Monday night and Tuesday

    Monday, Margaret needed a ride to the post office since she had a certified letter from the IRS to pick up. Because of that, we were relatively late visiting Dad. Because of his condition, the nurses waived the ICU's rule of only two visitors at a time, so Anne and Malcolm were with him, too. Visiting hours ended at 10; however, as that hour approached, the nurse told us that she didn't think that Dad would make it through the night and that we could stay. So we stayed.
    We weren't just in denial; Anne's a doctor and we all knew that Dad has a pacemaker. So although we had no way to say whether his mind might survive the night, we were pretty sure that his body would. But we stayed. Because I had a very ugly cough, I wanted to segregate myself, so I said goodbye to be on the safe side and told him not to take any backtalk off St. Peter and went out to the waiting area to try to sleep. William had gotten there by 10, but left at the same time.
    I wasn't really able to sleep except maybe about 15 minutes, but I got some rest. Nobody let me know what was going on, which was that Margaret developed severe abdominal pains about 4:30 and went to the emergency room. The ER there is usually top-flight, but they were having a really bad day that night. Staff said they would call Margaret's daughters; they didn't. I think they lost some of her tests and also misplaced her false teeth. It was a nightmare. Malcolm tried to stay with her, but needed to be with Dad, too. It was totally unfair.
    When morning came, we were told that if the doctor we'd talked to previously was making rounds, then he would be in at 7:30 or so, but if it were another doctor, he or she would come much later. I was worried about the cats, so when 7:30 came and went I went home to feed them. And of course the doctor turned up immediately. (And the cats still had plenty of food so the trip was unnecessary.)
    The doctor said that it was all but certain that Dad was gone except for the BiPap mask, the adrenaline drip and the pacemaker. He suggested that we remove the first, shut off the second, and put a magnet on the third and let nature take its course, and at least we'd be able to see him face to face. We asked them to leave everything on until Margaret was released from the hospital. He said sure.
    Margaret had a whole slew of tests, so we had more hours to wait. Anne left and Malcolm stayed with Margaret a while longer. I was left alone and was on the phone with the hospice people Anne had talked to a few days earlier. I had to say with regret that it didn't look like we would need them. And somebody showed an older lady wearing a breathing mask into the room. I had told Dad's former secretary about the situation and she said she had the flu, so I thought it might have been her; I started talking to her as if that were the case. She finally asked who I was, and I returned the question. She said, "That's my husband!" I told her no and she told me what room she was supposed to be in. So I took her there. It was fine; I badly needed the comedy relief.
    When we all finally reconvened, we explained the situation to Margaret, but she was so exhausted I don't think she understood. She didn't want any part of it, though, so I tried to take her home. I was so exhausted though that I couldn't remember that I had parked on the 2d level rather than the 3d. So I wound up asking Malcolm to take her home. And I returned to Dad's room.
    His last bag of adrenaline (Levophed or norepinephrine, actually) was starting to run out. Anne asked the nurse to start tapering his intake. That's all; no turning off of machines. It was probably totally a coincidence. But the nurse came back and couldn't hear a heartbeat. She tried the parabolic microphone and still couldn't detect anything. She took off the mask and he wasn't breathing. So Anne and William and I were there, but Malcolm wasn't, sadly.
    I tell you what, though. We were no wise happy that he was gone, but his skin was so papery that it was almost dangerous to touch him towards the end. So it was surely a relief to be able to hold his hand, to hug him, to say goodbye properly. And you'd better believe that we did. A titan is gone. But he was seen off the right way.