So this is Xmas . . .

Last year I was in Kovalam, Kerala. Hung out on the beach all day. Watched the fishermen bring their catch back. Watched the kids play. Watched the foreigners strip for the locals.

Two years ago I watched as Arielle, my then two-year old granddaughter, got so many presents she didn't know which end was up. This year my gift to her is going to a musical rendition of Cinderella in a couple of days.

Three years ago I was rushing to the hospital in the front seat of an ambulance, my dad in the back. About forty-five minutes earlier he had suffered another "attack", and had finally consented to let me call 911. The paramedic who rode with him talked about WWII and got my father distracted enough so when we opened the doors at the emergency entrance, he was somewhat better. The war was not talked about in our house. My dad had one story, about a stupid co-worker in the air force who once taxied down the runway with my dad clinging to the wing. That was it. His generation didn't talk about the emotional impact the war had on them.

That Xmas, the one just before the Tsunami, we stayed at the emergency room at the Montreal General Hospital. It was practically empty, and my dad got a lot of attention. Carollers came by, and the two of us were happy to be there instead of at the Jewish General, where the overcrowding and constant beeping, blinking, and 3rd world atmosphere was far from restful. The nurses were kind; the South Asian-Canadian doctor was great. At one point he pulled me aside and asked if my dad wanted to be resuscitated at any cost. My reply was "no", but that he should ask my dad. The doc did just that, and the response was, "no"; just "no"—no explanation, no justification, no emotion, just "no".

During the day my father complained of discomfort in his limbs. They gave him some morphine. That sent his blood pressure a-tumbling, and they gave him something to bring it back up. He was still fighting then. In a few days he didn't fight anymore.

We passed that Xmas day in relative calm, a clean white bed in a clean old hospital. My mom had died there nine years earlier. My dad's partner and my cousins arrived at during the day, but I don't remember their participation. I was trying to "save" my aunt/dad's partner from seeing him struggle to breathe, which happened a few times a day. Over the course of the next three days she did see it a couple of times, and was devastated. That struggle was what he ultimately couldn't deal with anymore. The final one, early in the morning of December 29, was when he said, "I'm not supposed to die this way," as he was reaching for breath, asking me to get the doctor, and trying to find a position that would ease the "discomfort" (he never said he felt pain, only "discomfort"). I had to practically yell at the night nurse to get the doctor, who eventually got the morphine in him. He died a couple of hours later, without "discomfort", as far as we know.

By that time we had been transferred to the Jewish General, although we had put in a strong plea to remain at the Montreal General. But they told us that they simply could not keep him, as all his records were at the Jewish. So around 9:30 on Xmas night they put him in an ambulance and brought him there. At the other end of the journey he emerged from the ambulance hallucinating.

All that night he thought he was at home, was anxious about the men (orderlies) removing furniture (going about their business). Then he was full of angst about Jesse being in jail in Albany (1991) and how he wouldn't be able to make a party for Arielle and we should do it, whom we could invite, what food we could make. I kept trying to bring him back to the fact that we were in the hospital, no one was removing his furniture, and Jesse now worked in a bank and played golf. Towards morning, just as the rest of the world was learning about the Tsunami, he slept.

So this is Xmas . . . this is the first one I've been able to sit down and write about that day and night three years ago.

And what have we done . . . another year over, and a new one just begun. So Merry Xmas everyone. War isn't over, but let's do our best to "stop all the fight".

With gratitude once again to John Lennon, my mom and dad, and Life (in no particular order),

Ellen