Brady Helps

A chaplain came to me to offer their condolences. I asked them, how much for two?

Perhaps I am cynical, or maybe I’m just over it. What is the utility of a condolence?

Usually, the condolence includes something like “I’m so sorry for your loss.” But then I think, “what did you do to be sorry?” Also, isn’t a bit presumptuous to believe I’ve lost something?

Death gave me a great perspective and a deep sense of freedom.

I know that at some point I must die. I must go through a fate like my father. And, while I wait for that time to come, I must maximize the time I have now. To continue to live the way my Dad would want. To continue to have his words and advices in my head. He said he would be more alive to me dead than alive, and it’s true. I can’t help seeing and hearing him and his advice in all things. I can’t thank the universe enough for that gift.

I don’t see why someone should be sorry for me, and I don’t see the need for a condolence. I’ve been grieving for years. I’m actually in a pretty good mental health spot. I’ve got a perspective that’s informed by constant reflection, noticing without judging, and grounding myself in a philosophy of life that embraces death and the absurdity of fearing it.

I anticipate my greatest struggle will be not be dealing with death, but dealing with how other people expect me to deal with death…

The doctor I visit prescribes me blood pressure medication; my blood pressure is high when the doctor’s office takes measurements.

When measurements are taken, the nurse asks me to rest my arm on my leg. The measurements are taken after in the morning after a cup of coffee. Usually my arm is dangling next to my side. Additionally, healthcare and the system it belongs to challenges my patience. It’s no wonder that my blood pressure is elevated, 138/68 in the office. The doctor is concerned, and contemplates increasing the blood pressure medication.

I take my blood pressure at home, almost at the same time every day. The diastolic (top) number is 112 on average, with a standard deviation of 13 points. I don’t see much volatility between the numbers for the last 5 days, most however around 108 or 113. When I take measurements I use all of the measurement best practices — my arm is level with the top of my heart, the blood pressure cuff is correctly situated, I’m sat down with both feet on the floor, and I don’t attempt to zen out. I’m puling these best practices from Nature — source.

The doctor’s office measurement is 2 standard deviations above the mean, almost 3 — which would make it more significant data-wise. The nurse is not adopting established best practices when taking measurements — it’s clear that the arm position matters. And, I’m starting to experience some dizziness when I change position — my hypothesis is that this is caused by my current dosing of blood pressure medication. I decide to share my thoughts.

I fail to understand why healthcare professionals become so extremely offended at feedback from non-professionals.

• Healthcare people appear extremely direct, their bedside manner more-often-than-not leaves a lot to desire, and when I attempt to mirror that bedside manner they find me rude.
• Perhaps they’re stressed out and overworked? Well, I’m stressed out and overworked, and I don’t prefer to be on more medication — and I prefer better collected data.
• Maybe they believe their expensive credentials are being challenged? That’s a good thing! We learn when we fail. And, at least as it relates to medication that goes into my body, I prefer to be open to data — I am my own n=1 experiment.
• Perhaps they’re aware and wish they could do better but this is not the time and place? Then I argue, when is the time and place? Perhaps I should leave feedback on the “healthcare survey” form? I’m convinced that data is used in the aggregate, and any system change is made to appease the median patient — I’m probably an outlier and it wouldn’t make sense to change a system for an outlier.

Of the people that are the hardest for me to understand — healthcare professionals continue to be the subset of humanity that my connection efforts fail. Mirroring communication patterns doesn’t work. Showing the peer-reviewed human/clinical trial preponderance of data doesn’t move the needle, and being gentle only allows the bully to be more of a bully.

I’m not ready to give up… Call me Ahab.

The nurse explained to me that mucous builds up in the lungs. And when that build up happens, people can sound like a coffee percolator when they are in the process of dying. In the past, they used to clear out the mucous, but the lungs would just produce more. Now, they give a medicine to make the music dry up on its own.

When I arrived at the facility, in the afternoon, Dad was alone in bed. I sat next to him. His eyes opened up for me. He looked at me, we made eye contact. His eyes, appeared to have little-to-no life left in them. Time appeared to stand still as we fixed our gaze on each other. Then I noticed his left eye begin to veer off course, my Dad attempted to point at his eye as it veered. The eye veers because the muscles are not holding it in place.

His eyes closed, and the percolator, known as “Death Rattles”, started. Accompanied with that noise was that B-below-middle-C moan.

I stayed with Dad that night. My shift started at 10/10:30pm. I fell asleep at 5:30am for an hour or so. Between 10/10:30pm and 5:30am I stayed awake speaking to my Dad about our time together. I imagined we were camping again in the backyard. I talked about our times together — driving from Milwaukee to Miami and staying in motels that looked like drug dens. I recalled how he always reminded me that “God and me make a majority” and to never let a day go by where I don’t tell the people in my life that touch me that I love them. I spoke about how I felt he was the only one who truly got me, who knew how my soul worked.

I recalled a letter he wrote to me in eighth grade. A few quotes are below:

“God’s love will help you love others more. Only if you love others — your brother, your sister and your friends — will your life be fulfilled. This you have done well. From the help you give your brother to daily phone calls to your Grandmother you have shared God’s love. Always remember how important this is. Never let a day go by without telling your Mother and those other people who touch your lives how much you love them….Always follow your heart. You know what is right. Always remember that, no matter what anyone says, God and you do make a majority . If you follow your heart you will never be ashamed of anything you may do in life. Your Mother and I wish that you could forever be that little boy whose picture I have enclosed. We wish that every day would be your first at school. We wish that every night for the rest of our lives we could kiss you goodnight and tell you how much we really love you. These wishes can never come true. You have matured and you will continue to grow. However, there is one wish that can come true. That wish is that every day we tell each other how much we love them — how much they turn the sun on in our lives — and carry out our words in action.”

I played him a voicemail he left on my phone in November of 2011:

“10:35, I’m going to bed, I just thought I wanted to tell you before I go to sleep how much I love you, and how much I’m proud of you… goodnight.”

I cried. My eyes winced. My chest muscles jerked.

I put my head next to his and expressed how happy I was that I could have just one more night with him to tell him how much I loved him. To tell him that I will do what I can to be a person that serves others. To not allow petty things to get in the way of love. That I am so thankful that I had just this experience, as stressful as it was, to tell him how much he meant to me… and how proud I am that he is my Dad. And most importantly, how proud I am that he finished what he started.

When I woke up at 7:30am, his moaning became louder and the rattles kept going.

I picked up my mother who wanted to say a few words to Dad. I brought her to Angels grace, I was gone not more than 45 minutes to an hour. When we walked in the noises stopped. My sister said to get the nurse. We cleared the room so that my mom could talk.

The nurse walked in. With her stethoscope she listened.

2 minutes of silence passed.

“It’s been two minutes and I have not detected a heart beat or noises from the lungs. Your father has passed. I am so sorry.”

Dedicated to my Dad (1946 - 10/9/2025), who I love so very much.

Dad arrived at AngelsGrace hospice unit by ambulance. I wasn’t there for the arrival. When I arrived, he was in a bed wearing the yellow shirt.

His eyes mostly closed. He held a cross in his hand given by his sister. He began to moan. The moan changed pitches, but I place it at B below middle C. He would make a fist and waive it. The moan became louder.

The nurse came in. The moan continued. She scanned his bladder, and found tons of urine. She installed a catheter. His moaning stopped.

She gave him morphine.

He slept.

Dad sat in a chair wearing a yellow collared short sleeve shirt, green and navy plaid pajama bottoms, and navy and white plaid flannel-like buttoned down sweater. Both arms on arm rests of the EZ chair. Legs crossed. He wore grey socks, and tan slippers. Eyes closed.

As he sat, two people came in — one white and one black — both kind faces, young. They wore navy-grey jackets bearing the Bell ambulance logo. Their coats, I’m not sure of the material, but they swooshed — A LOT. Lots of swooshing. Like a light coat you might wear for windy weather rubbing against itself.

A nurse gave him morphine. He appeared to be in a daze.

They got him up, he kind of mumbled. They helped him scuffle into the stretcher. Again, that swooshing sound of the coats.

Once on the stretcher, they draped him with five straps to keep him secure. The straps also gave a sound — a similar sound to the jackets, except when pulled tight. When pulled, the straps sounded like cord being pulled taut before being knotted.

The stretcher, under its own power, rose from the ground — it sounded like a wench. When it hit its appropriate height it locked into place.

The two people, whose faces I shall never forget, cleared the path and took Dad out.

SubwayTakes posted an interview discussing the Beatles. I understood the core idea to be — you can’t have just one favorite Beatle, you end up needing all 4. The sound existed the way it did because all 4 Beatles were present — it wasn’t just one person’s show. They are the sum of their parts — they are a collective. Click here for the video.

Apparently, large brained humans — like ourselves — existed at least half a million years earlier than prevailing scientific consensus. Skulls were discovered in China. Click here for the BBC article.

My take is this:

You and I belong to a group of animals — Homo sapiens. We are an ancient species. We persist through cooperation, tribalism, wariness of outsiders, etc. And, in spite of all the messiness that comes from being human, we still persist.

I imagine a reason we persist is because we know that we need each other to survive. And needing each other doesn’t imply rainbows and bunnies; our history acquiring labor is messy. The point is not about morality, the point is that we recognize a need for others — that we are the sum of our parts.

Another reason we might persist is due to our curiosity. Humans are naturally curious about the world around them. We are curious about each other. We are curious about what we can see and can’t see. We wonder and wander. And, we organize ourselves together to be curious collectively about things.

So what if we started becoming more curious about that which is different from us? The humans who are not like us. Pick any attribute that makes someone different from you, what prevents you from being curious about that difference? What stops you from trying to learn more about someone else? Seeing the world the way they see the world. Perhaps you might learn something about your own world.

It’s not lost on me that saying be curious about the people in other tribes is easier said than done. Some attributes of people you might hate or disgust. I recommend that you lean into those emotions — determine why you might feel that way and consider the alternative — what if you could feel a different way?

The Beatles are the sum of their parts, they are also a group that leaned into the counter-culture and asked what if. Not entirely different from ancient ancestors who, I imagine, did something similar.

There is always more capacity for more critical thinking. Open Culture presents Carl Sagan’s boloney detection kit — how to detect pseudoscience — and the video they link is quite good. link.From the article:[From Carl Sagan] “Like all tools, the baloney detection kit can be misused, applied out of context, or even employed as a rote alternative to thinking… But applied judiciously, it can make all the difference in the world — not least in evaluating our own arguments before we present them to others… this kit is not some perfect solution to the world’s problems, but as it’s been utilized over the last few centuries… it has enabled us to create technological innovations and useful explanatory models of our world more quickly and effectively than ever before.” The walls of baloney may always be closing in on humanity, but if you follow Sagan’s advice, you can at least give yourself some breathing room.

I’m sensitive to sounds people make and the moments they make them.

When my sister gave birth to my nephew, I recorded his heart beat from the monitor. When I got an ultra sound on my arteries, I recorded the sound and asked about it. When I’m in the woods, I pay attention to the wind.

I’m especially sensitive to the sounds my Dad makes. I’m sensitive to his voice — its timbre, its frequency, phonation, all of it. And the other day I heard the sound of Dad receiving morphine.

He was lying back in bed. The certified nursing assistant (CNA) came in with what appeared to be a straw, a very thin white straw that contained morphine. Along with the straw came a Q-tip like wipe which helped prevent any burning around the mouth from the morphine.

The CNA gradually woke him up with a “Mr. Brady, I need to give you something.” His eyes looked up. She looked down at him and wiped his mouth. Then she put the tube in.

It sounded like a low frequency gurgle. Like saying “ahh” for a throat examination but imagine there’s phlegm in your throat. It was short. It was followed by an almost barely audible “hum”.

This will be the first of many doses of morphines Dad will receive.

When I walked into his room he was already standing up and walking towards the door. His boney legs quivered and nearly gave out. I caught him by putting my arms through his arm pit and holding him close. I positioned myself so that I could take his hand and guide him to the grey EZ chair sitting in the corner of the room.

Seated in the EZ chair he looked at me and said, “You were in the park.” I asked how he knew, he said something that sounded like gibberish.

I never told him that I spent time in the park.

New reader? You’re catching a series on my Dad. If you want more context, click here.

Last week I wrote about my experience with Dad in a dream.

“I call for Dad. I hear ‘What!’ yelled from downstairs. Seconds later I hear foot steps walk into the room, and it’s Dad. I say, ‘I’m just checking that you’re here’. He replied, ‘I’ll always be here with you.’ He replied in a deep, kind of gravely, and calming voice. His rhythm and tempo matched the rhythm and tempo of other times he meant to be re-assuring and supportive. I remember that kind of measured, deep, and re-assuring tone well.” — read the full post here.

The other day I sat with Dad in his room. I told him that I love him and I’m not sure how much longer we’ll have together. He said in a gravely and calming voice, “forever.”

Growing up, I insisted that the light in my clothes closet remain lit and the door partially ajar so that I could feel secure going to sleep. Now, I feel that I can go to that closet, that secure place from my childhood, and find my Dad.