The Dreaded Phone Call

My father had been sick the last few months. He had undergone a knee implant a couple of years ago since his knee joints were completely worn out by rheumatoid arthritis, and one of the implants was now infected. Heavy dozes of antibiotics for weeks at a time did not kill the infection so his only choice was to have the knee implant surgically removed and leave the bones of the leg fused. This procedure kept him in the hospital for about a month, because he was physically and psychologically drained by the months of antibiotics and physiotherapy that had preceded it. It was gut wrenching for him to not be able to bend one leg, but he was beginning to cope with his condition and was undergoing regular physiotherapy. Until a few weeks ago things seemed to be looking up, then his arthritis came back with a vengeance and left him bedridden.

It was tough to know what I should (or could) do. I have a wife and a kid and I live halfway across the planet from my family in Pakistan. The months of poor health that my father suffered were also taking a toll on my wife who now had health problems of her own. My wife and I called my parents daily and made sure they had enough money to cover his mounting medical bills. We prayed a lot and hoped that my dad would get better, he wasn’t all that old and he loved being with his grandkids and those things should count for something.

I was at work Friday three weeks ago and my wife called to say that she had talked with my sister and had learnt that Dad was refusing to eat and was always feeling drowsy. I went to bed that night fearing the worst, so when the phone rang at 2AM I knew something awful had happened. Sure enough, my father had been unresponsive later on Friday so my sister and my mom had taken him to the hospital where he had been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). The doctors thought his condition was critical so could I make arrangements to come right away?

There was more bad news on Saturday morning. The infection that had started in his knee was now in his bloodstream, and a CAT scan of the brain revealed a massive stroke. I made arrangements to fly to Pakistan and was there within a week. It was apparent that my dad’s decline was irreversible, and it was hard to believe that he had seemed completely healthy just 8 months ago when he had visited me in New Orleans. We hoped and prayed for a miracle, but his prognosis was dire and he did not even have the strength to breathe regularly with an oxygen mask. Within days my dad’s blood pressure and heartbeat became irregular and he succumbed to his illness.

Funerals in Pakistan are truly depressing. I have attended funeral services here in the ‘states and have always been spiritually uplifted, but unfortunately that is not the Pakistani way and there was too much focus on how sad his passing was and not enough on how blessed his life had been. Over the years my dad had grown as a person, he was far from perfect but at least he had acknowledged his own shortcomings and had learnt to appreciate the good in others. More pragmatic members of the extended family stepped forward, handled the logistics and made sure we were comfortable.

It has now been over a week since my dad’s passing, I am back home in the States and being back at work helps me adjust emotionally. There is truly no easy way to cope with the loss of a parent, but what matters now is to take care of my surviving family members and to focus on the future. In the end that is what my dad would have wanted.