Locked In Part III

I left Mr J’s room feeling all hollowed out, totally empty. Deep inside myself, I could not blame him for feeling as he did, and I felt like the worst hypocrite trying to encourage him. I called his attending physician and informed him of Mr J’s request to die, and we agreed to have a patient care conference with all Mr J’s caregivers, plus Psyche services and a Chaplin.

As I was charting, I noticed a woman and a boy of about fourteen enter Mr J’s room, and Becky mentioned they were his wife and son. As I finished charting a few minutes later, the son left the room and walked quickly away. He seemed more in a hurry to leave then upset, although with kids that age its hard to tell. Seeing the son brought memories of my father and me into sharp focus.

I had really avoided thinking about it since my father died a few years ago, but there in the ICU, it all came flooding back. My dad had been a functioning alcoholic, the kind of heavy drinker who can hold down a job, but totally neglects his family. He would bring home a part of his paycheck and then use the rest to go out drinking with the boys. He and I never really had a meaningful conversation that I remember, and we never really went anywhere as a functioning family. My dad was always ‘out with the boys.’ The only thing we ever did was to play catch exactly twice in all the years I lived at home. That was it, two games of catch in eighteen years.

I thought about how I had really needed a father. How I had substituted Father Dolan and my uncle as father figures. How I had really needed a good male role model, actually craved one when I was young, but never realized it at the time. I remembered sitting by my father’s bedside in a different ICU the night he died, and feeling I had been cheated in a way, because my dad and I still hadn’t really talked as father and son. I wondered, if Mr J died, what would happen to his son.

The following day I returned to ICU to follow up on a different patient, and saw Mr J’s wife and son leaving his room. I went in to see him, and was glad that Becky was still his primary nurse. She was powdering his back with one hand and supporting his limp torso with the other. She had remembered he had a problem with his back getting itchy. I made a joke to Mr J about Becky being the best back scratcher in the hospital, and then held him up while Becky finished his care. I signaled Becky to stick around and she nodded yes.

When Mr J was situated in his bed, I sat where he could see me. I wanted him to see my face as we talked.

“Was that your wife and son?”

Look up.

“Nice looking family. Your boy about fourteen?” Becky held up the board and went through some numbers. 1 and 5. The boy was fifteen. “Fifteen is a hard age,” I said slowly, “Boys that age can be pretty rebellious. Sometimes they seem to hate everyone.”

Look up.

“He into baseball?”

Look up.

“I bet he learned a lot from you about the game.”

Look up. Look up.

I had the feeling if he had been able to, he would have smiled. “Are you and your son close?” Becky had to use the alphabet board. One letter at a time, the answer was revealed:

HE IS ANGRY AT ME FOR THIS

“I understand. Kids can feel abandoned in a way.” I then opened up in a way I’m not sure was standard counseling procedure, but to me seemed like the best thing to do. I told him about my dad and me. How I had needed him, but he needed the drink more. How, even to the present day, it bothered me. I was feeling emotional and I shouldn’t have been. I leaned in close to him, and whispered,

“Mr J, you’re still here. You can still communicate. Mr J, you can still be a dad.”

Look up. Look up. Look up. Look up.