Remembering JPF

As I sit here next to the pool in the Florida house that I have rented, I watch the sun ripple on the water, forming concentric light petals that look like a cabbage rose. Sun spots dance on the bottom and where the sun meets the shade, a bright line mimics the movements of a electrocardiogram rhythm…in the distance I hear church bells playing the Old Hundredth, a much loved Anglican hymn called All People who on earth do dwell…

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One year ago today my sisters and I sat at our father’s death bed and held his hand until that death rattle, of which we had heard but never experienced, turned to a gasp and the life that we had known all our lives was no more.

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The sea grape stalks make the kind of noise in the wind that sounds like rubber on rubber, or an old screen door squeaking open. Or maybe it’s an exotic animal, perhaps a parrot, with its strained squawking.

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What a difference a year makes. The one person in the world who you knew would catch you if you should fall is still gone. You wonder where he’s gone; is it to the heaven he believed in, or has his soul gone the way of his body, to ash, secured in a beautiful oak box, inscribed with his name as well as the dates that mark his life — now in the Cathedral’s columbarium that he loved. I know that I have pictures of him in my mind and on my computer. I have saved his message to me on my answering machine. I can still hear his voice: “Ails, why the heck would you go to Florida? It’s an awful place!” (Sorry Florida peeps). He was never one for lying around…does that mean he’s busying himself now?

Driving the thousands of kilometers to this place, I listened through the music on my iPhone playlist – many that I didn’t realize were even there. One, a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, suddenly appears and I can only listen to it once as it was one of Dad’s favourite hymns – indeed, we made sure it was played at his memorial service. My sister played it for him on her iPhone in the hospital on his last days…and he sung along, conducting the music, as he always did, with dramatic arm flourishes and a smile on his face.

It is hard not to remember him in those last hours, before he lost consciousness, and while he sat in his hospital bed, deep in thought. I surely didn’t want to disturb this sacred contemplation: was he wondering about heaven? was he wondering if he had made the right choice – to turn down dialysis for his kidney failure? was he going over his life’s accomplishments? I do know he was sad to leave us, because he said so. Holding back tears, we all told him we loved him and would miss him as well. But we also felt we needed to affirm that he was making the right choice – to honour that, even though it broke our hearts.