My father always assured me not to fear death. Then I watched him fade away.

In early July, my 88-year-old dad died after suffering a stroke. I hadn’t been in the same room as him for months because of pandemic restrictions in his assisted living facility. Thankfully, a few days before he died, I was allowed to visit him. Holding his hand and looking into his eyes as he straddled life and death was one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

I realize now that our painful months of separation were profound, too.

As a child, I was scared of death. I had nightmares about a black void, where identity and consciousness lost all dimension. When I awoke, my fear of death centered on my dad. He had been old ever since I was born, at age 52, with a shock of white hair. He was often mistaken for my grandfather.

I’d run to my dad in the mornings after my nightmares, sobbing. I told him I was worried about him dying. He calmly assured me he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. That we had years of root beer floats and old movies ahead of us. His confidence soothed me.

But when the moment I had feared decades ago started to become real last month, I felt anything but calm.

Separated when we're needed most

On June 7, I awoke to a voicemail. My dad had fallen and was in the hospital. I frantically called the hospital, trying to get through to my dad. When I finally reached him, his voice was garbled. And he was confused. “I need to get out of here,” he mumbled. He was given hand mittens to stop him from pulling at tubes. Not being able to go to him was excruciating.

After a few days, my dad was transferred to a skilled nursing facility. When I learned that the facility had outward-facing glass doors, I rejoiced. I still couldn’t be near my dad or touch him. But I could see him, and he could see me.  

My relief was short-lived. When I knocked on the glass, my dad insisted I come in. When I explained I couldn’t because of coronavirus restrictions, he looked perplexed. He didn’t remember what coronavirus is. And every few minutes, he’d invite me in again. He started yelling, “Get me my clothes, I’m coming out!” while struggling to rise from bed.

Meet people where they are: COVID-19 has led to surge in opioid overdoses. Here's how we can confront the stigma.

I kept visiting, hoping I wasn’t causing my dad more harm than good. I called the pandemic “the flu” and focused our conversations on happy things, like his girlfriend and favorite foods.

Soon, he stopped eating and drinking. He kept joking with staff and mustered all his energy to talk on the phone with me as we stared at each other through the glass door. But my extrovert dad didn’t fool his doctor. He was put on hospice and taken back to his assisted living facility.

"Love is grand"

With my dad on hospice, I was now allowed to visit. The facility told me about a garage stairwell I could use to access his room. But I had to wait until his coronavirus test cleared. In the meantime, I talked to him over Zoom. The Wi-Fi in his facility was spotty and the screen froze often. The image of my dad’s face — still, quiet, eyes wide — scared me. It looked like death.

When I finally got word on July 2 that I could visit, I rushed to his bedside. He was the happiest I’ve ever seen him. His eyes were glowing and he couldn’t stop smiling. As he looked around the room, crowded by his girlfriend, me, my fiancé, my dog, and medical equipment, my dad exclaimed, “Love is grand!”

Bipolar illness: Take Kanye West's illness more seriously than his presidential ambitions

Within days, he started to fade away. He couldn’t talk. He’d move his mouth but no words came out.

When I visited again, I read him a poem. He was having trouble seeing, too. I knew he could hear me because he squeezed my hand at his favorite lines. I called on days I wasn’t allowed to visit and my dad’s girlfriend held the phone to his ear. I talked into the silence and she alerted me when he nodded at my ramblings, about how many times we’d watched "Some Like it Hot" and how much I love him.

He died on a Wednesday morning, while I was at the pharmacy picking up his Dilaudid prescription. I arrived at his room 10 minutes after he died. Now he couldn’t see me, hear me, or talk to me. But I still needed to talk to him.

I asked my fiancé to play a song on his cell phone by one of my dad’s favorites, Billie Holiday. I rested the phone on my dad and sobbed as Billie crooned: “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places. That this heart of mine embraces. All day through.” As my dad had receded from me, he’d taught me how to be with him when he’s gone.

Rose Carmen Goldberg is a lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law. Previously she represented veterans with physical and mental health disabilities. Her dad was a psychiatrist and Vietnam-era veteran.