“CALL CODE!”
The nurse straddles the doorway to my father’s room and screams to the entire floor.
I turn into Halle Berry.
The only visual image I have of a woman going insane in a hospital is Halle Barry. I look around and scream to everyone.
“CALL CODE, MY FATHER’S DYING!”
I have to make my mind stay present.
Glance at the clock. 6:53 a.m. Cleveland Clinic. September 10th, 2009.
Everything goes into slow motion.
I know, I know. I should have come back last night to get my tampons. I’d left them in dad’s hospital room when I went to the hotel next door to meet mom.
He didn’t look right.
Last night I’d called my sisters and told them, “Dad is not long for this world.” Apparently he wasn’t.
At least I had gotten to sing and play for him last night. That Yamaha Portasound that I bought in 1984 to take with me on tour with Thomas Dolby paid off. The whole band thought it was a child’s toy, but I could write a song on it anywhere, at any time. It had tiny keys and only like 2 octaves, and a shitty drum machine built in, but somehow it inspired me. When I was on an industrial in Puerto Rico, on my day off, I laid in a hammock and wrote the music for Hot Tomato Soup, a song about Andy Warhol which ended up in my musical Radiant Baby.
My sisters thought I was nuts.
“You are so dramatic. We were just there. Dad was up and walking.”
Now he wasn’t.
My iPhone headphones in my ear, I call Cynthia. Out of all three sisters, she is the one who has transitioned people. Not by choice. Totally by circumstance. And she had found out over the years that she was good at it.
“Cynthia, mom is asleep at the hotel and they just called code for Dad. Everyone is outside his door and the whole floor is running around.”
“Debra, get in that room now and start chanting.”
I sneak in. Not one of the 8-or-9-person medical team that surrounds his bed notices me on the floor next to Dad’s bed while they try to revive him. I now know why family members are not allowed in the room during a time like this. For 11 years I will have PTSD from this and have to go to therapy. The therapist will ask what the most devastating image is from this moment and I will describe my dad’s eyes when I first saw him the night before. Last night when I knew he wasn’t long for this world. Eyes with no light in them. Eyes that looked at me while I looked back and let me see a soul seeping out, slowly.
“Mr. Barsha, here is your pill.”
He couldn’t swallow.
He had said to me, “Can you believe at the end, I can’t swallow?”
AT THE END. He knew. Just like I did.
I grab his limp hand hanging over the side of the bed and chant as I hear his ribs crack while they try to resuscitate him.
“Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. “Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.”
Cynthia chants with me in my ear.
“Slow down, Debra. Chant slower. We’re chanting him out.”
The colon cancer patient in the bed next to Dad jumps up and runs out of the room with his IV bag rolling alongside him. He wants to be nowhere near this.
“Nam. Myoho. Renge. Kyo.”
I lose track of time.
One of the doctors at the foot of the bed says, “Is there a family member around? I want to stop.”
I pop up.
“I’m here.”
8 to 9 horrified faces. How did she get in here?
“I’m his daughter.”
“We’d like to stop.”
“How long has it been?”, I sound strangely efficient and professional.
“20 minutes”, he answers.
“Stop.”
For years I will remember this awful moment where I gave permission for them to stop trying to revive my father.
There lies Jerry Barsha, the man who took off from work to drive me 350 miles from Syracuse to New York City to try to sell my songs. I was 15. Still in high school.
He loved to hear me sing at the piano in the living room. I was always able to play anything that was on the radio on our living room piano. One of his favorite songs was Take It To The Limit by the Eagles. He especially loved the end where Don Henley did a few high riffs. He’d always point it out to me when the song was on the radio during the repeat and fade of the chorus.
“Here he goes. Listen!”, he would say in a stage whisper. Then he sang with it: “wee—oooo.”
As if I could ever NOT listen.
It undoubtably was the climax of the song.
He’s gone.
My sister Janice beeps in.
I merge her in with Cynthia.
“Janice? He’s gone.”
“He’s GONE?”
The anguish in her voice. Four girls whose lives revolved around this amazing man. Five women, including my mother.
The father, the anchorman, the calm consistency, the brilliance, the performer. Yes, the performer. I remember the moment I realized that he was a performer. Up until that realization, I thought of News Anchorman as in a completely different category from Performer. Mom used to line us up in front of the television every night and point to it. “Kiss your father goodnight.” There was Dad on the evening news, and there were us kissing the TV. Talk about emotionally unavailable.
But not at home.
He was always there for us.
Miss you, dad.