My uncle died from alcoholism. I had spoken to him a day prior by phone and he had asked me to come say goodbye. I knew he didnโt have more than a few days left. He told me he was tired and was ready to “go home” as he put it. As I walked up the driveway to my grandmotherโs house the next day I could hear him screaming in pain. I felt my neck tighten up. My first instinct was to turn around and run away, but I needed to see him before he died.
I walked into the house and saw the wreckage of my uncles incoming death on my motherโs face. She looked tired and worn down. My uncleโs screams were sporadic like he was awakening from a nightmare to find himself on fire. My mom told me heโd been like that since heโd been on morphine. The medication was designed to take away all the pain, but because his liver and kidneys were failing, and his stomach destroyed from years of drinking, the morphine was not enough to kill his pain. His body was being pumped with poison and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
My sisters arrived and we caught a moment where my uncle was somewhat conscious yet still in agony. We found him shirtless on a hospital bed in the room heโd grown up in. He was a yellowish color from the bile circulating throughout his body. He was barely conscious and writhing in a fever. I remember thinking there was no dignity in the way he was dying. I felt angry about that. He deserved better than to die shirtless, afraid and screaming in pain. I wanted to protect him, but there was nothing I could do about that. Before he became conscious of our presence, I remember looking and down at him and thinking โthis is how Iโm going to die.โ I told myself not to look away because this would be me.
We said our goodbyeโs to him. Iโm sad to admit I donโt remember too much about the details of the goodbye. Maybe it was too painful to capture. I remember him telling my sisters he loved them. When he saw me he tried to put on a strong face and he told me I was big and strong, or something to that effect. Then he passed back out, shouting in pain. My older sister would later tell me that is was okay that he didnโt remember me because he was delirious from the morphine. However, he did remember. He would tell me how big and strong I was when I was a teenager growing as tall as he was. Either she didn’t remember this, or she was trying to hurt me.
As a side note, in an alcoholic family, siblings are full of resentments towards each other. I always felt my sister resented my being born. She shows her resentment in creative ways like trying to convince me that our dying, beloved uncle didnโt remember me. In turn, I can always find ways to be offended by turning everything my sister says to me into an attack and then use it as a reason to dislike her. Itโs a fun game we like to play. But if I am being honest, I don’t think she meant to hurt me on this day.
The nurse showed up and asked me to help her move my uncle to make him more comfortable. So I went into the room and lifted his clammy body up so that she could adjust him in the bed. It felt good to be of service even though he didnโt realize who was in the room with him. She told me of how to administer his medication so there would be someone else other than my mom who knew how to do it.
She told me he probably wouldnโt make it through two days. I remember thinking that I hoped he would die at that moment. I wanted the pain and the indignity for him to end. All the while I couldnโt shake the sneaking suspicion that this terrible death would mirror my own. I too was an alcoholic just like my uncle, and I too had been killing myself slowly.
Later, we all gathered in the front room with our mother. In the next few hours we would get family members stopping in to pay their last respects, but at the final moment it was just me, my mom, my older sister, and my very old and very ill grandmother. We were all resting, traumatized. Throughout the day the singular constant was my uncleโs screams, and then there was a moment where they ceased. At first no one really noticed. Maybe no one wanted to. My sister mentioned how quiet it was in his room so my mom got up to check on him. I think we knew what she would find.
She said his name twice โAlex? Alex?โ My sister and I got up and joined my mom as she looked down on him, concerned. I checked his nose to see if he was breathing. He wasnโt. I checked his pulse. He had none. He was dead.
While there was relief, it was quickly replaced by growing chaos. My mom was becoming frantic and busied herself with the dry protocols of post death. She was already calling the nurse and then calling about transporting my uncleโs deceased body to the morgue. My sister and I busied ourselves with helping her. True to form we did everything to stay out of the moment. I could remember feeling that frantic energy inside me and running from the flood that should have swelled up and over me, but I didnโt let it. None of us did.
Then came the realization that someone had to tell our grandmother that her son had just died. She was recovering from a major stroke and was suffering from dementia. She was also partially deaf, but she was still in there. My grandmother still knew who she was. She knew her children and someone had to tell her one of them was dead. She also knew her son was sick, but she didnโt believe, or refused to believe, that he was dying.
So we all gathered around her and told her. It was her cries that almost broke me. As I kneeled beside her with my hand on her hand I could feel her agony. Yet still, I wouldnโt let myself feel it completely. We all stayed by her for a moment, but as we so often are known to do, bailed on her and continued the administrative side of grief. Because of dementia and not wanted to accept my uncleโs death, we had to tell her again later that night where she again cried as if she had just learned he died.
The nurse came and assisted us for a time. Transportation came and put his body in a rubber bag and wheeled it out on a gurney. Before the man left, he asked if we wanted to see my uncle one last time. No one could bear it, so the moment passed, never to come again. Then he was really gone. The weight of my uncleโs impending death had hung like a weight around my familyโs neck all day, and with the weight gone, none of us knew what to do. So we all stood together in suspended shock.
I will always miss my Uncle Al. He was a kind, intelligent, and cultured man. You would have liked him. I am grateful to have been there on his last day. Had I not, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten sober. It took me over a year to finally make that fateful decision, but his agony was the catalyst for me.
I cannot do that to myself – I cannot let myself die like he did. I cannot let my sisters care for me as I writhe and scream and pray for deathโs release, and let someone tell my mom I died as she cries out in vain to the only person who could soothe her pain. That pain I cannot pass on. I do not blame my uncle for any of this. He was sick. I thank him for letting me be there, and if he is here with me now, I know he is proud that I got the chance to do what he could not. Get sober. I love you, Uncle Al. Always and forever.
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