Entry - 9.16.23

Before leaving his job, my father had become a bit dour and subdued, more inwardly focused and less willing to engage actively with others. His pre-retirement personality didn't emerge overnight but instead evolved over years. The stress of work, financial worries and health issues certainly contributed to his less than rosy weltanschauung. My father belonged to the “Greatest Generation”, the soldiers who had fought in WWII, and these veterans did not vent about their emotions and anxieties, instead choosing to stay silent and shoulder their troubles as best they could. And my father was definitely even less talkative than most of his male peers. I can recall a number of occasions when I had messed up terribly and got caught red-handed violating my parents' rules. Days would pass while I awaited their response, tension building with each passing day, until finally my father would address my offense. First he would recount what he had been informed of my activities in one or two short sentences and then ask if that synopsis was accurate. When I'd admit that it was true, he would look sad, never making eye contact with me, and quietly ask, “Well, that isn't going to happen again, is it?”, to which I'd sheepishly reply, “No, it won't.” End of discussion. It was far worse than if he had harangued me for hours... and far more effective too.

His innate reticence had been clearly compounded by his recent experiences at work. His last boss was a high-strung and ambitious megalomaniac who crafted his management style on the conduct of Mussolini. He would sarcastically pester my father about retirement, making it obvious that he wanted him out of the office. Even when my father was sixty-five years old, he still needed to work an additional year before the mortgage on the family home was paid off; leaving employment before satisfying that loan was an impossibility. Also, after over three decades with his company, my father had been granted a private office in which to work, but this boss took that away and converted the space into a conference room – a humiliating blow for my dad. Surely his boss's most egregious crime occurred the first time my father was in the hospital undergoing stomach ulcer treatment. During his stay at the hospital, my father received a visit from his boss and another coworker, and, even though my father had been absent from work for only a short period of time, his boss felt compelled to inform him that an extended leave would mean that the bureau would have to take possession of his company car. Though I believe that current medical thinking may contradict this, back in the eighties, it was the consensus that stress, if not the direct cause of ulcers, greatly exacerbated their symptoms. To threaten a patient undergoing treatment for ulcers with extreme consequences seemed particularly unconscionable.

When we were kids, my father would have gotten up, eaten his breakfast, bathed and exited the bathroom before we had stumbled out of our bedrooms at about 6:30 am. He warmed up his car quite a while as I would groggily ladle down a bowl of cereal at our kitchen table, then he was off to work. He invariably returned home promptly at 6:00 pm and joined his family for dinner. In my parents' bedroom he had installed a small, blonde wood desk at which he would plug away at outstanding work files on his evenings and weekends. Looking on as an inexperienced child, his schedule seemed unacceptably oppressive, and, even toward the end of his career when his children had graduated from college and were working, that schedule hadn't changed.

Another challenge my father faced at the end of his career was an appreciable worsening of his eyesight, eventually necessitating cataract surgery on one of his eyes. After the operation, his pupil, no longer round, was now shaped like a keyhole, he was required to wear a contact lens in the impaired eye and, honestly, his eyesight didn't improve noticeably. His night vision was particularly bad. When picking up my sister and me at the train station in the evenings, he would drive quite slowly, hugging the right side of the road to allow other cars to pass him. We worried that he might inadvertently hit a bicyclist or pedestrian obscured in the dark shadows at the road's edge. But driving was a critical component of his job. Hanging up his keys, at that time, was not a possibility.

So clearly my father's last years of employment weren't easy for him. Instead of coasting into his golden years, he was struggling against adversity and bearing up as best he could against the assaults of an amoral and ambitious supervisor. When during my undergraduate years I painted my only oil portrait of him, I pictured him with eyes concealed by reflections and I inserted behind him an invented background of crisscrossing horizontal and vertical studs (meant to convey a feeling of complex and exacting structure).

Gerard Wickham - Portrait of My Father - 1981

I'm certain that I've unintentionally presented thus far in this entry a distorted, uni-dimensional portrait of my father and a far too harrowing account of his last years of employment. He truly was not “besieged” during those days. I would say that the hardships I've described above certainly colored his outlook, making him more introspective and aloof, but his daily routine remained unchanged and he plodded through his days impassively. He continued to enjoy the support of his wife and children, often participating in family events and visits on his weekends. Regardless of whatever changes I observed in my father, he remained a faithful, kind, quiet-spoken and helpful parent.

So I guess this is where my story begins...

It was January of 1987, and I had made the train ride from Brooklyn to Suffolk County, Long Island to flee the noise and bustle of the city, visit with family and, most importantly, welcome a new addition to the family: my sister's newborn son. It was cold, at least for temperate Long Island, and a few inches of crusty snow carpeted the ground. The family home was situated on a quarter acre parcel in a very suburban development, and returning there always awakened a host of memories for me. The place was now both comfortably familiar and foreign at the same time. I had been living in a Brooklyn apartment with my girlfriend and working in Manhattan for a while now, and I always felt just a little out of place when returning home.

Studying the contents of the refrigerator, I asked my mother what the heavy cream was for. She replied, “Oh, your dad's doctor has him drinking that whenever his ulcers act up. It's supposed to coat his stomach.” “Does it work?” I asked. She just shrugged her shoulders. It was disheartening to learn that my father was still experiencing discomfit from his ulcers. I had hoped that his symptoms would abate once he escaped the anxieties of employment.

My father had been retired for about a year then, and already I could see positive changes in his personality. He was alert and talkative and definitely more relaxed. He frequently laughed, and I was seeing within him the father of my childhood who would greet me with an upbeat “Hiya!” when he came up the walkway after returning from the office. I was shocked to learn that he had begun to patronize the town's senior center. My father was NOT a participator! I remember my mother telling me a few years earlier that my father had belonged to a local volleyball league when they first moved out on the Island about three decades ago, and I almost fell over. My father was not athletic, and he certainly did not belong to things. This new sociability was a very promising development. Considering these changes, I had reason to conclude that retirement was working out for him and could only anticipate further gains to come.

Well after dinner that night, I decided that I wanted to go out and experiment with my new camera, a Nikon FG-20 recently purchased in order to make high quality slides of my artwork. So I headed out the door into the darkness with a camera bag slung over my shoulder and a tripod in hand intending to take long exposure, naturally lit photos at various locations in my hometown. I remember that the ice-encrusted snow made a fantastic reflective surface that picked up distant, dim houselights and the ghostly glimmer of the moon and I would lie on my belly behind my tripod hoping to catch the effect.

After a few hours at my endeavors, I arrived home sometime after 1:00 AM to find the house brightly lit and still filled with activity. This was unexpected, and I passed warily through our kitchen's backdoor. My mother rushed to me and explained that my father's ulcers were bleeding badly but he refused to go to the hospital. I found my father in his pajamas and bathrobe standing in our home's sole bathroom. He was pale and looking weak. I stated that I was going to drive him to the hospital immediately, but he wouldn't budge. “I'm fine. I don't need the hospital,” he insisted. I tried ineffectually to persuade him, but he clearly felt that he could weather this storm without intervention. My mother pulled me aside and instructed me to “make him go”. This contradicted my firm belief at that time in the fundamental right of the individual to determine his or her own fate - a belief I still hold today. “He'll let me know when it's time,” I assured her. We lowered the lights and went reluctantly to bed. I kept my clothes on, stretched out on the living room sofa and covered myself with a quilt, ready to transport my father to the hospital in a flash. I hadn't slept a wink when an hour or two later my father crept into the room and quietly notified me that he was ready to go.

While waiting in the emergency room to see a doctor, my father suggested to me that I should go home and get some sleep. Although he was lucid and clearheaded, I thought it best that he have someone with him (even if just for company) and indicated that I would stick around. After another few minutes, he turned to me and said, “Look, it's going to be a while before I see a doctor, and, after that, they're going to admit me. There's really no point in your waiting. In the meantime, I'll just try to get some rest here.” At that moment, I was conflicted but eventually succumbed to the logic of what he was saying and the exhaustion I was feeling. I agreed to go home. Not that it really mattered much one way or the other, but I've always regretted that decision.

My father's prediction was accurate. He was admitted to the hospital, and, unlike on his previous stay there when they had treated him non-surgically, the doctors this time determined that part of his stomach should be removed. Within a day or two, the operation was performed... successfully, and the next day my father was recuperating in a room waiting until he was well enough to be discharged. I visited him then.

He was in a regular room, shared with one other patient. I recall vividly the pastel-colored walls, the artificial wood-grained veneers on the furniture, the plastic accouterments, the high-tech beds. I was happy to find my father looking well and was relieved to think that, his problems being behind him, he could return home and live unencumbered by persistent illness. Though a little weak, he was alert and cheerful. After a few minutes of the usual hospital visit palaver, he stroked his chin and winced. “Hey, could you shave me? This stubble is itching me terribly.” I readily consented, and he directed me to a cabinet beside his bed in which I found all the necessary gear to perform this small chore.

While he held a basin on his chest, I lathered him up, being careful not to get shaving cream on the hospital linens. Once I applied the razor to his cheek, I was immediately aware that this shaving job was going to be a challenge. My father's beard was thick and coarse, the feel of his skin akin to that of sandpaper. Though in my late twenties, my facial hair was still thin and downy, easily dispatched during a quick shave. But I was undeterred. I scraped away at his face, determined not to inadvertently nick him. I painstakingly applied myself to this task, regularly changing my position to achieve the optimal angle to apply the razor. I lifted his nose to get at his mustache. I asked him to raise his chin, so I could focus on his neck. I switched from one side of his bed to the other. I loomed over him. I scrunched down below him. Throughout this long ordeal, my father cooperated patiently, never losing his cool, recognizing that I was honestly trying my best. Finally I announced that my mission had been completed. I grabbed a small towel, wiped the residual lather from his face and examined the results of my efforts. I was aghast. He looked exactly the same as before I had started. I couldn't believe it. I must have held the razor at the wrong angle, or maybe I didn't press hard enough on it. Whatever the reason, I had clearly failed to accomplish anything. A tiny giggle bubbled up from inside me, but I struggled to suppress it. The more I tried to contain it, the more the giggle insisted it had to be free. I squeezed my lips together tightly, my face flushing bright red with my efforts. At first, a few hiccupy gasps escaped from me, but they soon escalated into something very loud between a keen and a groan, what I imagine the call of a lovesick moose might sound like. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I glanced over at my father's roommate to see him investigating our activities with a terrified expression on his face, which, of course, only heightened the hilarity. Eventually, I could contain myself no longer and erupted into a fit of laughter which literally lasted several minutes. When I had calmed down and wiped the tears from my eyes, I explained to my perplexed father what had happened and offered gamely to give it another try. “No,” he replied, “I think it's just fine. Really.”

From there, it all went downhill in a long series of internal bleeding episodes necessitating multiple, ineffective operations and inevitably concluding with some lethal hospital infection... all within a three month period. Every time I came to visit, my father was hooked up to an additional piece of equipment. Eventually his room in the Intensive Care Unit, where he now resided, resounded with the wheezing, beeping, clicking, buzzing and screeching of machinery, monitors and alarms. Unable to communicate due to a tracheotomy, my father expressed with his eyes what he couldn't with words, and his eyes seemed to be saying, “Get me the hell out of here!” One afternoon, I entered the hospital along with my brothers to visit our father, and we were ambushed by a doctor we'd never seen before. He was handsome and slick, wore a dashing bow tie and spoke in a soft, conspiratorial voice. The gist of his little speech was to inform us that our father had received excellent care and the hospital, doctors and nurses had done everything possible to treat him and make him comfortable. He really couldn't say enough positive things about the magnificent performance of the staff there. We just stared back totally perplexed. At the end, he asked if we had any questions, and, when we had none, he trotted off never to be seen again. We looked at each other, knowing that now all hope was lost, and one of us said (I really can't remember who), “I guess they're worried about getting sued.”

At the end, the doctors informed us that they could not operate again. As a last-ditch effort, they would try a robust infusion of Vitamin K which might help to stem the internal bleeding which had plagued him since his initial operation. Strangely enough, it worked. But at that point his health was completely compromised and his body beset with infection. My father died near the end of March.

I believe people process loss in different ways. Some people simply collapse, disassociating from reality, surrendering completely to their grief. Some people may find the whole death ritual to be cathartic – you know, the demands of making arrangements, meeting with funeral directors, getting dressed up, attending religious services, organizing meals, and gathering with friends and family. At a bare minimum, addressing all those responsibilities provides a distraction. My family tends to be a bit pragmatic, objective and dispassionate. I recall that during the weeks before and after my father's death, my siblings and I gained some comfit from engaging in a lot of finger-pointing. Of course, we couldn't help but wonder what would have resulted if my father had received that Vitamin K infusion even before the first determination to operate was made. We analyzed every decision the doctors made, finding fault with most of them. If only they hadn't... Why didn't they try that earlier... Shouldn't they have... Don't get me wrong, a lot of pretty big blunders seemed to have been made in my father's treatment, but I also believe that we lacked the expertise to productively evaluate the judgment of the medical professionals. We even questioned the choices my father had made: why hadn't he switched doctors... why hadn't he been more aggressive in addressing his ulcers... why did he hold off seeking treatment during this last episode? It took me years to recognize that our bodies have a shelf-life, and often, despite our tweaking and fiddling, nothing we do is going to extend or shorten that shelf-life by much. It's reality. I know death is a hard thing to face. We really want to believe that by being proactive, by staying on top of all the latest medical guidance, by making wise choices and by heeding our bodies' warning signals we can put off our ultimate departures – well, let's face it, perpetually. Such thinking is absurd but very reassuring. I guess we all like to indulge in the fantasy that we're in control of our destinies.

Once all the post-death ceremonies were performed and my family had convened multiple times, informally and in various assortments, to lament, to agonize, to analyze, to criticize and to, basically, vent, it was time for me and my girlfriend to head back to our apartment in Brooklyn and for us both to return to our jobs. In my experience the real mourning begins once you reestablish your everyday life... when dark thoughts creep in during your daily subway ride or in the midst of watching a TV show or while lying awake in bed at night. Strangely, the “what ifs” that had so dominated my family's thinking earlier began to diminish and were replaced by a vague realization that had been troubling me throughout my father's decline. I felt that at some point during his weeks-long hospital stay my father had been stripped of his “humanness”... that he had been transformed into an object (like, let's say, an automobile undergoing extensive repairs, disassembled to the point of unrecognizability, its parts strewn across the garage floor)... that his emotions, his feelings, his discomfit, his pain were insignificant and only the successful outcome of his treatment mattered... that we, his family, as healthy, functioning individuals still merited an attention, a consideration and the right to make choices that he had somehow relinquished – and that was the case even though he remained conscious and aware throughout most of his ordeal. And though fully cognizant of what was transpiring, we, his family, were completely helpless and incapable of intervening. This disturbed and terrified me.

As is still the case today, back then, whenever I needed to address or resolve some distressing occurrence in my life I turned to art. Several weeks after my father's death, I decided to make a linoleum block print documenting his last days at the hospital. Though for compositional purposes I resorted to some distortion and rearranging, the print accurately depicts each of the many mechanical devices that sustained my father's life at that time – so accurately that when I study the print today it brings back vivid memories of those painful days. My goal was to so prioritize the gadgets and mechanisms enveloping my father that his own presence would be diminished, nearly erased. After cutting the block, I tried printing it in several colors. On one occasion, having just pulled an image in black, I got lazy. I examined the block and determined that there was very little residual ink remaining on the surface, that all the grooves I had cut were pretty much free of ink. Just to be cautious I wiped off the block with a paper towel. In truth, I should have cleaned the block with turpentine, washed it with soap and water and then waited for it to be thoroughly dry before making a print in a different color. But, like I said, I got lazy. My next printing was to be in bright red, hopefully to elicit a feeling of alarm, peril, blood. I inked the block, applied it to a sheet of good quality rag paper and, not having access to a press, simply rubbed the back of the print with a spoon until I was certain that the paper had made absolute contact with the entirety of the block's surface, the whole process taking quite a while. When I peeled the paper from the block, I was immediately dismayed. The black ink, the remaining amount of which I thought negligible, actually asserted itself forcefully, dulling the bright red ink and creating an inconsistent mottled effect. I groaned, ruing the time I had wasted trying to cut corners. I put the print aside to dry, cleaned the block and quit for the day, expecting to properly execute the print the next day.

The following morning, I examined the red print again. The infusion of a small amount of black ink permitted the structure of the print to pronounce itself more clearly than if I had used only red, which would have pulsated on the page. I also liked the surprising grainy effect the black residue contributed to the print and how the darker hues emerged irregularly, providing a more nuanced, complex component to a composition which basically consisted of a series of strong horizontals and verticals. My incompetent accident actually satisfied me, and I decided that the print was worth keeping. Ultimately, my thinking went beyond that. Instead of tolerating my clumsy mistake in one image, I deliberately recreated the effect in all future printings.

Gerard Wickham - My Father's Deathbed - 1987

I didn't quite know what to do with this print once it was completed. It seemed too personal to share with others. And it seemed to be too universal to be of interest to others. (Hasn't everyone experienced a similar loss of a loved one in a hospital setting?) Though this print has hung on the wall of my home for about thirty years, I believe it to be too grim for most people to tolerate on a daily basis. So you might think my whole endeavor to be fruitless. But I would disagree. During my schooling, I was trained to be a “fine artist”. As such I was encouraged by my instructors to put aside issues of affirmation and marketability and instead follow my own unique inclinations. That is the only true pathway to bringing about meaningful communication. To this day, I am so thankful to have had this central concept drilled into me throughout my years of higher education. So although My Father's Deathbed remains a challenging, troublesome companion, I have no regrets regarding its creation. In fact, after thirty six years, it asserts its presence far more tolerably (almost consolingly) than it did at the time of its execution. And as I grow older and must envision my own inevitable demise, I can appreciate that even as a young man I chose to attempt to represent the perspective of a fellow human succumbing to death while enmeshed in the apparatus of a well meaning yet incognizant medical establishment. At a minimum I'm satisfied that I cared enough to give it a try.

As always, I encourage readers to comment here. If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.