The Passing of William Doran Donnelly

 I haven't revisited these pages for over two months, mostly because I haven't had the energy. As we speak, Lisa's in the next room crying, grieving for her father. She's also taking prednizone to contain the effects of COVID on her lungs, which were damaged by severe childhood asthma. And I'm clearing the crud in my sinuses, pardon my visuals. 

How did we get here? Rewind the tape: Bill Donnelly, my father-in-law, started going downhill fast a month ago. His third ICU stay in as many weeks was his last. His kidneys were shot and his respiratory function impaired. After a consult with Kaiser's hospice doctors, we decided to bring him home to live it out the rest of his days in relative comfort. We thought he'd have a few weeks, possibly months. 

This plan was instantaneously derailed by his wife Elba, who, despite being bed-ridden and often delirious, still manages to unleash her chaos superpowers on the world. I firmly believe she is an avatar of Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. She got confused about who was actually dying, and ordered a Catholic last rites mass for herself (hold the incense) at her place. The priest showed up with a random entourage of congregants to perform last rites on her, in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, despite ample evidence that the only person on  his last legs was my father-in-law. The inevitable occurred: Elba got COVID from one of the congregants. This could have unfolded as a self-fulfilling prophecy, except she survived. Bill, who got COVID from her, did not. The silver lining, if one must find it, is that COVID hastened what promised to be an uncomfortable and possibly lengthy decline. 

We also got COVID from her, and even though we procured Paxlovid immediately and are vaccinated up the wazoo, our course is endless. It's not long COVID... yet. But it's darn persistent. And pernicious. Hey, we could've masked up and been a little more vigilant, right? 

The last cogent conversation we had with Bill, two days before he passed, was about literature and music. His dentures were out, and his breath was short. He still managed to muse about the power of Steinbeck's writing. His favorite: Grapes of Wrath, whose title, I learned (and here I have a Ph. D. in English Literature, which I should probably put back in the cereal box where I found it), comes from the Gospel, not Shakespeare. [cf. Book of Revelation, chapter 14 verse 19: "The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath."]. He also loved "My Travels with Charlie", and the "Sea of Cortez", which he claimed was an important discussion of science and philosophy. It IS all that and more. 

We had his TV tuned to the classical TV station and a rotating slide-show of gorgeous fall colors. The hyper-saturated reds and ochres even made it through his advanced macular degeneration. He was on a tear about the Harmonious Blacksmith, a virtuoso piece originally written by Handel for the harpsichord, and transcribed for the guitar by John Williams. Is it an astonishing few minutes of musical bravura? You be the judge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05do_buWqCw . I find it riveting, complex. Its seemingly joyous phrasing is tinged with mysterious melancholy. 

He also loved Mozart's Twelve Variations on what the Anglo-Saxon world called Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but was a lullaby imported from France, "Ah vous dirai-je maman." "Oh, shall I tell you mother." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BTvoqVK420

He asked me which Mozart piece was my personal favorite and I said, in the same vein, the Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, also a bunch of hyper-famous variations, done in an irreverent style that was, I feel, meant to put Bach to shame. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ1mj9IaczQ ... Daniel Barenboim is not just an extraordinary conductor, he's a very fine pianist. 

Curiously the piece is also a lullaby. Bill and I were very aligned artistically; perhaps philosophically. And it could be that when we start seeing the end of the road we pine for a childhood that never existed. I realize the Harmonious Blacksmith also has this child-like quality. 

Step back for a moment: here we have a man who invented a device that could analyze a material's provenance by bombarding it with X-rays, and whose last clear thoughts were not about career, or engineering, or physics, but Art. 

This was not an intellectual exercise for Bill. It was coming from the heart. In the same, labored breath as he tipped his hat off to his artistic heroes, he spoke of his children, grand-children and great-grand-children as his legacy. He would turn his scrawny neck and gaunt head to Lisa, and would say this again and again with a sob, not of sadness, but of the joy. The joy of a man who has done well and understands exactly what his life was about. 

Bill, dear pops, I have to tell you, I couldn't have hoped for a better teacher. In your last hours, even though you were poked and prodded, turned over and handled, and had to rely on saintly nurses to wipe you down, you didn't complain once. You never lost your cool. You flexed, went with the flow, smiled and thanked everyone for the care and love you got. Even as you gurgled and drowned in your own fluids, you kept the panic at bay and remained in gratitude. Every other patient I know is grouchy, hostile and frankly, insufferable.  How did you do it? 

May the way you handled your dying be engraved in memory. Turns out it's not about the loss of dignity, we will all lose that. We will end the way we began, in diapers. That's if we're lucky. Dignity is how we handle the indignities. And you, pops, did that like a champ.

Requiescas in Pace. And love from all of us.