David Sedaris on the death of his father: ‘I don’t think the coffin could have been any uglier’
Ten days before my father died, he suffered a small stroke and fell. Or perhaps he fell and then had the stroke. Either way, it surprised me when people asked what was the cause of death. I mean, he was 98! Wasn’t that cause enough?
I visited him shortly after his fall, flew down from New York with Amy and Hugh. Gretchen and Paul met us at Springmoor, but he was essentially gone by then. There was a livid gash on his forehead, and he was propped up in his bed, which seemed ridiculously short, like a cut-down one you’d see in a department store. His eyes were closed, his mouth was open, and behind his lips swayed a glistening curtain of spittle.
“Dad?” Amy said.
An aide entered and shook his leg. “Mr Sedaris? Lou? You got some family here to see you.” She looked at us, then back at our father. “He pretty much be this way now.” Another shake of the leg. “Mr Sedaris?”
In response our father gasped for breath.
“Well, he looks good,” Amy said, pulling a chair up to his bedside.
Who is she comparing him to?, I wondered. Google “old man dying”, and I’m pretty sure you’ll see exactly what was in front of us: an unconscious skeleton with just a little meat on it, moaning.
You always think that if you gather round and really concentrate, the person on the bed will let go. We were all there, you imagine yourself saying to friends. And in an odd way, it was sort of beautiful. So you become solemn and silently sit, watching the chest unsteadily rise and fall. You look at the hands as they occasionally stir, doing some imaginary last-minute busywork. The oxygen tube slips, and though you think of readjusting it, you don’t, because, well, it has snot on it. Better to save it for an aide, you tell yourself. After 20 or so minutes your sister Gretchen steps outside. Then Hugh leaves the room, followed by Paul. You go out yourself and find them all gathered in the open-air courtyard, seated in rocking chairs, Gretchen lighting a cigarette. “Did I tell you we’re not allowed to say native plants at work any more?” she asks.
A horticulturist for the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, she’s the only one in the family with a real job, meaning a boss she has to report to and innumerable, pointless meetings that eat up her valuable time. Gretchen talks about work a lot, but I’m always happy to hear it. “What did you say when they told you that?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she tells me. “I just walked out. I mean, it’s ridiculous!” A minute later Amy joins us.
“Now people are calling for genderneutral toilets in the city parks,” Gretchen is saying. “There’s not enough in the budget to build them, so most likely the few bathrooms that already exist will wind up being labeled as unisex. I guess this solves the problem, but I like having a separate women’s room.” She crushes her cigarette. “Men’s bathrooms always smell like shit.”
“And the women’s smell like vomit,” Amy says.
“Do they really?” I ask, wondering if my father might die while we’re all sitting outside, talking about how public toilets smell.
“God, yes,” Gretchen says. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a palmsized black book. “Here.” She hands it to me. “I found this at Dad’s house a few days ago and saved it for you.”
I mistake it for a pocket Bible, superabbreviated, with only the good parts included, and just as I wonder, Wait – what good parts? I realize it’s for addresses, that it is, true to its color and size, my father’s Little Black Book. “It must have been from before he went to Syracuse and started writing in all capital letters,” Gretchen says.
I open it to find 50 or so names, followed by addresses and phone numbers, mainly of women, and most with a note beside them:
Faith Avery – Too serious!Beryl Davis – YES!Dorothy Castle – Short circuitEdna Hallenbeck – WOW!Helen Wasto – BeautifulPat Smith – Body !!!!! Mary Hobart – AdvancedHelen Sampson – The Greatest!!Arlene Knickerbocker – Looks are deceivingFredericka Montague – Lovely!Patty O’Day – Beauty!!! PersonalityAnn Quinlan – Body! That’s all!! No brainsRose Stevens – Aaahh
Returning to the room, I look at my father, still seemingly asleep, and wonder if he had sex with these women or just tried to. Why were none of them Greek, and what does advanced mean? I bring it up with Hugh a few hours later, after we’ve left Springmoor and are on our way to the beach. “If Patty O’Day and Dorothy Castle are still alive, do you think they remember him?”
“I guess it depends on what went on,” Hugh says. “Anyway, I’m sure you can ask your father about it the next time you see him.”
We pass a low brick house with a tattered Trump flag in its front yard. “The next time I see him, he’ll be dead,” I say.
Hugh frowns. “You don’t know that. I mean, he’s pulled through before.”
***
This was on a Sunday in late May. Six days later, Springmoor called and said that my father had stopped eating and was on morphine. My sister Lisa and her husband, Bob, were at the Sea
Section with us by then, as was my friend Ronnie and Hugh’s friend Carol. We all went to dinner that night in the town of Atlantic Beach. “Dad is going to die while we’re eating,” I said as we left the house. It was a hot, humid evening, more summer than spring.
“David!” Hugh scolded.
“I’m not wishing,” I told him, “just predicting.”
And correctly, it turned out. Lisa received the call just as we were finishing our appetizers. There was no music playing at the Island Grille, but because the room was small and filled to capacity, it was too loud to hear the Springmoor representative on the other end. Lisa stepped outside, and I followed a few minutes later. “Dad’s dead,” she said matter-of-factly as I closed the screen door behind me.
She was seated on a bench, and as I took the spot beside her, a young couple left the restaurant hand in hand