I heard he had cancer a few years back but he beat it. Suddenly, recently, it came back in his throat. He doesn't smoke or chew so this came as quite a surprise. Two days ago my mom called me and told me he has maybe a few days to live. I felt it would be a good gesture to visit him.
I dislike hospitals. My twin brother is prone to siezures and for a while was there quite a bit. I know hospitals aren't overflowing with kittens and great memories for most people, though.
Walking down the hall, I was looking at my black shoes fit into each floor tile, step by step. The walls were white, sterile, and no staff was around. It was quiet. I went to the elevators and went to the top floor. As the numbers scrolled, I realized that I had no idea what I was going to say to him. Thank you? Sorry? People came on the elevator, smiling, joking, carrying flowers and presents, getting off at the recovery section and such. I went up alone, to the top floor. I knew he had a new room because they had moved him to a place with a view of the mountains. It was like a shift to say goodbye. To this moment, I cannot imagine what it would feel like to say goodbye to so many people at once. Moreso, that there were that many people that cared about you. I had to sign a list before I went in, because so many people had come and gone. Knowing him, I wasn't surprised. I knew he'd have a lot of visitors.
I went to his room number, at the end of the hall. There was a curious level of bustling activity on this floor; nurses scurrying, phone lines ringing and computers making odd blips and such. I saw three people outside of the room and one of them was his wife. She didn't recognize me, but the last time I saw her was when I attended their wedding. That was ~6th grade.
I walked in. Seeing someone at the tail end of their life is something that may never leave me. I have no experience with seeing people with cancer, or really with a progressive disease of anything. I have pictures of him and he's a big guy, not fat, just tall and built. His weight had been stripped from him. His legs were emaciated and peeking out from blue hospital blankets. His arms were slim, but his face is what I remember most.
He turned to look at me with wide eyes behind glasses, his oxygen intake shifting and his viens in his neck straining. He didn't recognize me. Something shifted in me. What if he was on so many sedatives that he wouldn't even register me? I told him who I was and his thin body shifted. He said "I taught this kid!" to two of his other friends who were in the room. It was hard to understand what he was saying. His hands were trembling constantly, nothing to do with me, just cancer. He still clung to his sense of humor, as I know I will do. I said as many jokes as I could and they came easily. They come easily when I want to just ease the situation, want to make it easier for everyone, when I want to soften the concrete impact that I know is coming. That said impact will be within a week, when he dies. That's how long he has.
We didn't get to talk very much. It was an effort for him to speak and soon he drifted off to sleep. I can't forget how thin his hair was, how cancer had just stripped away this human body.
I have a lot of reflexive sadness and anger at this situation, obviously. I can't be mad at God but I can be mad that some disease that seems to take no care as to whom it hits and goes randomly. Fuck you, cancer. How can you do this? How can you take away what matters to me, what made a difference to me, what was such a kind and wonderful person?
He couldn't smile at me, because he was so weak. He couldn't laugh or speak much because of his frail condition. My mother is a cncer survivor that that's beautiful, but the alternative is so ugly, like war, like desolation.
I had written him a letter and I put it on the table after he had gone to sleep, saying that it was all that I wanted to say to him. His friend pulled out a box and put the letter inside of it. I saw many more. I wasn't surprised. What got to me was the pictures on the outside of the box: pictures of him alive and happy, with friends, with his normal body, him smiling and still a teacher that made me laugh and learn and just touch so many people. And then cancer came and took that all from him until he was but a wide-eyed, terribly weak person in a hospital bed who needed his friends to move him when he wanted to sit up, to get him water, to move the glass to his lips because he couldn't do it himself. And I promise you, it's so hard to believe in the goodness of the world, to be a hopeless romantic, when you see this sort of thing.
It kills me. I wanted to talk to him, to tell him that he was the best teacher that I ever had, to tell him that he didn't recognize me but there were so many parts of him that influenced me, touched me, made me who I am, but the reckless combination of sedatives and drugs and cancer rendered it just, most likely, just someone else saying goodbye.
I wish it were more. But moreso, I wish there were a hundred more people like me saying goodbye to him and feeling the same way. Knowing him, I'm sure there are. I just want more. I just want him to leave with the love and appriciation that he deserves.
I can't finish this.