David and the Dead, Dusty, Dr. Who Dad

David and the Dead, Dusty, Dr. Who Dad

by: David Levin

In mid-November 2016, my father called me on a Wednesday and told me that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Luckily for him, I was unemployed at the time and totally free to talk. We first were alerted something was wrong when my stepmom noticed his skin was jaundiced.

Just my luck, I finally get Homer Simpson for a father and it turns out to be cancer. I took the news well. I only cried for three days in a row. Trump had also just recently won the election, so it was turning out to be a bad month. I did have something fun to look forward to, though. My father had a mustache my whole life, and for many years before I was born, and I’d always joked that I wouldn’t recognize him if he ever shaved it off. Spoiler Alert: after the chemo made it fall off- I still recognized him. How anticlimactic.

I will skip ahead now and avoid all of the chemo and that fun stuff. Because cancer isn’t funny. I’m just kidding. Cancer’s hilarious. The laughter just spreads throughout your body. At this point, my brother and I had to wear full body protection just to see him. Condoms and all. Kind of like now during a pandemic. Except then we could actually still visit. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wave at him from the parking lot across the street.

But, I digress. So Thursday prior to Mother’s Day 2018, my dad gets sent home from the hospital. He had been there the past couple weeks after developing pneumonia, the cancer already spread to his lungs. Mother’s Day I miss a call from an unknown number, which turned out to be my aunt, who is his older sister. His best friend then calls to let me know an ambulance had come to get him. Worried, I called my best friend, who is also my ex-girlfriend. What a world, ain’t it? I freaked out. My best friend tried to put things into perspective by telling me, “At least your dad isn’t in hospice.”

Well wouldn’t you know it but a few seconds after she told me that I learned my father was being admitted into hospice. I shrugged my shoulders and shouted “Come on!” as the theme to Curb Your Enthusiasm began to play. That night, I visited my dad in his new room. As I sat next to my very ill father – watching him now need the help of a tube to breathe – my attention diverted to a wacky Spanish game show where people tried to put objects into the correct holes playing on the television in the background. Truly, it matched the somberness of the evening.

The next day, because I am so out of shape, I was barely able to move after my part-time job of cleaning cat shit. And yes, they’re still hiring. Although to be fair, I was lifting heavy litter bags up stairs so get off my ass. I was in no physical condition to visit my dad that night, and that was the night he passed.

I’m just kidding. He died the next day. I went to the hospice early that morning where my family had gathered. There were Dunkin’ Donut munchkins and graham crackers, too. Something to snack on while I watched my dad sleep in what would become his deathbed while his mouth hung open. More family showed up and also a bunch of his coworkers. He was their boss. They all gathered around his bed in what probably was a happy moment for one of them, that sick fuck.

Around 1PM, with my grandparents on their way in a Lyft, my father began to take fewer and fewer breaths. Everyone tearfully said their goodbyes, and the one coworker who arrived late awkwardly left the room. My dad died peacefully while Criminal Minds played silently on the television, someone being brutally murdered. I was consoled by the fact that the last movie my dad and I saw together was Hidden Figures, so at least he died with racism having been solved.

 

RIP Robert Levin. David Levin is a comedian, writer, and regular contributor to thecomedyconsultant.com. For more, check his page out on YouTube.