A Surprise in the Night

            I was a preacher in NYC. The congregation was rallying around a woman who decided to take care of her father while he was dying of the ferocious pancreatic cancer. Congregants were taking turns caring for her father, so she could get some sleep at night. A few days before his death, I took the late evening shift.

            The father was very untrusting and loved his daughter immensely, it was clear. Before she went to bed the daughter told me, if I needed anything just call her. She’d be right by my side. It was very late. She and her husband looked so exhausted they could pass out on their feet. I bid them good night and proceeded to pray by the side of the ailing 88-year-old man. 

            He was lucid, but having bouts of paranoia and delusion. We talked a bit. I prayed some more. One hour went by. I felt myself falling asleep, which promised myself I wouldn’t do. This was an all night vigil. He seemed to moaned a lot, so it was like an alarm clock for me when I began to doze. I felt so badly for the man. At about the second hour, he had to urinate. I had never helped another person pee into a bedpan before, especially someone in extreme pain.

            When we got to the part where I had to touch him to get it in the hole, he looked at me with disdain and cried out for his daughter. My hand flinched away. “It’s okay. I can help you,” I whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

            Yet, he shook his head and cried out his daughters name into the night. I hoped she would hear and come running to my side, but she didn’t. I was so afraid he was going to urinate all over the bed. In a sudden panic, I just decided to man up and wake her. I couldn’t really be all I thought I could be as a preacher and a friend, in her hour of need.

            So, I’m thinking. Why wake them both. I’ll quietly go into their bedroom, wake her gently. She’ll know that her father needs her. So, I gently open the door without a creak, tiptoe into the bedroom and walk toward the bed.

            To my surprise I see her husband’s naked butt staring at me, and his head where no one goes unless he’s searching for a midnight snack.

            I stood there stunned. What? How could this be? They went to bed like two hours ago. They were exhausted. Her father’s dying. And yet, in the darkness I hear a low voice, “Bro, you could’ve knocked.”

            “Your father needs you,” I stated and ran from the room, sweating, like a thieve fleeing from the crime scene.

            Oh, Lord, what do I do?

            Fortunately, the father’s health took precedence, and no words were ever spoken about it again. Until now!

            Okay, I was celibate then, but still gay. It was the most frightening thing I had ever seen in my life. I may never get over it. Someone needs to give me hypnosis to help me with this PTSD. 

            Still, when I walk into a dark room, even if it’s my own, I knock.