which fit with her living will.
Dad was furious. “She wasn’t supposed to die.” Like him, “she was supposed to live forever. Something is very wrong here.” “Somebody murdered her.”