Trapeze

By David Whitehouse

On New Year's day 2012, my mom, dad, brothers & sister got together for what would be our last family visit with my dad. 

He had recently been released from the hospital and was receiving hospice care at home.

Throat cancer had rendered him unable to speak, which if you knew my dad, was a terrible fate. You didn’t have to know him to realize how Bill felt about something. You just had to be within a 15-foot radius. But since his illness, that radius had shrunk to about 18 inches.

The hospital gave him tools to deal with his muteness. Memo pads and pens. Markers and dry-erase boards. Pictures on flash cards to communicate, “how I feel today.” Like the smiley face where the smile is replaced by a squiggly line to indicate “I feel depressed.”

He never used those.

He was able to mouth words, but because of his tracheotomy, no air passed over his vocal chords so no sound escaped his lips. Talking, which he excelled at for over 80 years, was now his greatest challenge. 

He was in the living room in one of those hospital beds they give you where the head of the bed can raise up. Whenever he did that, his frail body would slide down the bed, and it took my brother and I to lift him back up. This frustrated him. To accept help at all was something he never got used to, a fight my mother was forced to wage daily during his stay at home. 

It was late afternoon, and we were retelling family stories, a tradition of ours following a meal. Dad was now audience to something he usually played a lead role in. Everyone took turns and talked over one another to hone the details. These were stories everyone knew, but no one could remember until they heard it again.

We had just finished the one where dad & I lived out of a Ryder truck in a rest area for 2 days with no money, when I walked over and sat beside him.

“Remember that, dad?”

He gave a half-nod.

That’s when I noticed he had slid down the bed again, so my brother and I pulled him up.

When we got him settled, he opened his eyes and was trying to say that he wanted something like a 'trapeze handle' over his bed, so he could lift his body back up when the slant on the bed caused him to slide down. 

The thing was, I couldn't understand the word "trapeze."

“Sorry dad, I can’t understand you. What?”

He repeated the word again, but with no sound, it looked like he was saying "stripper." After many attempts to communicate his idea to me, my mom finally asked me, "What's he want?"

I said, "I don't know, I think Dad wants some strippers. Let's order Dad 3 strippers, okay?"

My dad just hung his head in defeat, frustrated that his message, which took so much of his waning energy, was misinterpreted, probably for the billionth time. 

"What? You DON'T want 3 strippers?" I asked.

He shook his head no. 

Then he held up his shaking hand with all five fingers extended. 

"Not 3," he mouthed. "Five!"

Dad passed a few days later, but not before giving us one more story. A family tale that’ll be retold for decades to come.