Shells

The body that lays in the hospital bed is not my father. The tubes that pour life into that shell must be feeding and breathing someone else. That can't be him. I know my Dad. I feel my Dad. I see it in his smile, his eyes, his attitude, even in his gestures.

This unresponsive shell is empty- has nothing of the spark that is my father. This body doesn't fight back, it doesn't show the wry sarcastic bent. It is being watered and fertilized like a houseplant. My father would never allow himself to be treated like this. He would yell at the nurses simply because his feet were cold, and what sort of an institution would keep their rooms so cold. He'd blame Minnesota. He'd blame the black aides, who clearly have it out for him. If he were in California, he'd blame the Filipinos. Always someone else to blame, always something else to complain about.

Stick a pin in this shell, and a toe flinches slightly. That's not my dad.

Show me the MRI charts- maybe he's hiding somewhere in that digital data. Show me the EEG's- he likes to play up his sickness. He's got to be somewhere, but that shell in the bed doesn't have him. Give me the two pennies to put on those eyes... roll that corpse into the corner. Black humor when my father was contained in that shell. Now simply the best thing to do with that vacant body.

Want me to cry over that body? Anger, Bargaining, Depression... what were all those Kubler-Ross stages? None of them applicable, because that body isn't my dad. I've cried, to be sure, but not because of what I've seen. I cry because of what I don't see. My dad is gone, and it's only taking a while for that empty shell to realize. The priest asks if it's an emergency- do they need to perform the Last Rites within the hour? No, it's not, I answer. It can wait.

I don't tell him that it's already too late. My dad is already gone. They will only be anointing an empty shell.