It was the first week of January 2018, and my father lay dying 2,400 miles away. I was desperate to see him, a desire complicated by the fact that, as my dad grew weaker at home with my mom in Scottsdale, Arizona, an historic bomb cyclone storm (I had never even heard of such a thing until that week) formed as an area of low pressure off the Southeast coast of the United States and was rapidly gaining strength.
I couldn’t believe that something called a “bomb cyclone” was going to keep me from saying goodbye to my dad.
My dad, Nicholas Joseph Corsi, born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1926, nine days after and around the block from my mom, Matilda Josephine Troise, was stoic and stubborn as he battled Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) over the last dozen years of his life. MDS is a disease that slowly depletes the body of healthy blood cells, especially in bone marrow. Gradually, organs in the body—heart, lungs, and kidneys—weaken. Compromised oxygen to the brain can lead to confusion and memory loss. The WebMD site states: “most people who get MDS are 65 or older, but it can happen to younger people too. And it is more common in men.”
Progression of a disease like myelodysplastic syndrome can be quite slow, even in an older individual like my dad (he had just turned ninety-one on December 28, 2017) who had not escaped other serious ailments. He was already down to one kidney after a malignant tumor robbed him of the other in 1995; he had gone through radiation treatment for prostate cancer in 2000; and in 2014 he suffered a heart attack due to a blockage in the artery referred to as “the widow maker.” A stent took care of that.
But by New Year’s Day 2018, my dad was sleeping through most of the day and eating very little. We were all aware of his end-of-life wishes to not have any extreme measures taken to prolong his life, knowledge which didn’t make the burden of my mother’s next decision any lighter, but she could feel comfortable with it: to stop treatment and request care from one of the hospice chapters in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area—Hospice of the Valley. The paperwork had already been taken care of in anticipation of the day when hospice would be needed. Carrie made a call to my dad’s doctor on January 2nd to set the process in motion; I got online and booked a flight into Phoenix for Saturday, January 6th, which allowed time to get to the other side of the impending storm.
We had grown accustomed to the process of a very long, slow decline in my dad. We were all used to dad being sick. Now we had to face a new reality—dad being gone. Sooner than any of us expected. During the second visit by the hospice team, on January 3rd, two loving-as-could-be women gently shared with my mom and sister that my dad probably only had days to live.
I wanted … needed … to get to Arizona right away and not have to wait for Saturday. The winter cyclone, which was wreaking havoc at every airport within a 100-mile radius of my home in central Pennsylvania, stood in the way. My dad was sick for so long. What are the freaking chances that his final days and a bomb cyclone would collide?
As I watched The Weather Channel and endlessly repeated images of the storm—a pinwheel-shaped, spinning mass in shades of gray and white, covering huge swaths of the East Coast—I felt jealous.
I envied the storm’s freedom as it boldly shimmied, shifted, and swirled wherever it pleased, while those of us living miles under its path were held captive in our homes. Damn you, winter, I thought. You have no right to deny me a goodbye.
I felt like both of my feet had been plunged into buckets of fast-drying cement. I wasn’t going anywhere. If the planes were grounded, so was I.
And there was a part of me that was relieved by that fact.
I’m a nervous flyer in the best of conditions, relying on Ativan to quiet my nerves. Just a small dose … it’s enough to “take the edge off.” But the thought of flying in the immediate aftermath of a bomb cyclone storm, with temperatures well below freezing and de-icing trucks sitting on many runways at the ready, didn’t sit well. And then there was the larger issue—the one that really mattered, the one that made me feel like a selfish child: Did I truly want to be next to my dad when he took his final breath? I did so want to be there to join with my sister in supporting our mother, who was about to lose her husband of sixty-seven years.
My sister, who, as the only sibling living in Scottsdale or anywhere in the West (my brother and I both live on the East coast), had shouldered most of the responsibility of helping our parents. I didn’t want Carrie to also have to shoulder the burden of grief that would come at the end. I wanted to be brave and selfless. I wanted to be a hospital chaplain again—comforting the dying … consoling their loved ones. But, even ten years after walking away from hospital chaplaincy, some memories of the trauma cases I was involved in still live very close to the surface. When a trigger sets off the tripwire in my emotions, my immediate impulse is often to flee the situation. So, I had to ask myself: Would I be able to handle the sight of my dad’s passing? I was unsure. But I was willing to find out. My place was there.
My cell phone rang at 7:15 the next morning. It was only 5:15 a.m. in Scottsdale when Carrie called, but she needed to talk and cry. Dad was fading quickly, she said.
“I don’t think you’re going to make it here in time, Tess.”
Her words were like a thrown stone striking the center of a sheet of glass. My heart broke, from its center, the pain then rippling outward. My hopes of seeing my dad one last time were shattered.
I wanted to say, “Carrie, you have to tell dad that he has to wait for me. Tell him that he has to be stubborn like he always is.” Yet, can a dying man be convinced to stay alive if his soul has other intentions? How could I ask more of my father than Our Father apparently had? Together, they were setting the schedule.
That Thursday afternoon—with my dad failing and planes still grounded—I placed a call to Carrie’s cell phone. She held it up to my dad’s ear. I could barely get the words out … words I hadn’t said to him nearly enough.
“I love you, dad.”
I can only hope what Carrie said next was true, that he reacted to the sound of my voice.
“It looked like dad was listening,” she said.
I choked out a goodbye to my sister. I sat and sobbed and cursed nature for being so cruel.
Friday morning arrived, and with it, God’s indulgence—my dad had made it through another night. Improved weather was also finally allowing planes to take-off from Philadelphia International Airport again. A limited number of flights to Phoenix were available.
Could I actually make it to my dad’s side in time? I knew that I had to try, or risk regret for the rest of my days. I quickly placed two phone calls—to my husband, Rick (“I’m going!”) and to my sister (“I’m coming!”). And then a mad dash to pack before Rick picked me up for the short ride to the train station, for the first leg of a trip that would have me in Scottsdale that evening.
As I sprinted through my morning with a boosted sense of hope in seeing my dad, the journey of another winter traveler was already in progress aboard an Amtrak train headed from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg. Once there it would pick up additional passengers—some (including me) headed to Philadelphia, a number to New York City, and others to points along the way.
That other winter traveler … I thank God for him to this day.
(Photo Credit: Todd Diemer on Unsplash)
Please read Part 2 for the continuation of this story.