Jade Schiff, on April 10th 2019 -
14 hours after my father’s last breath I have been struggling with where to start his story in order to give those who want it a sense of who he was. I am beset by sadness, relief, gratitude and anger, reactions to 40 years of memories made of my own recollections and the stories that have shaped me. The easiest place for me to start is the end, which feels drawn out and also impossibly fast.
The end began around 6 weeks ago in San Miguel D’Allende, Mexico, Dad’s last stop on 2 or so months of travel. Travel was one of his favorite things, something that he had stopped at least when I was born, if not earlier. In his last couple of decades or so, he had returned to it with great fervor. It’s only as I write it that this becomes central to our trip to Israel last summer (or the one before? Time has collapsed). It was the first time we really shared his love for travel. That trip is one of my favorite memories.
So: Dad was hospitalized in Mexico with what turned out to be melanoma on his cerebellum. This was the second recurrence in a couple of years. We’d learn later that it was metastatic. After A WEEK of negotiating a medevac home to Toronto with his insurance company (private insurance is just as much of a nightmare in Canada), Dad ended up in Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. This part of the story is a powerful testament to the undying love and extraordinary capability of his friends, who worked in Mexico and in Toronto to make it happen.
Melanoma has become one of the most treatable cancers and his prognosis was good despite the fact that surgery was impossible because of the tumor’s location. When he arrived in Toronto his speech was very slurred and he could not walk. Eventually his speech improved and he started to be able to get around with a walker. The idea was to get him self-sufficient, get him to rehab, and get him home. I cannot say enough about his treatment team.
After pretty steady improvement there was a crisis last week—the tumor began bleeding and the doctors were having difficulty controlling it. Neurosurgeons told him they could operate and he’d survive the night but be cognitively compromised, or his doctors could try and potentially fail to stabilize him. My dad was a neuroscientist—a long career in neuropsychology at the University of Toronto—and, much more recently, a writer (a number of you read his blistering critique of Jordan Peterson in the Toronto Star. Jordan had once been a dear friend and colleague, and that piece had been painful to write). Cognitive impairment was not an acceptable outcome, so last Monday Allie and I drove to Toronto for what might be his last night. On that night my sister and I had beautiful “final conversations.” He and I found we had little to say, not because there were things we couldn’t talk about, but because so little had been left unsaid. But Dad, ox that he was, pulled through and started improving, so I left several days later (I am still struggling with hydrocephalus and it became too much for me).
Very early yesterday morning—it feels like a week ago—my sister texted from Toronto that she and our mom had been called to the hospital because Dad was in respiratory distress. The doctors were monitoring closely. I asked her to call me if something changed. 3 hours later she called, and by yesterday afternoon I was back in Toronto. Dad had become septic, probably due to pneumonia that he’d contracted in the hospital. Docs bombarded him with antibiotics, and by the time I arrived there had been some small improvement. Over the next several hours he deteriorated quite quickly and it became clear that he was nearing his end. Family friends were a constant presence, a great comfort to my mom, my sister and me. There was a lot of waiting, as it became clear that this would probably be his last day. He died peacefully, with me, my sister and our mother by his side, the most intimate we’ve been as a family maybe ever.
After he died I stayed alone with him in his room for a while, holding his hand and talking to him until I realized that I was talking, telling him things I’d told him before, with the childlike hope that he might wake up. Finally, I kissed his cold hand and left the room.
I feel more right now than I can describe. But underneath it all I feel...ready. I realized that, knowingly and not, Dad prepared me for today. Among the many gifts he’s given me, that might be the greatest. Tonight I am lying in his bed, ready to sleep where he once did and never will again.
Thanks, Dad. I love you.