I visited my Dad in hospital after a throat cancer haemorrhaged requiring a two-litre top-up of blood. He was alive but looked ready for mummification so thin and waxy he was. Due to his Alzheimer’s an orderly sat on watch beside him bed lowered to the floor. I said I’d take over and promptly had the bed raised, after all he was just a sick and confused child inside an 85-year-old six-foot body. If he took off down the corridor the only offence was going to be his adult diaper peeking through his flappy hospital gown. A blood transfusion of that size makes the receiver feel itchy and cold but it perked the old man up no end. Soon we chatted at eye level about my just-released third children’s novel. I told how I’d dedicated it to him and Felicity, my Mum, his first ex, explained it had the sea, a salty old seadog and a shipwreck in it. Dad replied with his usual high-octave naval commander emotion. Well, well, well so there we are ... I didn’t mind, I was happy we were chatting, we’d become close in the years his mind flailed. A man who says you look very smart when prompted Dad you can tell me I look beautiful it’s my wedding day – doesn’t change. Most people think Mama Cass choked on a ham sandwich, she didn’t she had a heart attack in bed, at age 32. The sandwich was found untouched on her bedside table. Her minders made up the story about the snack because she’d been performing (and partying) all weekend. Beats me why they didn’t stick to the truth. They opened her up for fat shaming with that preserved pork on buttered bread, made her sound like she lolled around in the pit like Elvis in his sad days of late-night fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Dad’s throat cancer was at the base of his tongue so deemed inoperable. But really it was a better way to go than full circle back to babyhood Alzheimer’s. We sat in silence for a while, then he announced, I’m very tired I think I’ll go now. Of course, I thought fuck a duck he’s dying this is it good bye Papa all over red rover no au revoir just adieu. I held his hand – isn’t that what you do at the bedside of a dying loved one – hold hand between hands - a prayer book sandwich. It’s okay Dad, I assured him looking around the ward for words. Where’s the perfect psalm, the perfect Christina Rossetti death bed poem when you need it. You can go, Dad, I’m here, you must be tired. His eyes shut, I squeezed his hand probably a little too tightly because he shuddered, lay completely still for a bit took a rattly breath then tried to sit up and asked, what time are my mother and father picking me up? That fresh blood was really working. Whoever it belonged to previously, I thanked them for getting along to the blood bank, laying with a catheter in their arm while they waited patiently for a cup of tea and Shrewsbury biscuits. Each donor donates approximately 500 millilitres of blood, this means four bloody good sorts gave my Dad his last week.
The next afternoon, I wheeled him down to the hospital foyer still in his blood-speckled hospital gown and grip socks. The dementia rest home carer who picked Dad up in her battered Suzuki Swift bought him a vanilla ice cream cone on the way home.
She showed me a photo of him smiling with his prize, at his wake, a week later.
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