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<\/a>In 2005, Mom and Dad were in China, where they had taught English for five years. Dad had lost most of the function in one kidney.\u00a0 Now, the second kidney failed. All of us Blairs joined in prayer that we\u2019d find a way to get him home for the needed medical help.\u00a0 \u201cHome\u201d ended up being Hong Kong, where he did receive what he needed\u2013as well as an understanding that his time abroad was ending.\u00a0 He would need to return to Provo and begin dialysis.\u00a0 No more international travel.\u00a0 All of his children offered a kidney, but Dad was not eligible for a transplant, given the fact that he had had significant heart trouble and that he was \u201cold.\u201d<\/p>\nHe was relatively healthy in those first months and years of dialysis.\u00a0 It was a new language he learned at Davita, and a new community he met.\u00a0 The language included names of medications, procedures, numbers, and the community comprised those in the chairs alongside him\u2013Miguel, Susan, Russell, Richard, Beth, Marilyn.\u00a0 He endured the needles and four-hour sessions of dialysis three times weekly by bringing his computer with him.\u00a0 During dialysis, he often worked on Pashto (\u201cthe language of the Taliban\u201d, he called it), and on games and puzzles intended to provide basic conversation skills in several languages.<\/p>\n
In 2010, he was approaching his 80th birthday, and seemed also to be approaching death.\u00a0 He was bleeding internally, and when the bleeding was controlled, he had heart attacks.\u00a0 The doctors couldn\u2019t find the source of the bleed, even with sophisticated camera probes.\u00a0 It appeared that we Blairs would be holding a funeral on Dad\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n
I found myself beginning what my sister described as \u201canticipatory grieving.\u201d\u00a0 This marked the first of my presuming the proximity of my father\u2019s death, and my random, uncontrollable crying. It would continue for years afterwards.\u00a0 Dad did not die, though.\u00a0 Not then.\u00a0 On September 25th, his 80th birthday, Dad came home from the hospital, escorted by two of his namesakes\u2013his son, Robert Groberg Blair, and his grandson, Robert Daren Young.<\/p>\n
There were projects Dad wanted to finish, he said.\u00a0 Most of us assumed that these referred to language projects.\u00a0 I knew that there was more.\u00a0 Dad had felt guilty that he hadn\u2019t spent more time with his family, and particularly in supporting his wife during the early years of their parenthood.\u00a0 He articulated it several times.\u00a0 \u201cI was gone.\u00a0 I\u2019d go to my office, or to Central America.\u00a0 It all seemed so important.\u00a0 But I got the balance wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n In April, 2014, my brother Dell, Dad\u2019s first son, died.\u00a0 Death did not keep him, however.\u00a0 Dell wrote of his experience here<\/a>.<\/p>\n When I got to the hospital after Dell flatlined, Dad was in the ICU waiting room with Mom.\u00a0 He had clearly been crying.\u00a0 I approached him.\u00a0 He said, \u201cIt was like seeing my dad in the coffin,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cBut Dell will live.\u201d<\/p>\n My sister and I went into the room where Dell was emerging from the coma. The doctors had induced it to prevent brain damage as they tried to re-start his heart\u2019s rhythm.\u00a0 We could see the miraculous open\/shut pulse of Dell\u2019s heart as a doctor did an ultrasound.\u00a0 Dell was not fully coherent yet, but he was alive.<\/p>\n I contemplated what all of this had meant for Dad.\u00a0 He had been taken back to the worst moment of his young life\u2013the moment when, after caring for his traumatized mother, he had gone to the funeral home and seen his father\u2019s body.\u00a0 Wallace Blair, my grandfather, had a problem with alcohol in the last part of his life, and my dad thought this was part of what killed him.\u00a0 Officially, it was a heart attack, but the man who walked my grandfather to the hospital\u2013the worst thing he could have done\u2013was the same man who had tempted him to drink. Grandpa Blair was fifty-three when he died.<\/p>\n In 2014, it was not his father but his son lying lifeless\u2013or so it appeared.\u00a0 Dell was still in a coma when Mom and Dad saw him.\u00a0 It was an awful deja vu.\u00a0 Dell looks much like our grandfather\u2013both of them tall redheads. How could Dad not remember the sight of his father\u2019s dead body?\u00a0 But this story had a different ending. \u201cDell will survive.\u201d Dad had lost all of his immediate family by this time.\u00a0 His sister, Carolyn, had died at age 44 in 1972; his mother, Marguerite, had died at age 78 in 1974.\u00a0 He thought he knew death.\u00a0 Now he was brought to the familiar scene again, but with faith and an understanding that this story would have a different ending than it had had in 1949.<\/p>\n \u201cThe end of the story hasn\u2019t been written.\u201d\u00a0 This has been my common refrain when my children reported on the misbehavior of one of their friends.\u00a0 It has been a life theme for me as I have watched people change, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill.\u00a0 Never presume that you know how the story ends.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Dell recovered beautifully.\u00a0 Though I begged him to get a pacemaker to celebrate my 59th birthday, he refused, certain that his heart would continue functioning well.\u00a0 Thus far, he has been right.<\/p>\n Dad\u2019s encounters with the unpredictable death of loved ones were not over, though.<\/p>\n On October 11, 2015, our mother, Julia Gay Groberg Blair, began vomiting blood.\u00a0 Dad\u2019s nurse had come early that morning.\u00a0 When Mom made her unsteady way to the kitchen that morning with the words, \u201cI need help,\u201d the nurse called 911. We summoned the family. On October 14, Mom died.\u00a0 For a few minutes.\u00a0 This is what I wrote on that day:<\/p>\n Today, October 14, 2015, is the day we Blair kids ALMOST lost our mother. Her heart arrested multiple times beginning last night. I got a call from her cardiologist right after I taught my classes today. He told me they were going to place a pacemaker into her heart. On the way to the OR, Mom\u2019s heart arrested again in a rather permanent way, and the doctors did CPR. We don\u2019t yet know if they broke ribs, but we understand that CPR is serious business and that she will be sore. The pacemaker was successfully implanted, and Mom\u2019s heart resumed its activity. My siblings and I waited for her to become stable. (Her blood pressure kept dropping.) If there ever was a time Dad neglected his wife, he made up for it now.\u00a0 He was her constant guardian and advocate.\u00a0 Even after enduring dialysis, when he was unspeakably weak, he would have us take him to Mom\u2019s side in the hospital. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We realized by the new year that Mom didn\u2019t really need twenty-four-hour care any more.\u00a0 She was ambulatory and off her oxygen.\u00a0 Dad, however, did need it.\u00a0 And so we continued.<\/p>\n As soon as Mom recovered, Dad weakened.\u00a0 His last project\u2013taking care of her\u2013was done.\u00a0 He said, \u201cMy life was preserved so that I could take care of Julia.\u201d<\/p>\n On February 17th, Dad was unusually weak.\u00a0 He wanted to get out of bed and work on his projects.\u00a0 Dell and I tried lifting him, but Dad had no strength to help.\u00a0 I finally told him that I\u2019d raise his bed and bring him the laptop computer so that he could work on his newest project\u2013a virtual global tour, complete with language learning.\u00a0 Later, Dad asked again to get up.\u00a0 Dell tried lifting him, but Dad fell to the floor on his knees.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know what he damaged, but the next day (Thursday, February 18), he was in terrible pain.\u00a0 I had an obligation to speak at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, and got a text as I was preparing to leave that my family was taking Dad to the hospital.\u00a0 I told my husband to keep me updated, though I silenced my phone for the presentation.\u00a0 I had not realized that text messages would still be audible.\u00a0 I heard them coming in\u00a0 throughout my lecture.\u00a0 I knew I was being rude to the audience when, after the lecture was over, I dashed to my phone, curtly greeting those who had come to see me.\u00a0 I apologized, but I needed to see how my dad was doing.\u00a0 All of the messages indicated that he was doing better.<\/p>\n In the hospital, Mom rubbed Dad\u2019s feet.\u00a0 In retrospect, I saw my absence as a blessing.\u00a0 Normally, I would have done the foot rubbing.\u00a0 It was Mom\u2019s turn now, though. This was her last loving act for her husband.<\/p>\n I arrived at my parents\u2019 home just as my husband and my brother, Jim, arrived from the hospital with Dad.\u00a0 He was still in pain.\u00a0 They had given him morphine, which had done nothing to ease him.\u00a0 The followed up with\u00a0 Dilaudid, which took his pain to a tolerable level.\u00a0 He was wearing a leg brace.\u00a0 My husband and brother pushed Dad\u2019s wheelchair, and I lifted his leg to keep it from dragging on the floor.\u00a0 With great difficulty, we got him into bed and he thanked us, then apologized for costing so much money.\u00a0 (He always resisted ambulances, saying, \u201cBut that\u2019s a thousand dollars!\u201d)\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Around 6:00 a.m., Mom told me that Dad wanted to get up.\u00a0 I said, \u201cI don\u2019t think I can do it.\u00a0 We need to wait until others arrive.\u201d\u00a0 Mom and I checked on Dad, who had apparently gone back to sleep.<\/p>\n His nurse, Amber, arrived at 8:00 a.m., and told me that her grandfather had passed away.\u00a0 We chatted for five minutes or so, and I told her that Dad had had a rough day, but that he was sleeping now.\u00a0 She went into his room, and then ran back out, beckoning me and whispering, \u201cHurry!\u201d<\/p>\n I knew.<\/p>\n There he was, my dear dad, lying peacefully on his bed.\u00a0 \u201cThere is no pulse,\u201d Amber said. \u201cHe is still warm. What do you want me to do?\u201d<\/p>\n We had rehearsed this moment.\u00a0 I knew the next line.\u00a0 \u201cWe have a DNR,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n There was a bit of foam just under his lip.\u00a0 Amber cleaned it up, and we went together to tell Mom, who was in her office.<\/p>\n \u201cMom,\u201d I said, and waited until she was looking at me.\u00a0 \u201cDad has passed.\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t understand when I first said the words.<\/p>\n \u201cDad has passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n We went back into the bedroom, and then I began calling my siblings.<\/p>\n In Romeo and Juliet<\/em>,\u00a0 when Capulet sees his daughter\u2019s body, he says, \u201cDeath lies on her like an untimely frost. Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n In Dad\u2019s case, death had been almost a companion, lurking, appearing, disappearing for years.\u00a0 He had pushed it away every time\u2013until now. Sometimes, he had pushed it away angrily, such as when it appeared that his body would not accommodate another fistula for dialysis.\u00a0 In the doctor\u2019s office he said sharply, \u201cThese doctors need to understand that I have projects I need to finish!\u201d\u00a0 And they did find a spot for a final fistula, giving us a few more months.<\/p>\n The truth is, he did not\u00a0 understand what the unfinished business really was.\u00a0 It had nothing to do with language.\u00a0 It had to do with his wife.\u00a0 Their communication throughout her long recovery was generally without language.\u00a0 He would enter her hospital room and her face would light up.\u00a0 He would hold her hand.\u00a0 He was a sober guardian, assuring that she would have more time.<\/p>\n At last, after raging against the dying of the light, Dad did indeed \u201cgo gentle into that good night.\u201d<\/p>\n All of the Utah Blairs met in the bedroom around our father\u2019s body and reminisced for hours.\u00a0 There were occasional jokes, and I would instinctively glance at Dad, surprised that he wasn\u2019t smiling.<\/p>\n I did not really weep until the funeral workers came for the body.\u00a0 My sister, Jen, a former hospice worker, instructed them to keep Dad\u2019s face uncovered until they were outside.<\/p>\n<\/a>Dad simply was not ready to die.\u00a0 I wonder if his will<\/em> led the camera to\u00a0 the bleed. It took four tries over a week\u2019s time to locate and cauterize it.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nAfter Dad\u2019s dialysis, my sisters took Dad to see Mom. He and my brother gave her a blessing. That will be one of the most tender sights of my life\u2013Dad reaching across the hospital bed with one hand to give his beloved wife a blessing. Mom was unconscious and will be until tomorrow. She has a ventilator for now.
\nAgain, we expect a good recovery. Surely, there will be lasting effects from this traumatic week, but we don\u2019t believe her time is up.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a> After she had been there for six weeks and was recovering well, the doctors wanted to send her to a care center for several months.\u00a0 Dad refused.\u00a0 He knew that a care center would drive her crazy.\u00a0 We would give Mom 24-hour care at home, he announced. Of course, he didn\u2019t realize that as we put the system into place\u2013with me there during weeknights, my sister, Jen, there for weekends, Dell there daily, and the rest of the Utah Blairs helping as they could\u2013we were also preparing to care for him after Mom\u2019s recovery.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n