“I’ve not seen Dad cry except when he thinks about Ben,” I told Ron, my older brother, who had flown in from St. Louis the previous Sunday to help take care of our father. Colon cancer is killing him. Caring for Dad under these circumstances is exhausting, physically and emotionally.

Ben died eight years ago. He was my Dad’s first grandson and our first-born son. The Wednesday Ben died, the day before Thanksgiving, November 22, 2000, was unlike any other day I had ever experienced. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing anyone could do but pray ... and pray hard. We stood side by side behind a glass partition, just my father and I. Before us, the desperate efforts of the trauma team trying mightily to save Ben … Ben, all of twenty-two years old, who had been fatally injured when crushed under the right rear tires of a 26’ box van rental truck.

And now eight years later, my father struggles for his life just a few steps away from the family lounge where Ron and I sit enjoying a brief respite. The nurses help Dad clean up after yet another bout with diarrhea. A cruel and debilitating side effect of chemotherapy, this dreaded condition continues unabated since my father’s admission to the hospital one week ago.

My brother looks worn out. Dad’s day has not gone well. He suffers terribly, his spirit wanes. Our desperation heightens. The doctors have no answers, their treatments remain ineffectual.The medical consensus of opinion headed up by my father's oncologist is that the hospital can do no more for Dad. He is scheduled to be released tomorrow. Dad is not ready to go home. We're desperate.

I called my father’s gastroenterologist at 5 o’clock in the morning, a man about whom my father had spoken so glowingly. But the “tincture of opium” he had prescribed several days before to treat my father’s diarrhea had yet to produce any positive results. “Doctor, my family does not think my father is ready to leave the hospital. There is still no change,” I explained as calmly as I could. It wasn’t easy. I was at wit’s end, ready “to strangle” anyone who crossed my path. “I’ve tried everything I know how to do, but if the tincture is not working, I do not know how to stop it,” he admitted. I felt disheartened.

“The prognosis varies with each person,” my dad’s oncologist explained later that morning. “This could go on for as long as three months, six months or even a year. There is nothing more we can do for your dad here,” he reiterated, shrugging his shoulders and turning up the palms of his hands. It was as close to the “emes”, as my father liked to say, as we were going to get. Dad was getting sleepy. We all needed a break.

I wandered off to one of several computer lounges on the oncology floor with a fabulous view of the lake. How much nicer it would have been had I been able to appreciate the beauty of the view unencumbered by worriment. Ron had gone downstairs to get a coffee for himself and Bobbie, Dad’s wife. It was one of those moments, you know, when you just stare out of the window …

A dear friend, Mr. Irwin Parker, whom I respectfully and affectionately addressed as “Reb Isser”, a survivor of Mauthausen and a man who was in his late seventies when I met him, once told me that prayer was like dialing long distance to “De Aibishter”-as he preferred to call Him. “Dial up His number every day, Mr. Busch and when you get to Shema Koleinu,” he advised, “daven mit a bissel schtup.” And so I did, waiting interminably, it seemed, for Him to pick up the line. “Be patient, Mr. Busch. The lines are all busy but pick up He will,” he’d say reassuringly.

The sound of my brother’s voice “awakened” me. Ron had seen me from the hallway. Bobbie was sitting with Dad. "It's so darn pitiful," he sadly remarked, having heard Dad quietly crying while on the toilet in the morning. “Is it still okay if your dad cries?” I mused while Ron detailed the particulars of what mostly had been a rough day from the start.

My father has always given generously of his emotional vulnerability-whether to his grandchildren or a shivering homeless man to whom he once gave his new long coat straight off his back on a frigid winter day-it didn't matter. I know. I was there.  

Do you remember General MacArthur's comment from years ago? That old soldiers don’t die … they just fade away.  As a matter of fact, my dad is an old soldier, United States Army, Brigadier General, retired, who is, in fact, fading away. There is less of him now than there was before. His skin does not fit him any longer. He has lost so much weight that it sags from his neck. His legs and arms have become spindly, but there his skin has become tightly stretched, transparently thin.                   

I watch him for hours while he sleeps. His face, once so smilingly bright, is now expressionless and gaunt; his once irrepressible smile turned down. I am reminded of how old
and ill he has become. “This is how he’ll look when he dies, I suppose.” Just outside our door, I catch a glimpse of the early morning nurses' aides scurrying about on their morning rounds. Ours is named Barbara, a heavy set woman in her mid-forties, I’d guess. I like her. She is good at what she does and seems to care about my father. I glance at the clock radio. It’s almost 3 o’clock in the morning and I can’t stop thinking of how near the end Dad looks. I’ve tried. May he and God forgive me.

I left Dad’s room. The early morning hours are interminable.  ‘Keep dialing His number,” Mr. Parker’s voice faintly echoed in my head. “He’ll pick up.  You’ll see.” I returned to the same computer lounge as before. I turned around. Not a soul, just me …

“Master of The Universe … You remember, I’m sure, how my father, Avrum Ben Rose, pled for his grandson’s life, the life of my son Ben nearly eight years ago, but it was not meant to be. I’ve learned to live without him, but now I stand before you pleading for my father who is selfless and
good and has thus ever been. Heal his bowel so that he may live out his last days in dignity and peace.”

We left the hospital next morning after nearly two weeks, ambivalent at best. Dad’s cancer was a foregone conclusion. It did not even come up very often for discussion except when he felt pain in his gut. I summoned all the faith I could gather in the hope that He grant my plea on the merit of my father. I could think of no one more deserving.

And so we waited for the tincture of opium to do its job. Dad's first few days at home were tenuous. Would he spend his last days in pain-exacerbated by the mean-spirited indignity of diarrhea?

“Good morning Alan!”

“Dad?” I answered my phone, frankly surprised by the vibrant, upbeat tone of his voice. I hadn’t heard it in a while.

“So Dad, what’s …?”

“My bowel! My bowel has solidified. I felt it coming. I had time to get to the toilet. The tincture is working Son. The medicine has finally kicked in,” he blared so excitedly I had to remove the phone away from my ear.

And kicked in it had, my father’s happiness ... well, it skyrocketed. "De Aibishter' had picked up the line and my prayer had not only been heard but granted.

Alan D. Busch

Revised 3/30/09