Christmas Mourn

This photograph of Stan Travis was taken after he became sick, but before the worst of the weight loss to come.

It was winter in New England. The sun stayed low in the sky, the cold stripping its ambition to climb any higher or stay very long. It rarely showed through the cloud cover anyway. 

The Christmas tree stood by the big picture window, dressed in seasonal finery and staring out into the world where it had lived before someone with a saw cut it down, thereby signing its death warrant. The tree was clamped upright in a metal stand, a festive red kilt hiding its mortal wound. It dutifully sipped at a water and aspirin concoction meant to prolong the facade of vibrant green life, but it was just a brave face on the bitter reality of a slow, inevitable death. 

On the other side of the room squatted a rented hospital bed. It held a frail dying man, my father, under a tousled sheaf of white blankets. His cheeks and temples were hollow, his brown eyes lay deep in cavernous sockets, and his skin was jaundiced to a color that could almost pass for a healthy tan. He too was provided concoctions that he sipped dutifully to prolong his time. He too stared out the window at the world. He had once hunted and fished and golfed among trees like the one he shared the room with now. A cold fireplace watched from within the wall behind them both, its gaping gray and black maw sucking any good cheer from what was ironically called the living room. 

The assistant pastor of the church our family occasionally attended was a frequent visitor. Few others came by at this late stage. Dad’s spirits seemed a little better after such visits, but it was hard to tell with the desolate, medicated expression that governed his countenance. Whether he found the saving grace and peace he sought and that the preacher sought to convey, he never let on. Maybe he didn’t want to come across as a foxhole convert, maybe he simply didn’t have the energy to talk about it. Perhaps it was just that no one asked.

I lived in my own little world of books and daydreams, which equated to absent-minded laziness in the eyes of the adults in my life. The real world seemed surreal to me anyway, like a dream that I expected to wake from someday. A dream only as real as the dreams that robbed me of restful sleep and never ended with me winning the game, winning the girl, winning the fight. This alternate world I retreated to was protective insulation, and with what was in the living room, I wrapped myself tightly in it like a warm comforter on a bitter winter’s night.

Dad called me into that living room in late November 1982. He began by saying, “We heard from the doctor today, and it doesn’t look good.” What followed was a heart-mutilating goodbye. Dad’s voice quavered uncharacteristically as he told me that he was proud of me, that he was sorry he wasn’t going to be there for the big moments that were coming, that I should pursue my education and go to college, and no matter what I decided to do in life, I should always do my very best. There was more, but I don't remember hearing it. It made it to my ears but the gates slammed shut after the first volley of words hit home and pierced the vulnerable places inside.

I had known down deep that Dad wasn’t going to make it, but I had been able to deny it until then. He had faced down the early hardships with a cheerful disposition. I had seen him in the front yard trying to figure out how to swing a golf club without dislodging his colostomy bag and catheter. I remember frequently hearing Dad walking through the house on his way to the bathroom in his trademark unhurried gait, whistling a made-up tune as was his habit. He would shut the door, lift the lid, and vomit with no build-up groans or fanfare, as little fuss as if he were simply combing his hair. He’d spit out the residue, rinse with water, and saunter back out to continue whatever project he had been working on as if nothing had happened. I don’t remember him indulging in self-pity or being short-tempered throughout his entire illness. As time went on, I began to realize what tough cloth he had been cut from, and that I was not cut from the same stuff. If I was Dungaree, he was Kevlar.

The elephant in the room that no one wanted to talk about had just ripped my comforter off, leaving me fully exposed to the frigid truth. I cried as I clung to him, but continued to resist embracing the reality. It just couldn’t be true. Dad was right there, breathing, talking. He wasn’t going to turn into one of those waxy, dusty-looking corpses I had seen in caskets, he’d get better and things would go back to normal. Yes, he looked sick and was very thin, but he was right there in front of me, alive. He would always be there, alive. Only really old people died, like my grandfather had a couple of years ago. My father was way too young—

Dad’s voice broke the spell. He told me that he needed to talk to my sister next. He asked me to call her in and then go to my room to give them some privacy. 

I heard the same opening sentence through the closed door and my sister’s soul-shearing wails. Three years older than me, she had long ago accepted what was happening and preferred brutal reality and stoic emotional armor to my denial and escapism. But hearing this reality from Dad broke the armor like an eggshell and her emotions poured from the breach like her own lifeblood. My tears began anew, soaking the pillow I had been using to stifle my sobs. 

Mom sat in the bedside chair through all of this. The tears she had fought to control for months so as not to dampen her husband’s hopes flowed freely down her face. Not even the gin bottle she increasingly leaned on was able to numb the pain this day. Despite the crutch, she was a strong woman and a devoted wife. She had stood like a rock by Dad’s side for over 25 years. She had kept house and worked as hard as he did to help him start his veterinary practice. She followed him and his ambitions when he sold the practice and moved to southern Florida to pursue the dream of professional golf and sunshine. They lost everything and turned back north a year later, broke and disappointed, with a toddler daughter and an additional infant son in tow. 

When Dad got his feet back under him, he started another practice the next town over, and Mom once again took on as much of the load as she could while making sure us kids were okay, the house was clean, and dinner was on the table every night. They worked very hard for many years until the practice finally took on a life of its own. There were vacations and better cuts of meat on the table. Money wasn’t a worry anymore. Enter cancer. She stepped up her efforts and managed the office while managing her husband’s illness, her father’s death, her irascible mother, a household, and what were now two difficult teenagers.

When it became obvious that cancer had won and the clock was running out, it fell to her to pass the torch to whom my Dad had chosen to buy the practice. The husband/wife team had been under Dad’s employ for some time and were his first choice to take it over. They were at first grateful, respectful, and understanding. But as time went on and Dad’s demise didn’t progress on schedule, they became increasingly impatient and hostile. Visits to their lawyer’s office to work on the transition became one-way shoutfests and sometimes ended in walkouts prompted by my parents’ lawyer. Mom kept all of this from Dad. He was down to a little more than half of his former middle-aged weight, constantly nauseous, weak in body and spirit, and she respected his wish to die in peace. It was too late to begin again with Dad’s second choice. It would never have been finished before he passed and it would have upset him immeasurably to learn how things had gone. Eventually, the sale went through. She carried that burden alone and doused the flames of her anger and frustration with more gin. 

Christmas day came that year and life remained with Dad. The tree was buried to the lower branches in a mound of brightly wrapped gifts. I had gotten past the reality of the goodbye meeting and was back in my world of denial. To me the day was like all other Christmas days, filled with new books, clothes, and other items meant to turn my interests in more productive directions. The Mitch Miller Christmas record sang from the record player, a fire warmed the fireplace, and anticipation was high. I could deny the ominous reality of the day, and I did. 

My sister paid little attention to the impeccable wrapping job her mom and others put so much effort into. She tore off the well-meaning but annoying impediment and cast it aside like old, stained newspaper. The magic of the season was lost on her this year, as it would mostly be for the rest of her life. After she and I became more or less absorbed in our bounty, Mom quietly gave Dad the last gift she would ever give him. There was a deep tenderness between them, words softly spoken and thoughts and feelings not given to voice but understood just the same. Their eyes shone with tears and long hugs were shared. I would revisit the moment often through the years, wondering what that must have been like for them but never being able to fully understand, hoping I would never have to. 

The days were short this time of year. It was fully dark by 4:30. The living room was painted by the colored lights of the tree, and Dad rested in the dull glow. The day was done and the festive mood we had labored to keep had faded out along with it. Mom persisted in bringing him food and drink as she had throughout his illness. She often ate as she sat beside him in hopes of coercing him to get a little of it down. This added to her girth, which further dampened her spirit and increased her drinking. By now, though, anything he managed to eat came right back up. We all knew the disgusted little head shake Dad gave before he deposited yet another meager meal into a plastic sickness bag. 

Dad had plateaued at the start of the holidays. It seemed in retrospect that he had wanted to make it through one last Christmas, and he had. But there came a time a few days later when he didn’t return my cheerful wave as I passed through the living room. His eyes were open, but he made no movement. I deluded myself that he was just having a tough day. 

Late in the afternoon I was in my room, lost in one of my books. There was an explosive knock on my door. I knew it was my sister because there was no gentle crescendo or hesitancy, just her trademark three full-strength bare-knuckle raps. Without waiting for a response, she shoved the door open hard and fast enough to disturb the papers on my desk, as was her habit, and announced with no preamble or inflection that if I wanted to see Dad alive again I had better come now, then tromped off. Adrenaline launched me onto my feet and out the door before the full meaning of her words had a chance to register.

Mom sat by the bedside in the living room. It was clear at first glance that Dad was no longer there. His body was still trying to survive, but his eyes were vacant. 

Mom periodically stood and checked vital signs, then sat back down. This continued for what seemed like an eternity as Dad’s body ever so slowly lost the will to go on. I stood near my sister as the silent battle between body and disease played out. Dad’s breaths came less and less frequently but required more and more effort. Eventually, his entire body was arching off the mattress in the quest for breath. It tried, then tried again, a third, then a fourth time, with longer intervals between gasps. Then there were no more tries. His body went slowly limp. 

I looked into my dad’s eyes, pleading with him to let me know he was still there, but his eyes clouded over as I watched. Mom checked his vitals one more time, then looked up at us and shook her head gently but said nothing. A giant tear slid down her face as she walked to my sister and me. She guided us into her embrace, and we all surrendered into it. We were three now. 

~~~

The new owners of the clinic made a show of grief at Dad’s wake. Their apparent sorrow moved me in my naive and vulnerable condition, but Mom later openly showed her disgust for their “crocodile tears.” Within a few years, the new owners had sold the practice to Dad’s second-choice vet anyway for a stout profit and moved to California. The irony was not lost on Mom, and her bitterness occasionally boiled over when the subject came up. The new owner was kindhearted and loved by his clients almost as much as Dad was. Mom brought her pets to him until she died, and it did her heart good to see her husband’s legacy go on as he had built it.

I often thought about death after that. I had heard of people dying a peaceful death, but that only happens when you die in your sleep. My father died the most peaceless death I could imagine short of being slowly and torturously murdered. But in a way, that’s exactly what happened. He didn’t invite it by living a debauched lifestyle. He drank and smoked some when he was young, but that didn’t last long, and he ate well and kept in decent shape. But the cancer slipped in and made itself comfortable and ubiquitous, thwarting all attempts to extricate it and nonchalantly taking what it had come for. 

Mom passed away 24 years later with no warning at all. I still don’t know which death hurt worse, hers or Dad’s. I had vacillated between wanting a miracle and wanting a quicker death for Dad. Yes, I wanted his suffering to end, but I also wanted not to have to watch it even more. I may well carry the guilt over my selfishness to my own grave. Adding to that guilt is the broken promise to Mom, one of so many that I would correct if I could. We used to talk often by phone, but I had let it slip more and more as I became absorbed in my own life. I had promised her I would absolutely, positively call over the weekend that she died. Things got busy and I never did. That Monday morning, I got a call from my sister: “Hi. Mom’s dead.” It took several moments to realize I could now neither make that call nor apologize for not making it. My grief was immediate, deep, profound, helpless, and violent. Later on, well-meaning folks would try to excuse the guilt away, but even now I still struggle to let it go. Not to punish myself, but to keep from repeating the same mistakes, which I’ve done anyway to others I care deeply for. My calling her that weekend wouldn’t have saved her. Hardening of the arteries was the cause of death. Logically I know this but logic doesn’t matter to the soul. Our conversation could have been a last fond memory and one less thing for my subconscious to beat me mercilessly with.

I began to better understand the huge burden Mom shouldered and am in awe of how she did it with as much grace, dignity, and fortitude as she did. I’ve thought about the myriad difficult conversations she and Dad must have had — about the disease itself, the business, the kids, acceptance of the terminal diagnosis, the estate, how to say goodbye. About the strength it must have taken for her to keep the things she kept from him so as not to upset him when she probably wanted nothing more than to vent these things to her husband the way a wife should be able to. I don’t know if she had a faithful friend and confidante other than the gin bottle, but as I found for myself, booze doesn’t make it go away. Neither does isolation.

I was angry at the world for taking away the male influence I needed at that age. I eventually began seeking someone to be the older brother or dare I say replacement for Dad. I felt like an orphaned animal on one of those nature shows that tries to find a new family but gets turned away time after time. I don’t fault those that turned me away. They had their own lives and troubles. Taking on a fatherless kid, even in a mentorship capacity, is a big ask. Some tried from a comfortable distance and I learned a lot from them. But fair or not, I should have figured out earlier that I was responsible for me. Instead, I drank and drugged and otherwise acted out, wasting large swaths of lifetime and brain cells, throwing myself an epic pity party. I eventually learned to be my own mentor after I got over myself and got sober. I’m not a finished product yet, but I know I will be a work in progress until the Lord calls me home, and I think that’s good.

Later in my life, four people I was close to committed suicide. I was angry with them until I reflected on what I watched my father go through. I came to understand why in some circumstances death becomes preferable to life. But sometimes suicide can be too early as much as natural death can be too late. While I deeply understand what motivates someone to take their own life, having almost done so myself, the ripple effects are severe and far-reaching for those left behind. Still, if my father had taken his own life, I couldn’t have faulted him for it, having seen the indescribable misery he endured firsthand. It was terminal cancer, not psychological problems, which there is help available for. 

As I reached and surpassed 47 years old, the age at which Dad died, I reflected on things from an older and wiser perspective. Yes, I lost my Dad. But what was that in the face of what Mom lost and what she endured? And who was cheated more than Dad? I can’t go back and change anything, but I can get off the pity pot and finish well to honor and belatedly thank both of them. They were laid to rest side by side in our family plot in Wayland, Massachusetts, not far from the railroad trestle on the Sudbury River where my Dad and I fished for horned pout. There is a spot for me there beside them. When they died, I interred myself there with them. But I think they would rather I dig out and go live a good and full life. I can come back when it’s over.

(Stanley Owen Travis died three days after Christmas in 1982. His son, Scott, was 13 and his daughter, Amy, 16.)