It is better to learn early of the inevitable depths,
For then sorrow and death take their proper place in life,
And one is not afraid.
~Pearl S. Buck~
The Journey Begins
The above quotation encapsulates the transformational change within our family during the time of my father’s passing. It was a late October afternoon when my Mother called and informed me in a remarkably calm voice,”
Your father saw the doctor today and his cancer has returned…..this time in his lungs.”
My father Allan Greg Salmond Cunningham 1919-1998) in healthier times
I was temporarily disarmed by her seemingly centered response. In those first few minutes my emotions were fragmented between deep concern for mother and an attempt to incorporate his diagnosis into my psyche.
That fateful call was only the beginning. Just three months after my father’s diagnosis my mother was rushed to an emergency ward and nearly died. Her lungs filled with fluids and her blood oxygen levels dropped from a norm of 80-90 to 40. A nurse called at 11:45 PM. Her voice was grim,
“Your mother’s condition is deteriorating rapidly. We have ventilated her, but you need to prepare yourselves, we may not be able to stabilize her.” I kept asking her more questions, trying to keep her on the line. In a strange way, I was afraid to get off the phone because she was the only link to my mother’s deteriorating condition. We live over two hours away. I feared she might die before I could get to her.
When we got to the hospital I was shocked at what I saw. My mother’s arms were purple from all the injections. She could not talk because of the ventilator and feeding tubes. She bravely mouthed the words,
“Don’t worry I’ll be alright.” Her courage and will to live pulled her through. After several months of rehabilitation she came home on continuous oxygen. I was thankful that her wonderful spirit would bless my life for a while longer. However, my father’s future was not so bright and his health degraded as my mother fought her way through her own health challenges.
My Mom Edwina, Kathleen (Howells) Cunningham 1918-2005
Our Family Dynamic
Over the years Mom and I had many conflicts to resolve in our relationship with Dad. He drank heavily, and had a domineering, controlling personality that made life at home unbearable at times. For many years I hated him. The memories of sexual abuse and all the suffering it caused made me shun him on every level. At one point I convinced myself that he was a sociopath and had sold his soul to the devil. To defend ourselves against his abusive behavior mom and I developed a “you and me against the world” co-dependency that helped us survive. After many emotional upheavals and years of therapy I began to see that he was as isolated from us as we were from him. Somewhere in life he had disassociated from himself and his deeper needs and wants.
I began to lower my expectations of him. I eventually learned to accept the way things were. How could he be expected to connect with us? His drinking, smoking and over-eating anesthetized him and allowed him to remain comfortably unaware of the cause and effect of his life choices. Thankfully my spiritual development helped to transform my anger and resentment. Through time it became easier to accept that he needed to remain emotionally armored. I believe it was the only way he could mute his inner torment and deny unresolved emotional baggage. Through time my healing journey led me to a place where I was able to transcend the pain caused by his choices. I learned to accept him for who he was, rather than who I expected him to be.
His Candle Grows Dim
My father had managed to survive colon cancer two years earlier, but after the cancer returned in his lungs the family had to accept he was living on borrowed time. Mom now had two horrendous challenges to overcome. It was difficult for my Mom to struggle with her own health problems while confronting the loss of her spouse of over fifty years was difficult a difficult process. The most difficult part was accepting that there was absolutely nothing anyone could do to change things.
A few days before my mother was to come home, my father called and said he could not make it at home alone any longer. In retrospect I cannot help wondering if he left home so my mother would not have to watch his decline. On my way over to pick him up I knew he must be in rough shape. Throughout his ordeal, he had been determined to die at home. When I got there he was too weak to finish dressing himself. He lay on the bed and his breathing was so labored that for a moment I thought he might be dying right then. He keeps saying,
“This is awful, this is so awful.” When our eyes met I see fear and confusion. My goes out to him and I lie down beside him. I gently stroke his graying hair and feel an overwhelming wave of sadness. He was suffering and all I could do was be there and try to comfort him.
There was a time before recovering the memories of the sexual abuse when bed was not a safe place for me. As I lie beside my father and do some energy work on him confirms all our past tribulations were truly forgiven, if not forgotten. Whatever happened in the past was far enough removed from who I had become. The immediacy of my father's needs were more important than re-visiting old issues. It was a special moment that marked a milestone in my spiritual journey.
After awhile Dad gathered enough strength he get up. He moved to the closet and begin packing what he needed for his hospital stay. After closing the door to his bedroom I watch as he begins what I know is his parting ceremony. I follow behind him ad Dad draws the drapes and closes the windows. Finally, he sits down in his favorite chair and looks around the apartment. The sun from the deck doors streams on the left side of his body. I sit opposite him and see how old and tires he looks and I fight back my own tears as I observe his parting ritual. As I attune to my father I sense that he's attempting to process the memories of his life in the space he and my mother shared since selling David and I the family home in 1990. Eight years later he is attempting to prepare for another big transition as his life winds down. I glance at my watch and a half hour has passed and then Dad breaks the silence. “Well...I guess there is nothing else I can do...I am not doing well and it is time to go.” My father gets up, locks the balcony door, pulls the curtain and takes a final look around. locked the deck door, I help him get the suitcase in the car and drive the short distance to the hospital across the street. Neither one of us speaks...we're lost in our own thoughts.
I stand back as the triage nurse takes Dad's admission information and afterwards they inform us that they will be keeping him for observation. Mom was released from the hospital a few days later. When David and I dropped her off we all realized that my father would not be coming back and we all had to adjust to that reality.. A week after he suffered a mini-stroke. In the days ahead we'd visit and watch him fade in and out. I prayed he would not suffer and could just let go. Day by day bits of my father's personality began slipping away and as it did some amazing things began to happen. Dad and I started to respond to each other in mysterious and indefinable ways.
His waning life force energy created a space where we had greater emotional openness than ever before. The irony of it all was that his declining health was allowing us to open up on more spiritual levels that included openness, trust and love.. We were reaching out through an unspoken awareness of our soul essence and it broke down a lifetime of emotional distancing between us. The process of dying was giving me a connection to my father that I had craved for a lifetime. At last he was at a place to allow me to there there and connect in trans-personal and energetic ways.
Shifts in Awareness
Slowly the mystery of the unfolding awareness began to make sense. As his body weakened it appeared to be awakening his spiritual nature. The guarded look in his eyes softened. I sensed that he could see the unconditional love I now had for him. The acceptance of my own growth and his inner metamorphosis allowed us to connect at a soul level rather than at a personality level the way we used to. This was a truly profound epiphany, and made the countdown to his final breaths easier to accept. The full extent of my forgiveness towards him was being given back to me in the gift of his less armored self. The time we were sharing gave me an opportunity to fully comprehend how much I had grown. The pain and emotional losses from the past were being transformed into something that was teaching me about the natural ebb and flow of living and dying. As I sat at his bedside my mind flashed back to the day David and I married on July 12,1991 after Dad and I mended fences after being estranged for a number of years.
Then just two days before he died we had a very special day. Even though his speech was impaired, there were times when he was easy to understand. I spent the afternoon sharing the good times I remembered. His brown eyes livened up a bit when I said, “
Remember how much fun we had coloring on the floor while mom was making chocolate fudge for us—and how we often had to chisel it out or eat it with a spoon? How about the time you took me up for a ride in that little three-seater airplane?” Then there was the time you taught me to swim and dive and how we loved our summers at the lake? The bittersweet communication during my father’s latter days is something I treasure. At last we were relating in a way that I had craved for a lifetime and the memories prior to Dad's passing are encapsulated like time in a bottle.
Before I left that day I hugged him and asked him if I was still his princess. The right side of his face was paralyzed and it was difficult to accurately read his expressions. But when I looked into his eyes and felt his response. I took that for his way of saying yes. While kissing him gently on the forehead and asking him if he would kiss me back was a risk I was willing to take. I needed create enough meaningful connections with him to last a lifetime and time was running out. I moved close and waited. His upper lip moved just enough for me to feel his attempt to pucker up. To be really sure I said it was a kiss I said, “Can I have one more before I go Dad?” Again the ever-so-slight brush against my cheek. Then our moment ended as he began to drift away to his own place again.
I took his hand in mine and sat with for a while longer and sang him a few of the songs he had taught me as a child. “
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray—you’ll never know dear how much I love you—please don’t take my sunshine away. The other night dear as I lay sleeping, I dreamt I held you in my arms, when I awoke I was mistaken, so I hung my head and cried. You are my sunshine—my only sunshine.” I choke up on the last few phrases, and rather than risk him seeing my tears I gently removed his hand from mine and got up to leave. He opens his eyes and said clearly, “Come back—bring Mommy.”
I said I would and asked him if was tired and wanted to sleep. He nodded his head and closed his eyes. That special Wednesday brought closure to a lifetime of confused feelings about my relationship with my father. The love for each other that had become so distorted and strained had somehow come full circle. We managed to express our love and forgiveness for all that was and all that wasn’t to be.As I gathered my things I kissed him gently on the forehead. When I got to the door I turned back two or three times. I wanted to imprint the image of him resting. I remember thinking to myself that he doesn’t look unhealthy—just peaceful. When I finally had mustered enough determination to leave, there was a nagging sense that his time was near. As it turned out, it was to be the last day he was coherent.
The End Draws Near
The next day my father took a severe turn for the worse. His nurse did not expect him to make it through the night. The following day, my mother, husband and I sat at his bedside and told him everything was alright and it was okay for him to go. The staff prepared us for what is a natural part of the dying process. Rapid breathing then a sudden stop, rapid, labored breathing—then silence. The gaps and then quiet had us riveted. Was this the moment? Was he gone?
On two separate occasions the glassiness in his eyes cleared for a brief moment. He seemed to re-connect with us—but just as quickly as he focused, his eyes clouded over again. He kept hanging on, and I could see that my mother was exhausted. We took her home and I came back and stayed until 10:30 PM. With an overwhelming fatigue coming over me I decided to leave. On the drive home I called the nurse by mobility phone. She told me she was with him and he was taking his last breaths. We turned back, but he was gone before we arrived.
When I enter his room the silence engulfs me. For three weeks the sound of my father's distressed breathing patterns had permeated the room. Now he was immobile with all of his life force gone. I stand beside him, and feel the eerie quiet within the room and observe him. The nurse had closed his eyes and folded Dad's arms over his chest. A part of me kept expecting to see him move—or breathe but he didn't. My mind had difficulty in grasping the finality of it all. A part of me kept waiting for the sound the thready familiar “aahh-haa-aahh-haa-aaha” sound of his breathing. But there was nothing.
After giving me some time alone, David comes back, wraps his arms around me in a tender holding hug. He looks at Dad then says, "Sweetie look how all your father's frown and worry lines are gone." I hadn’t noticed that, but it was true. Within the spiritual we shared we felt that my father's spirit was embarking on the next level of his soul’s journey. After our final good-byes David gathered up his things, we put them in the jeep and headed back to our home in Manitou. It was after midnight and rather than waking Mom we wanted her to rest and would wait until morning to tell her that her husband of almost 60 years was gone.
As my mother, David and I adjusted to his passing I felt deeply grateful for the inner healing and closure that resulted from his illness. David and I had a private ceremony for my father where we buried his ashes near a peaceful lagoon just outside of our village. It is a place I love to go and we knew Dad will like it. It is peaceful place where the water attracts a variety of birds and wildlife and loving the races the way he did we felt that he’d enjoy the ones grazing in a nearby pasture.
Whenever I go there it reminds me of the everlasting bond I established with my father before he left. My book is about the horrendous amount of abuse I sustained within my relationship with my father Undoubtedly, there is so much more I wish we could have shared together while he was still alive. However, out of his passing came a rebirth for both of us. I learned that he was not a demonic sociopath, as I once believed. No, he was simply a complex human being, full of shadows and light—just like the rest of us.
The acceptance of these aspects of his personality re-framed my perception of him. It helped me honor him as a person, even the parts I may not have liked or understood. This emerging awareness is allowing me to respect the best and the worst in others and myself with less judgment. I am deeply grateful that the transformational shifts I experienced as a result of my father’s death brought me one step closer to learning to love more unconditionally. I am committed to continuing the process for the rest of my life.
So Dad I thank you for playing the role of my nemesis while you were on this plane because I now understand it helped me become who I am and for that I have a soul love for you that transcends the pain and suffering. It is so true that when we forgive we set the captive bird or butterfly free and we are able to soar high with our own wings.
A photo of David, Mom, Dad and I in 1990 when David and I first met.
Mom, David and I after Dad' passed on July 19, 1998
