Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1987. július-december (41. évfolyam, 26-48. szám)
1987-07-09 / 27. szám
JÓCSÁK AND SON XIX. BY JOHN F. GOJACK "Why not?" Pop answered, looking him straight in the eye as he always did when serious. "It was just a little birthday party." Listening to Pop, I had to smile, realizing his response was a classic cover-up. He explained that he had been given some whiskey, which he was saving for a cold or a birthday. "My birthday had passed but I wasn't feeling too good and wanted to share it with a few friends. I didn't want to finish off a bottle myself," he added. Asked about the "wild party," Pop said he saw nothing wild. "Nobody got hurt, so how could it be a wild party?" Asked about the wheelchair races, which one staff member told me were more exciting than chariot races, he laughed. "How could it be a race when most patients in wheelchairs can barely get to the bathroom?" he answered. Asked if he could add any more to the activities of the regretful evening, Pop responded with a question of his own. "Doesn't the ward look as neat as ever and don't the patients look as good as ever and maybe better?" Throughout this inquiry, Pop was most sincere, and seemed a bit hurt that his little birthday party would be blown up into such a fracas. The official admonished him that liqour was not allowed in the hospital, at which Pop lowered his head slightly but said nothing. "Since no one can testify that you organized this illegal party, no staff saw it beginning and none of the patients will say who started it, we'll have to forget it this time," were the conclusions of the official. Whithout smiling, Pop looked him straight in the eyes and said, "That's okay." I felt the official's "Goodbye, John" had a warm tone as he went out the door. There was no gloating or smirking in Pop's reaction when we were alone in the room. "He's a good man," Pop said. I changed the subject. And one more time I realized that I had learned a lot more from Pop than most children learn from two parents. "Things are pretty good around here. How is your work going?" Pop asked whenever I visited him at the Chronic Patients' Hospital. "Glad you're okay, Pop. I'm busy and traveling too much, so I'm not able to get here every Sunday." Pop always looked good and was always full of life. He looked much younger than his eighty years. Since his childhood as a Hungarian peasant, Pop was rarely in the sun. In America his work was inside a factory. Hard and difficult work wore him out, so there was no desire for garden or outside activity off the job. We kids did those. As late as the end of May 1965 when Pop was 83, he was in good health save for the handicap of missing an arm and leg. "He hardly looks sixty, let alone eighty- three," said a nurse, commenting on his fresh, wrinkle-free skin. The sad news came just before Memorial Day. "Pop had a stroke and is not expected to live. You probably can't get here in time, but I know you want to be here rfor-the. funeral," said sister Pauline.. . r Pauline had called brother Mike, who was on an emergency repair job at a printing plant in Cincinnati. Despite the printer's protest, Mike walked off the job and hurried back to Dayton. Pop was not expected to live through the evening. My plane from Detroit arrived a few hours after Pauline's call and I rushed to the hospital. Pop was not too talkative and too weary to cuss. "Where's Bessie (who lived in California), Catherine, Andy, Mickey and Pauline?" he asked even though Mike and Pauline were at his bedside. Pop never believed that Andy died of a heart attack at age forty-seven and we never pressed the point. With his temperature at 106 and a galloping pulse, we realized there was little time left. When he became too ill to talk, Pop would smile when we spoon-fed him water, and slipped bits of ice into his mouth. I have traveled widely during my life. During those travels I have seen some of the most beautiful skies and waters on earth, and many shades of blue which is my favorite color. But never have I seen any blue as beautiful as my father's eyes, and they were never more clear, more expressive, more blue, than on the last days of his life. He would look at us and smile with his eyes, which told us more strongly than words how happy he was to have us there. By eleven that night Pop's fever went down to 102 and he was sleeping more. Since Mike had a grueling day starting at five a.m. I sent him home. Pop had a good night, waking only to take water or ice. Having had more sleep than Mike, we agreed he would not come back to the hospital until called. Instead he showed up at six a.m. A couple of hours later we learned that Pop was no worse, so I went to sister Pauline's for some sleep myself. With no call from Mike on any change in Pop's condition, I returned to the hospital at two in the afternoon. This was my first chance to ask his favorite nurse about Pop. She said she was shocked when she came on duty and learned that Pop had a stroke. The day before his attack he was healthy and in good spirits. "In fact," she said, "he followed me around the ward until there was a chance to feel me up." That was clear-cut evidence, considering his eighty-three years, that Pop was in his usual and fairly good state of health until just before his stroke. By six p.m. Pop appeared weaker, with his fever back up to 106.6. Mike and I stayed close and, along with the registered nurse, were greatly suprised when his temperature got back down to 102 about ten p.m. What a change, when the first word I had on Pop's illness was that he was not likely to live for more than a few hours. And now, thanks to his amazing strength and will to live, Pop had borrowed another forty-eight hours or so of life. However, he was steadily growing weaker and was no longer interested, or able, to take water or even ice. He did appreciate having his parched lips moistened with glycerine. He appeared to be sleeping and with his temperature down we thought .hpid. ..likely. . get -Ihumgh- .another . night. Thursday, July 9. 1987. So about ten-thirty, I insisted that Mike go home to sleep and relieve me later. Minutes before eleven, with the hospital staff changing to the night shift, Pop had a change for the worse. "Don't bother to come back to the hospital," I phoned Mike. "Pop's had a turn for the worse and it doesn't look like he'll make it through the night. Get some sleep and I'll call if anything changes." His breathing was more difficult. A nurse told me there was nothing else they could do for him. His eyes were still open and I thought they looked worried. I kept giving him glycerine and his eyes always thanked me with a grateful look. Before long his eyes closed and he was beyond wanting glycerine or anything else. I moved out of the bedside chair and squirmed very close to Pop. He opened his eyes once again when I cradled him in my arms and held him in a firm hug. That last look told me more than hours of talk how much he appreciated having me there. He slumped and I knew he was going fast. With my medical training in the Texas hospital, I began counting his pulse. No point in taking his temperature. He was burning with fever. For what seemed hours, but was likely only ten or twelve minutes, I held him tightly and counted his pulse continually. Pop was like a grand old clock, slowly winding down. I thought of the dozens of pleasant memories of Pop, and the absolute truth is that I could not recall one unpleasant memory. My main thought was how wonderful it was that I could be there, and have him realize that he was not dying alone, but in the arms of one of those who loved him dearly. Pop breathed his last and his pulse stopped at 11:36 p.m. I stopped counting but continued to hold him close. The bedsheets around his face were wet with my tears. I had been sobbing since reading his pulse, quietly so as not to disturb the other patient in the room. The nurse looked in, checked him quickly and said I should have called her when he died. "Why?" I said. "You told me there was nothing that could be done." I asked her to leave me alone with him a while longer. She was busy and it was almost a half hour before her return. Holding Pop in the same position, I felt no discomfort. During that last half-hour I did think of the past, not of the joys and pleasures of the many days spent with him, nor even of the sad experiences like losing his leg and arm to the Pennsylvania Railroad. I tried to understand what gave this loving man, himself an orphan in Hungary, the strength to leave his homeland when little more than a boy to work for a better life. Then, on losing his loving, amazingly hard-working wife at age thirty- two, how he mustered strength to raise six motherless children from three to twelve years of age. All this as an illiterate peasant, then an industrial worker, with no help from social agencies or the church. I thought of Pop's smiles when he saw three of his children at his bedside, and when beyond smiling, the grateful look in his eyes as he gazed at his son, cooling his fever with water and ice. He surely knew he was gravely ill, yet he never lost his good humor or his life-long ability to face adversity without caving in. Holding Pop those last minutes, I realized how fortunate I was to be able to have him die, at eighty-three, with a hard life cont. on p. 11. 10. Z Í AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO _________________________________________________i_
