Coming Home

We Irish have a thing with bagpipes.

I mean can you blame us? As instruments, they are just overwhelming, nearly impossible to play, and have a haunting melancholic sound that can be heard for miles.

I’ve only heard them live a few times in my life.

Once in a church at a wedding. Once in a field by a labyrinth. Once in a cemetery at a funeral.

And once on a sidewalk as an omen.

It had been a hard week. My sister called saying the staff at rehabiliation center where my dad was rehabbing from nothing, but slowly dying every day had pulled her aside and said it was time.

“They told me to get him out of here,” she said with tears in her voice.

The path to death is confusing, even for those of us who have seen it before. Language matters, words matter, and I’ve come to understand that one can hear hope if they need it enough, and hope where it doesn’t belong causes confusion and pain. It was time for my dad to go home. To die.

I was grateful for the stripped-down words and I spent a day both convincing and facilitating my father’s transfer to my parents’ home by the sea for his final days.

The logistics of that day included calling a medical supply company and ordering a hospital bed and a wheelchair my mother insisted upon. I tried to decide which was kinder, just getting the chair or gently explaining to my mother he’d never use it.

I ordered the chair.

Those of us who have loved someone who died slowly over time all have a story of the inanity of ordering and procuring medical devices — where do you get them and how you pay for them (well, are they considered a hospice patient? Is it being paid through Medicaid)?

That Friday I’d spent an hour in tears being told my father’s return home would be delayed a week (he didn’t have a week) because there was a backlog on processing hospital beds through Medicare, and it was almost the weekend after all.

Completely defeated, and almost by accident I asked if I could just buy a bed, and how much would that cost. The cheerless woman explained that it wasn’t often done and it was very expensive, but we could call another company and rent one privately.

I called the other company. They could have the bed in the house in three hours — for TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS.

My father almost had a completely different death over two hundred dollars.

Look, I’m not saying that money doesn’t matter. My family is lucky enough we could just pay it and keep moving forward, but if I hadn’t utterly broken down, I wouldn’t have learned of the option. And you can’t know what you don’t know.

The equipment secured, a doctor lined up to evaluate and sign off, and my brother on his way to help — my father’s discharge home, seemed aligned.

I woke anxiety hour early and waited to hear word. I was driving to get coffee and croissants with my daughter an hour later when my mother called. Her voice was steady and monotone.

“The doctor is sending us to the hospital. Your dad has a fever and he wants to run some tests. He’s very concerned.”

My stomach filled with molasses. I could feel death.

It took minutes of breathing to steady my hand. I called my brother and diverted him to the hospital.

“I think you might be going to help mom in a different way…you understand?

He understood.

I’d parked our car outside the tiny French Bakery that wasn’t open yet. My daughter silent in the back seat. So early no other cars. No movement. No noise.

And then a hum.

My head whipped around to Lucy.

“Do you hear that?” She nodded.

The unmistakable, dissonant, moaning hum.

I stumbled out of the car in a lunge and heard the noise get louder. Still not convinced we weren’t collectively hallucinating, I asked her again.

“You can hear that, right?” She nodded again.

I was already crying though I hardly realized it. I took out my phone and began to record. On the tape, you can hear me say, “How is this possible? It’s seven in the morning? We are the only people here…”

The music gets louder, and the video settles on this man.

In khaki pants and a blue shirt, standing at a tiny intersection, at seven in the morning on a random Saturday in June.

Playing the bagpipes.

I stood frozen, filming. My daughter slipped her hand in mine.

He played for 2 minutes and eighteen seconds. He finished and nodded at us. I nodded back. And he left. He walked over to a gray car. Gently put his pipes on the back seat and drove away.

My father didn’t die that morning. His fever broke, he was released and he made it home.

He died exactly a week later.

I sent the video to my mother and my siblings that morning. I showed it to my father’s sister and brother on the morning of his funeral. My aunt Kathy said, “send that to me, will you?”

A week or two later, I got a text from her.

“I looked up that song, “ the text read.

“Its called, ‘Going Home.’

Hand to God.

If you have YouTube you can hear it herehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nul-fRaj8F4