On this Night June 6,1993

On This night

June 6th, 1993

I was exhausted and hurt from moving too many people and things. I took a muscle relaxant and crawled into the warm waterbed, it had been an eventful day at work; five people died, two were my friends.

My job, as a Certified Home Health Aide at Hospice House of Greater Grand Rapids was a great job; but on this night, many people died, five out of fifteen and it was enough to drive anyone, into a great depression.

I went to bed, a room dimly lit with a very small night light, the light from both our pagers, no other light visible, it was two in the morning. I slept fitfully that night. I tossed and turned all the while pulling at the covers, mumbling to myself, my partner Melissa, reported.

Five in the morning the phone teases me from a finally deep sleep. Melissa answers it. “Wake up Michelle, it’s your Mom and she’s crying”. Propelled by the thought of my Mom crying, I take the phone "Hello mom, what's wrong?" on the other end is a man’s voice, “Michelle?”, “yes”, “We need you to come up to your Moms right now, your Father is unresponsive.” “If he is unresponsive, why aren’t you taking him to the hospital?” “Your Mother needs you, come now, right now!” “Okay, we’ll be right there.” I was startled by the command, the urgency of the voice, and where is my Mom?

First, I grab the shower hose, wash my hair, brush my teeth; hurriedly get dressed while Melissa is already dressed waiting impatiently. I am mumbling about why they are not transporting my Dad, to the hospital. Why would he be unresponsive? I mumble to myself, as I am still half asleep and I am getting angrier and more frustrated with each passing moment, when Melissa grabs me by my collar and states “Your Dad is dead”. “We’d better get going, your Mom needs you.”

Melissa grabs my stuff and shoves me into the truck. The early morning was moist, smelled like rain, pollen, new leaves, blooming flowers, cool chilly whisper of a brand new day. The sun is rising on my side, of the truck. Beautiful, I rarely saw a sun rise, as I work two-forty five through eleven PM.

I start to think about the last twelve hours. We lost Andy, the sweet man from Detroit, whose family moved him to Grand Rapids, because they didn’t want anyone to know Andy was gay and that he had AIDS….We lost Christopher, an effeminate openly flaming gay man and my friend that lived across from Andy. He passed not with his friends and family as with Andy; but with only me, rocking him through his last breaths of life.

We lost Claudia ..…I was wrenched from my thoughts, by the rugged, bumpy, groove laden road that my parents lived on. Melissa jerked the truck into the parking area, we jumped out and ran into the house. The lake was just beginning to get the morning light; Wet grass, scent of a fresh new day, blooming skunk spray and water lilies, co-mingled to create a lively but harsh smell.

My Mothers face reddened, swollen, wet and eyes almost puffed shut, is the first thing I saw. I push past the man ‘guarding’ the door, to my Mother, hug her and ask what happened. My Mom tells me that they were sleeping, Peter *my dad* had turned over hugged her and taken a very deep breath, his last breath. She immediately called 911. The volunteer fire department arrived in 3 minutes, flat; they attempted to revive him for almost 2 hours.

My Father was lying on his side, on the floor, only in his underwear. He was purplish blue and his belly was bloated and hard. His eyes were closed. The smell of rotten alcohol, rancid vomit and stench of death filled the room. We cleaned up the room and him to improve the smell, I open the curtains and the sliding door to let in the fresh air in, instead hit with foul smelling Geese shit, that was no more than thirty feet from us.

From the sliding door I heard a whisper, “I love you, take care of your Mother” and then it was gone, this night so long ago. June 6th, 1993, my father died.