PIGEON POSE VARIATIONI was in a morning yoga class when I felt this
overwhelming sensation—like a voice, a push—
that said, “Get up and go to the hospital.” When I
arrived, my dad was Code Blue.
He was seventy and had heart failure and
dementia and hadn’t been doing well. For two or
three years, his health had gotten progressively
worse. I was living overseas and had just arrived in
Los Angeles to see him the night before. I’d driven
straight from the airport to the hospital, where
he’d told me, “I was waiting for you.” He had been
a bit delirious and was saying some things that
were quite funny. He hated the hospital and was
just like, “Get me out of here!”
We were very, very close. Until then I had
never lost someone where it felt like I’d lost a
limb. When I realized my father was dying, I was
kind of like, “How come life has prepared me
for everything else but this? How come the one
guarantee in life is death, and no one talks about
it?” If you were to make a scale of pain, death
is the deepest depth of hurt, and no one talks
about how to sit in grief, or how to move on.
Not long after I jolted up from my yoga mat
and returned to the hospital, they stopped trying
to resuscitate him. When they took the tubes out,
I got into bed with him to help take him through
to the other side. He was pronounced dead about
two minutes later. To watch the spirit leaving the
body makes you realize the body is just a unit you’re
walking around in. I think even when a person dies,
their spirit is still with you and around you.
I did get my dad out of the hospital. I got him
to a way better place.