One Restless Night

The soft and constant moaning between each breath was coming deep from his chest and throat. He continually kicked at his sheets with determination, refusing the weight of the light cotton. He couldn’t hold on to a peaceful sleep for any significant amount of time. Comfort seemed out of his grasp. My eyes were gritty and aching for sleep, but they refused to look away from his shadowed form. I eagerly watched each rise and fall of his chest, overwhelmed by my helplessness to still the battle his restless spirit was engaging in these, his final days.

We brought him home from the hospital not only because he demanded it to every nurse and doctor who walked into his room, but also because we wanted to honor him, to love on him, and to pour the kind of compassion we had witnessed his heart offering to so many others throughout our lives. We were grateful for this precious time to have him home and under our watchful care.

I knew that every minute in my parents’ double wide mobile home was fragile and quickly dissipating. The cancer was claiming him. In the last day or so it had stolen his voice. Cancer was a cruel thief that had stolen more and more of his understanding in the past few weeks. He had suffered both physically and emotionally the past year as cancer slowly robbed him of strength and vitality.

However, cancer had no power to destroy his beauty to me, no authority to demand of his humanity. He was still the daddy I adored. I could still smell coffee when near him, still feel the bristle on his cheeks that I kissed. His hands were still the largest I’d ever seen, weathered and strong. His eyes were still the ones who had looked at me with pride and adoration. He would always be mine.

Rising from the couch, I walked the few steps to his hospital bed, and gently placed my hand on his forehead. His skin was smooth and soft. I pulled the sheet back over him carefully, and he immediately began pushing it down again with his feet.

“Okay, Dad.” I told him with a tired smile. “I get it. No sheets.”

I picked up the large, black leather Bible laying on the tray next to
his water and medications, its

thin pages lovingly marked from years of loyal study, and I sat back into the rolling desk chair we kept by his side. During the day, we took turns sitting here holding his hand, or standing over his bedside brushing our fingers over his head. Just yesterday, I had made the effort to surrender, to offer him the comfort of release by whispering in his ear, “It’s okay, Daddy. It’s okay to let go. We’ll take care of Mom, of each other. It’s okay.”

What felt to me to be the exact opposite of okay was his lack of physical peace. My father, above anyone I knew, was a man of great faith, pronouncing to the hospice nurse just the week before how ready and secure he felt for the journey ahead. But this process of his body shutting down a little bit at a time was painful and I couldn’t help but wonder if fear was depleting his security as well.

I opened my father’s Bible easily to the book of John, my favorite gospel, and began to read aloud to him. He had drawn such joy and pleasure from knowing God through His written words. He had dedicated most of his life to first understanding and second teaching from this book he held in the highest esteem.

I wanted miracles there in the dimly lit living room. I desired an instant holiness to sweep in and surround his weary body, to cover his troubled spirit with reassurance. I needed one of those moments where in stories the person nearing death receives a dose of clarity and calm. I wanted signs and wonders that God was near and ready to wrap my father’s spirit in the safe haven of His own. I desired proof of supernatural power providing solace through the inspired passage of scripture I was reading out loud.

Instead, his moaning continued, his restless legs never slowing, and sleep eluded him. I read a few chapters, smiling at the verses displaying Jesus’ sense of humor. “Funny Jesus, Dad! This is one of those places!” I laughed to myself remembering the recent sermon about Jesus’ humanity and the line of sarcasm I had just read.

My eyes closed slowly, resolved to the fact that I would not be sharing “Funny Jesus” moments with this man who had led me as a child into Jesus’ arms. I would not be sharing any more phone conversations about upcoming Sunday School lessons or tender debates about differing beliefs. I wouldn’t see him stand behind a pulpit again, proclaiming the glory and magnificence of his God, weeping over the love and devotion of a Savior he felt so unworthy of.

There would be no more tenor “rolled away”s sung in celebration in the chorus of “At the Cross”, no more hymns harmonized by his side on Sunday mornings. I would never again hear his powerful voice lifted in prayer, his genuine petitions, his humble offerings of adoration that always began with the words, “Our Most Kind, Gracious, Loving Heavenly Father…”

I closed his Bible, tired of fighting both sleep and sadness, and leaned over to kiss his cheek before climbing back under the sheet that actually comforted me. The warmth of his skin under my lips, the few precious seconds our faces were so close together felt sacred. I was the little girl he had held in his arms, and the woman who he had helped to raise. I loved his presence in my life, his inspiration and unconditional love.

My sleep was forced into short intervals, fitful and light enough to hear every noise. I wanted to be awake as he needed me. We took turns so that one of us would always be with him. I was so afraid that the moment I let myself truly drift off would be the time he took his last breath. All of us wrestled with this unspoken fear when it was our shoulders the responsibility rested on. What if we lost him in the middle of the night? What if we woke up to see he was alone when he died?

It was irrational, the demand for such control over this. But it was real nonetheless. So I closed my eyes and listened to his breathing, slightly labored and raspy. I stood up every few minutes and pulled the hated sheet back over his exposed legs. I moistened his lips with the pink sponge sucker and rubbed his tired muscles. I let songs fill up my head and pour quietly into the room, songs he loved like, “He Touched Me” and “In The Garden.” I heard the meanings delivered to my ears with newness and depth, because I was losing him, because he was reaching the end of this life. And when the sun began to fill the space with pink, warm light, my mother’s presence slipped next to my father’s. I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed my heart full of trust and despair to slip into the escape of sleep, just for a little while.