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PART 1 - DAD
My family was largely middle class - wealthy enough to own a house but still living paycheck-to-paycheck. My father lost a good desk job in Texas when I was young due to assorted oil crises, so we moved to Florida where he got a job doing physical labor for his brother's company.
Always intelligent and charismatic, Dad learned the ropes of the business quickly and found higher positions at other companies, returning to his brother's company many years later as Vice President. Good things always seemed to follow him, like winning fishing tournaments or landing substantial government contracts.
My mother was beautiful and sweet; she lived for our family. We knew that if we never cleaned, she'd eventually pick up our messes, and we all leveraged this for as long as I can recall. She did haircuts on the side, but my father never insisted that she bring in a second income.
My brother was a musician. Dad bought him the best equipment he could afford, and this encouragement defined my brother's life. Today he is a successful touring musician, currently performing across the world with a legendary artist.
I was supposed to be the academic, placed in the best schools so I could be "a doctor or lawyer" when I grew up. In reality, I was usually skipping school to go bowling while pretending to be Canadian so cops would leave my friends and I alone.
We were a typical family.
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In late July of 2001, my little cousin was in town. She was full of energy and acted as goofy as possible much of the time. My father took her to a local play - "Little Shop of Horrors." I was in college at the time, "too cool" to hang out with my old man and cousin, so I elected to cause trouble with friends that night (driving in circles, listening to the Sex Pistols, and bitching about how there was "nothing to do"). They called after the show to make me jealous. "It was awesome! You really missed out. Too bad it isn't coming again for a few years!" They told me about how they got a Polaroid with Audrey II (the man-eating plant).
When they returned home that night, he was suddenly dizzy. "It's OK, I'm fine!" he said in the foyer, smiling. My cousin was alarmed. She called for my mom to help him to a chair. For the rest of the night, his head was spinning and he felt rather nauseous. He called his brother. "I'm taking tomorrow off," he said. "It's nothing. I'll work on the Mayport estimate when I get back."
He never went back.
Over the next month, I watched my father - physically strong and vigorous in spirit - rot into a hairless, mute skeleton with white skin, tight like a drum. His rosy lips disappeared into his mouth, and he aged 20 years, like some meth addict on the street.
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Our father had been the nucleus of our household. Before cancer, he was the life of the party, but he never drank. He was demanding, but he never cursed. He was our sole source of income, and he always knew what to say to calm tensions or inspire hope in his family. His one vice was a life of smoking. He told me stories of how he would roll his own cigarettes as a kid and pretend to be a cowboy, and how he once shot his brother in the butt with a BB gun, only to be shot later in the neck. He had been a young manager at an oil exploration company, dressing in smart suits and emceeing many corporate events. But he loved smoking, and I don't believe there were many family photos of him without a Marlboro Light between his fingers. He was fiercely independent, and I recall that during church, he would spend most of the services outside, smoking cigarettes and reading philosophy or novels. One time, he told us how his doctor had said he was incredibly healthy, but remarked, "Sam, you should really quit." He told the doctor, "Do you really think they would be allowed to sell us these if they kill people?"
During his treatment, he became a different person. Instead of Camus, he read spirit guides, bought talismans, and fell asleep to meditation tapes; he was in constant pain and grimaced frequently. He tried to do nice things for other cancer patients, giving them inspirational books and cassettes for free. But as his health deteriorated exponentially, he basically stopped... well, he just stopped. Everything.
The news got worse and worse. Lung cancer had spread to his entire body. The chemotherapy and radiation were moot and did little but make him lose hair and become violently ill. I found ways to avoid being at home, embarrassed by the situation and unsure of how to handle it. Eventually he couldn't stand; he rarely spoke except to say "I'm so sorry this is happening. You know I love you guys. I'm sorry to put you through this."
It moved so swiftly. We had mentioned here or there, "What do we do if you don't make it?" He said, "I have insurance. The company will take care of you. Take half of it and put it toward the house and split the rest up as you see fit." He told us there was $100,000.
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During the final weeks he began to have trouble swallowing, a sure sign that his body was shutting down. We took him to his oncology appointment. His doctor saw us in the parking lot, gave my frail, ghastly father a disparaging look, and said, "Sam, go to the hospital now. I can't help you. There is nothing I can do now." My father looked shaken, as if this was his death sentence. Little did we know, sitting at our front door was a package that had been opened and returned to us from the very doctor. The package had contained a handwritten note from my father thanking the doctor, as well as some gift certificates to a restaurant and a book on alternative healing my father found helpful. There was a piece of scrap paper on top that said "CANNOT accept gifts, Mr. Farmer."
My father spent the remaining week in the hospital. He was admitted on a holiday weekend, and little attention was given to him. On Monday, a doctor we called "Dr. Death" stoically informed my father that he would be dead soon and should perhaps go home because of the staggering costs associated with care, including a device with a tube required to drain fluids in his lungs (he would otherwise drown). The last night he was there is burned into my memory forever; it illustrated what madness humans inherit and just how existential life can be.
My father hadn't swallowed food in a week, and he was so famished that he began hallucinating. He couldn't move his head, but as his eyes darted around, mouth opened, he was actually in a McDonald's. Yes. He was convinced he was in a fast food restaurant and began weakly asking why he had been transferred there. "What... why... did they put me here? ::gasp:: Why am I in this McDonald's? Why... why are we in McDonald's?"
My mother laughingly said, "No, Sam, you're in the hospital with the family." And he responded, "Can I get a Big Mac and a Shake? Actually, a Quarter Pounder. And some ice cream. A vanilla sundae, too. And I want some fries." We all laughed while he stared blankly at the ceiling, completely unaware of his surroundings or our reality. As we giggled uncontrollably, my mom, brother and I, at this zombie that was formerly my dad, my brother decided to actually go to McDonald's and got him a combo meal. The last thing I remember from the night is my father desperately trying to swallow fries and coughing them up, choking on air and vomiting gas.
My father was home. He sat on his chair and watched football, fading in and out of consciousness, drooling and spitting into a pink, plastic, kidney shaped medical dish that we'd dump for him every half-hour or so. We knew it was only a matter of time before he would be gone.
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The next night, I was at my girlfriend's house playing video games. I wanted to get as far away from my dad as possible because I was afraid. I was scared to look at him. The eyes of a cancer patient are black crystal balls; behind cloudy cataracts waits doom, patiently, like a quilt-maker, or a dog that starves itself next to its master's corpse. I went to the car - a BMW my dad helped me finance against his better judgment - to sneak a cigarette and grab my phone. Yes. I had been smoking since I was 16, on and off, and I smoked the thickest, strongest cigarettes I could, from Camel's with a K to unfiltered Djarum cloves, imported in a tin box.
My phone read, "17 MISSED CALLS."
I listened to the messages on my phone. "Tim, if you want to see your father alive, come now." He was at the hospital. When I got to the hospital, I went around to the back door. I was told my father was in the room right next to it. When I tried to go in there, I was turned back. "Hey, hey, hey - where do you think you're going?" said a nurse.
"I am going to see my fath-" She interrupted.
"No you isn't! You have to go to the front and check in like everybody else."
"But he is dying."
"Sir, you have to leave, go to the front, they will let you in if you are family, you can't come in this door."
I could literally see my mom's hair sticking outside of the door. Apparently, much of my family had assembled in the room.
I went to the front, but there was a line of sick people. They were yelling, being unruly, and the staff were screaming back like banshees.
I just stood there. I didn't know what to do. At some point, my ex-girlfriend's mom (who was already there) ran into the waiting room and grabbed me.
The nurses yelled at her, "Ma'am, ma'am he can't just go back there -"
"His father is dying, for Christ's sake!" she screamed.
When I got in the room a few minutes later, he was dead. His eyes were open, and a priest began praying over him. Everyone in the room was balling - my mother, brother, and a few other relatives. I tried to close his eyelids but they kept popping back open.
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People were so kind those first few days. Great dishes of food - chickens, hams, dips, pies - arrived one after the other at our duplex. It was very nice. People didn't know what to say, but they all said, "I don't know what to say." Many more said, "Let us know if you need anything." But like the end of a fantasy novel, the book was closed, and the fragility of our situation began to manifest.
We had no money in the bank. None. My mother had no job. My brother was a musician; if he didn't play, he didn't get paid. I was a student. We had no will, no insurance documents, nothing. My father entrusted this information to his company, but our family seemed aloof. Eventually, they wrote a letter (yes, our family wrote us a letter) giving us information about his life insurance policy. It was half of what we expected. It wasn't enough to pay off the house and medical/credit card/funeral bills, which my father said we should do. How could he make such a glaring mistake? We knew there must me a problem, but we had no idea where to start since Dad simply said, "Talk to the company - they have it all under control." Shortly after, someone from the company (the family business, mind you) came in the night and took away his truck.
In order to find why our father said we would receive twice the insurance money that we did, we actually broke into his office at his workplace. We dug through documents and took what looked important. After sorting through countless papers, we eventually found a 401K plan that was not disclosed to us as well as details concerning a profit sharing plan.
After sound and fury, we were able to get the 401K plan money rolled-over to my mother's account, but not without a lot of name calling and tension, and an accountant. We were flat out told we couldn't have any profit sharing money because there had been "no profits," but we were too ignorant to know any better and couldn't afford a lawyer.
My mother got her first bill - the ambulance bill. Then a bill from hospital for CALLING the ambulance. Over time, the medical bills continued to pour in. The credit card companies learned of my fathers death and began asking for the entire balances. My mother paid and paid. She paid off the second mortgage that my father had gotten to help pay for his medical bills while he was still alive.
At this time, NONE of us had medical coverage. To this day, my brother and mother still do not.
All of our lives have been irrevocably altered due to the pains caused by poor health care, impossible costs, and our lack of end-of-life counseling decisions.
Click to see the conclusion, How Obama's Health Care Plan Would've Changed My Life
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