In His Last Words: My Final Call with Dad
I'd strangely been preparing for this moment my entire life. I'm prepared because while my father searched for adventure, I often stood at the end of a runway or someplace similar, knowing he might not return from his adventure alive.
I returned from taking my dog out from her nightly walk and found a voice message from my dad. From Dad, a phone message meant he either needed something from me or was getting ready to go on another adventure or record attempt where he thought he wouldn't return.
"Adventure is the essence of life" became his life's motto. He wanted to "pick the last plum of the tree of aviation," so he stood at death's door many times trying to prove the impossible possible. This is heroic for a self-proclaimed golden-armed fighter pilot like himself, but throughout my life, I have received many phone messages from Dad, which he thought were his last. I never believed they were.
I don't know what that says about him and how he saw his life's purpose, and I'm not judging him because I found it thrilling to have him as my dad. But that last phone message has me thinking about his role as my father. That part wasn't as exciting at times, but he tried.
When he left this message, it wasn't from some open field where we were attempting another world record. It was from his hospital bed. Death was in the room, and he seemed to know it. There was no escaping it by punching out of his jet like he did in Vietnam, parachuting from his rapidly deflating hot air balloon, or even staying awake long enough to fly his damaged and unstable experimental airplane around the world. No amount of being "the world's greatest pilot" would allow his 85-year-old lungs to get enough oxygen. It must have been frustrating to him because he always believed he would go out in a blaze of glory. But that didn't happen. It was just old age.
Making a last phone call isn't easy for anyone who has done it. So I put off returning Dad's call, decided to brush my teeth instead, and climbed into bed. I paused to watch the city lights, trying to get the courage to call, but my phone rang again. It was him, and this time I was there to answer it.
Beeping sounds and static on the other line overpowered his voice, making his words hard to understand. After a few minutes, he said let me remove my hearing aids (which was a strange moment because my grandfather wore hearing aids, not dad, and I realized I was moving up a generation). When he did, the static cleared, and the beeping revealed itself to be his vital signs monitor—a familiar sound in a hospital ICU.
Now, jumping back into the once hard-to-hear conversation, he shared with me his situation. He had been in and out of the hospital often over the last few months, so my thoughts were this was one of those temporary times. Flawed thinking, I know, but I've been trained never to think he wasn't coming home. No other phone messages were his last, so why would this be any different? It's funny how the brain works in times like these.
I know it was hard for him not to have energy, and I understood him to be bored. Planning a visit, I jokingly asked, "Are you telling me you want some company?" He replied with a softened and slightly sad laugh and said, "No." He wanted me instead to know the secret to life that he had learned from a speaker a few years back.
They were:
1.) To live a full life
2.) To reproduce.
That was far from his other motto of unlimited freedom and flexibility. I took that to mean that he realized family and children might be worth losing some of those values he once found so important. It was his way of telling me he was grateful for us.
He then asked me to look out my window. Dad's charm is one of the things I love most about him. It was also something I felt he held for those close to him. Once, when we were on opposite sides of the planet, he asked me to look at the moon, and then he took joy in knowing that we were both looking at the same object while being so far apart. On this particular night, our views were different. His a Coeur d'Alene, ID hospital parking lot, and mine has a view of Washington DC just across the Potomac River.
I mentioned that military helicopters were flying along the Potomac, and we chatted about how they would likely head to the CIA headquarters in Virginia. That led to a discussion about his favorite things: airplanes, the military, politics, and the state of the country he loved so much.
Another bout of coughing interrupted his words, and once again, there was only the sound of that beep. I took a breath as the reality of the moment was sinking in. He asked me to say hello to my husband, Lars, and through tears and a smile, I replied, "I will when we stop arguing." Dad laughed, knowing how feisty I can be.
"I love you, and I'm proud of you" were his last words to me. I told him I loved him too and said "goodbye."
He passed a few days later, and there was nothing I could do about it but sit brokenhearted. Like hiccups, I keep trying to have that old pep-talk I'd give myself when I was scared he wouldn't return. But he isn't, and it didn't happen at the end of a runway in a massive fireball (which, strangely, he often talked about); it was in a hospital ICU room at the age of 85. And I miss him.
They say there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots. I would argue that there was one, and his name was Dick Rutan. And he was my father.