February 8: Reapers and Mowers, My Dad, A Good Husband

Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using, however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between me and Queequeg- especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person whom I now companied with.

We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we went down to "the Moss," the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at Queequeg so much- for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their streets,- but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In short, like many reapers and mowers, who go into the farmer's meadows armed with their own scythes- though in no wise obliged to furnish them- even so, Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.

Such a strange image--Queequeg as some kind of whale Grim Reaper, walking along with his personal harpoon.  Of course, from the start, there is a sense of doom that hangs over Moby-Dick.  Something bad is coming.  It's in every detail, from the storm tearing through the town to the chapel filled with sailors and sailors' widows.  Something large and dark is swimming under the surface.

This afternoon, at 5:30, my father died in the hospital.  I had been there about an hour-and-a-half, gone home, and then returned when my sister called and told me, "He's actively dying right now."

I knew his time was short as soon as I got to his room.  He was restless, moaning, trying to get out of bed.  His breathing was labored.  I believe the technical term is agonal respiration.  Wet and difficult.  My siblings were talking about transferring him back to the nursing home under hospice care.  I knew he wasn't going to live through the night.  I knew it.

When it was obvious that he was close to death, my mother stood up and leaned over him.  She put her hand on his forehead.  It was so loving and intimate.  They were married for 64 years.   My mother stroked his hair and said, "You've been a good husband.  You've always been a good husband."

My father squeezed his eyes tight, and his mouth turned down.  If he had the strength, I know he would have been crying.  He was struggling.  I think he didn't want to leave my mother alone, that he still wanted to protect her, shield her from hurt, the way he'd been trying to do for over six decades.

A minute or two later, my father stopped breathing, and he was gone.

For some crazy reason, I thought that I wasn't going to be sad.  Thought that I had prepared myself for that moment.  I was wrong.  Completely wrong.

I have no wisdom for tonight.  No profound insight into the meaning of all this.  There is suffering in the world that cannot be avoided.

Saint Marty is heartbroken.