Waiting with a dying person in the hospital is often an exercise it watching machines. Families stare at heart and oxygen monitors as if they held secret messages. In truth, they give the watchers something to focus on that is not the dying person -- or their issues that have been suppressed and now come to the surface. This story is about those issues.
Shallow hills and valleys crawled across the heart monitor’s screen, each one smaller than the last. Oxygen hissed softly, a fine mist drifting from the clear plastic mask covering Melvin Randal’s grizzled face. Melvin breathed in, breathed out, barely.
Sarah Randal held his hand and gazed into her father’s dimming eyes. “Joe’s here,” she whispered through a teary smile.
A man stepped forward, leaned over Melvin, lips forming a fine line. “Hello, Dad,” he said. Behind him stood a petit woman wearing jeans, a loose blouse, and a blue hijab.
Melvin’s eyes grew wide, but he said nothing. “This is Salma,” Joe said. “I’m sorry you only get to meet her now at the end. Your loss.”
Melvin cleared his throat. It sounded like the oxygen’s hiss. “No… kids… huh?”
“It was Salma’s idea. Didn’t want kids if their grandpa couldn’t love them.” Melvin shuddered and raised his hand, palm up, nearly pulling out the IV.
“I’m… an… asshole.” Joe, Sarah and Salma laughed despite themselves. “Might’ve… loved ’em. Never… know.” His breath turned into little hiccups but evened out.
Joe turned serious. “Why’d you ask Sarah to bring me, Dad? It’s been five years.”
“Didn’t… want to… die… without you.”
Joe turned away then turned back, grim. “It’s not that simple. You shunned me and my wife. I’m dead to you, remember? How do I forget that?”
Silence.
Tears etched tracks down Sarah’s face. Joe shook his head.
“Why do you hate her, Dad?”
“No,” wheezed Melvin. “Not her. It’s… just…” He seemed to be considering his next words carefully. “Our people.” He stopped, considered a while longer. “Her people.” A look of suppressed anger overshadowed his face. It was clear he was fighting with himself over a response to the outrage his son had committed and the ridiculousness of his own situation. He took as deep a breath as he could, which was not much, then released it. “Always… enemies. Forever… enemies.”
“There you go again,” said Joe, furious. “I shouldn’t have even come. What’d you do, save up all your venom so you could spit it at me and then die? That way you don’t have to listen to me, right, Dad?”
Melvin let his hand drop and closed his eyes with a slow release of air. They stared at him, wondering if it was over. The little hills and valleys became shallower but did not even out just yet. Then the eyes flew open, and Melvin grabbed Joe's hand with surprising strength.
“It’s… a… lucky man… who can… say… he’s… sorry… before… he dies. I… was… wrong. I’m sorry.” The effort exhausted Melvin.
Joe, too. He breathed out hard and tried to pull away, but Melvin’s grip was iron. He gave his wife a look that said, “Can you believe this guy?”
But Salma stepped forward and took Melvin and Joe’s hands in hers. “It is a wise man who can confess his faults,” she said, her voice gentle as a lullaby. “And a wiser man who can forgive.”
Joe gaped at her, all words fleeing from his lips to his eyes where they struggled to escape. When they came, it was in convulsive sobs. He hugged Salma. He bent down and embraced his father. All four hugged even as the monitor’s little hills were made flat and the valleys filled in. Melvin pushed back weakly, signaling his wish to speak.
“Have… kids,” he mouthed. “Tell them… Grandpa… loves… them.”
“What religion should we raise them?” asked Joe, now with honest desire to know. Melvin attempted a shrug but gave up, pointed to the ceiling. They thought he might have said “God knows.”
The obituary reported that Melvin Randal died peacefully surrounded by his family. It said he had a good life and a good death, and that he would be sorely missed by his loving daughter, son, and daughter-in-law.
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