Remembering my Dad: Johnny Rushin, 09/02/31 - 31/12/05

Two weeks after my father's funeral, I wrote a song about/for him, called "Wendy gave Me A Lavender Plant". It was based on a poem I'd written in the week before his death. On that day, I'd been very angry, because I'd come face to face with his decision to die. He'd been diagnosed with diabetes in his 50's, and later on had to inject himself with insulin (I get mixed up with Types 1 and 2). The last time I had proper communication with him was on Christmas Day, 2005. He'd been in and out of hospital that year, and increasingly so towards the end of the year. That day, he opted not to come to my sister's house for the annual Christmas lunch, because he was feeling sick. After lunch, my mom, my kids and I went to visit him, and he didn't look good at all. I had a funny feeling of pending finality, when he started talking to my mom (from whom he'd been estranged/separated/divorced for more than 20 years) like he was saying goodbye. He told her she should always keep singing, and some other things that sounded like he was taking his leave. That little voice inside of me said Take photos! And I did. He looked terrible, and I hate those photos, but they were the last ever taken of him. I encouraged my kids to chat a bit and pose for photos with Pa, but it was a very tough experience for me.

Two days later, I went back to the home where he lived, because my sister had been there the day before and had been extremely alarmed at his deterioration. By then, he had taken himself off food, liquid and insulin. He was willing himself into a coma. It was a Tuesday night, and when we got there, we tried to make him comfortable, but he had such a raging fever, we called the ambulance and they took him to hospital. I was so angry, because my mom and I sat around in the waiting room for hours, with people with stab wounds bleeding around us,..... it was terrible! I don't know what made me angrier, the fact that my dad wasn't being seen to immediately, the fact that stabbed people were suffering, the fact that being there felt so crude, so undignified, or the fact that in our glorious democracy, anyone had to endure that indignity at all. Later, he was admitted and, after trying to answer all kinds of questions about his health and his medication, we left. I felt angry and sad. He was in hospital for four days, tubes stuck into his nose and mouth and neck, all kinds of instruments and things attached to him. His fever didn't subside, as he was very, very sick. A doctor told my sister he was too weak to be taken off the ventilator; she called me to tell me, and to ask if I knew what that meant. I told her I understood the seriousness of it. Much later (months, or even years), we heard that he'd had not only double pneumonia (which we'd known), but also meningitis, at the time of his death. There was no way his body could have fought off those infections, especially with his having gone off the insulin and stopped eating and drinking.

I remember that week in a way I wish I didn't. We have wonderful friends who pitched up at the hospital every night. Many of the men found it too hard to see my dad that way, so they sat in the passage, but they were there for us. Somehow, women seem to have a better way of handling the process of someone dying. I'd never been particularly close to my dad, and basically grew up without him. In my adult years, though, he became a part of my life, and I'll be honest, in some ways it was too late. My sister and I tried to establish good relationships with him, but so much time had been wasted. I suppose, like all families, it was what it was, warts and all. He was the only person I'd ever called Dad or acknowlegded as my father, so my relationship with him was unique. The last night I saw him alive, I'd been there for four nights in a row, looking at him in his hospital bed, unable to reconcile the lively, talkative, larger-than-life man who'd towered above everyone at six foot something, with the suffering, weak person in front of me.

Every night when I left there, I felt it might be my last time with him. That night, I spoke to him as usual but it's so awkward, you feel silly, because he's in a coma, he's breathing with the help of a machine, he can't open his eyes, he can't acknowledge what I'm saying, he can't even let me know he knows it's me...... and so, just before I left, I awkwardly bent down and kissed him on his forehead and told him, "I love you very much." I left the ward and stood talking for about an hour in the grounds to two good friends, Beattie and Peter.

I phoned my sister when I got home, and told her his breathing had been more restful. She said something which indicated that that didn't necessarily mean he was getting better.

The next morning, her husband called me and said, "Trudes, your dad died 15 minutes ago."

The first thing I thought of was: I wonder if he heard me last night, and if he knew it was me.

Take it easy, JR, wherever you are. I felt your presence very strongly in Brazil, one day, and I know it was you who looked after me that day.