The remains of a lifetime (six years after that day in the hospital coffee shop).

Today it's been six years since my father died. He died in that same bed where he was lying when I wrote about the hospital coffee shop, the priest, and the cappuccino.

The male nurse gently removed the see-through ventilator right after the machine by the bedside had become silent. He then allowed us a few moments of privacy behind the cotton curtains. I will not forget Dad's face which had been masked for so many days. That prominent nose was severely damaged by his desire for oxygen. His still perfect teeth displayed in final desperation. The linear arrangement of bones under the starched sheet and dark blue blanket. The bed was actually empty, he had really gone away. The cubicle was lifeless. There was so little left of my formidable, imperfect father.

I could not cry. My sister and Dad's wife clung to each other, sobbing. They touched the rigid form, saying he still felt warm. I did not want to confront the form that was no longer the man who made up half of me. I wanted to remember the lean, strong legs of the only person who would parachute with me, just four years previously.

The minister from our congregation, who was in time to pray by the bedside, quietly spoke to the ward staff about practical arrangements. I took in the emptiness where a great man had been bravely fighting cancer for a short, intense period of time. I walked outside to call my brother and husband, both abroad at the time.

After the calls, I quickly went into the restroom outside the ward. I washed my hands, applied lipstick (why?), and checked my teeth. A blueprint of my father's teeth mirrored back at me. So that is it then. A set of strong teeth. The remains of a lifetime.

14/03/2023

Image: J Herholdt, November 2013, Wonderboom Airport, Pretoria