The Worst Moments of My Life Were a Gift
Last breath. I was there. Twice.
Trying to explain to people the abstract machinations of my life has been hard. I was in the room…no. I was holding both of my parents’ hands…no. I was right next to both of my parents when they died. Separately. Thirteen years apart. An avalanche of despair.
Hammer me until nails no longer feel like anything. Head hung. An ocean of tears pooling in my belly. Grief. Catatonic, yet walking.
I failed out of my first college. I wonder why. Do you know what it’s like to call your mom for four years straight and never know if she was in the hospital or not when she didn’t answer? I do. You call her work, and they say she isn’t there. They know they aren’t supposed to tell me anything. No one was supposed to tell me anything because I was at boarding school and the college, separated from her so she could suffer without me having to watch. An anvil on my skull.
I got a call from my Aunt, my dad’s sister, in the middle of the night to tell me he was getting a liver transplant. I drove through the night to get there and place a photo of my new baby daughter at his feet in the ICU, so if, or when, he woke up, he would see it. He made it. It worked, until it didn’t. And then we were back there. DNR. Watch the last breath leave. And it’s over. Again.
I’m a different person now. I consider myself supremely lucky to have made it in time to watch both of my parents die. I know how this sounds. Macabre with a touch of pure insanity, but I would have rather been there than not. So many people just get a call that their parent has died. No final words. No last moment. But also, no watching the last moment occur. It is my life, and it is a gift.
I smiled at my mom’s funeral when others couldn’t keep it together. I felt like she was free. I gave the eulogy at my dad’s funeral, and everyone laughed, repeatedly. It’s what he would have wanted. I cried like an infant at my grandmother’s funeral. I wasn’t able to watch her die. I was avoiding it because it was only six years after my mom. I regret little in my life, but this I regret. Saying goodbye is a privilege.
My mom told me she was going to die across a table at J.P. Melon’s in Bridgehampton in the summer of 1989. It’s not like I didn’t know, but I didn’t know when. She told me because it was going to be any time. Anytime became two years of horrendous struggles. I waited for the call for two years and thought about it every day. I can’t believe I was even in college during those two years. No one knew.
I ate a pizza the night before my mom died. My dad and one of my mom’s best friends picked it up for me because I wanted to stay in the hotel and wait. Watching the clock. Waiting for a call. The call came in the morning. Life is still not balanced.
My dad had a DNR, but I made them try once. I watched this from two feet away, and if you don’t know what this is like, be thankful. His heart started again, and somewhere inside you convince yourself he could make a full recovery. It’s because you have to tell yourself that. It lasted five minutes. I did not make them do it again. No one else was there with me watching. My sister and stepmom were outside waiting for me to tell them it was over. It was over. Life is still not balanced.
It was all still a gift.
© Jonathan Greene, July 24, 2026
