*Note: I wrote this thinking that my beloved Pops was not going to make it out of the hospital this time, but alas, he should be on his way out, and so I feel like a bit of a fool for all this emoting, but it still stands as a testament to all that we have and are. I am so glad that we get to keep him for at least a little longer.
I wake every morning with that heaviness in my chest, my gut.
He’s not gone, but we all know that it’s just around the corner and our lives will be forever different when he’s gone.
Mom must be feeling this same heaviness ten-fold.
Dad, I know you are alone and scared. And maybe a bit accepting of it all, because you are pragmatic and brave like that.
I’ve never loved anyone so much in my life, and yet I’m terrified of this next phone call. I don’t want to know that he’s in pain; I don’t want to hear his weak, strained voice; I don’t want to think about him frail in that hospital bed, tubes shoved crassly under his skin, stuck to a machine—that’s not My Dad.
Though there was this moment, on the last visit there. There was a moment. And a few before that. The older he got, the more these moments of actual, deep soul would pop out, as a sort of childlike innocence. He was no longer trying to be cool…he was just so much more himself. Occasionally this even curmudgeonly, which we laugh about, because he’s not really that way.
But there was this way that he seemed so vulnerable when the nurse lifted up his shirt to check his heart as we were sitting in the big easy chairs in the waiting room, watching Jeopardy. How kind she was. How kind he is.
The way that he seemed so excited to teach me exactly how to make a proper omelette.
That giggle, the smile.
His heart.
That time, he came back from the hospital. He came back to be with me. And there’s so much more we needed to talk about, then, and I wanted to, and now we have no time. I want more stories, more out of the stories he’d already shared, and now there’s no time.
His heart is failing.
How could someone with a heart so big have it just fall apart like that?
Maybe he didn’t take care of himself so well. Or maybe something like this would have happened regardless…who knows.
But death comes for us all.
Yesterday was okay. I felt less emotional, I knew he was okay. I somehow managed to stay feeling pretty balanced and good in my head, my own heart. I don’t know what it will feel like when he is actually gone, but I know what he will always want me to do: dust myself off, get on the road, raise a glass to life.
Follow the road, no matter how unclear the path appears.
Read up on history. Ask questions.
Document everything.
Talk to people.
I’m going to Europe in two days, as planned. Because he insists. He insists because the thing that matters most is to taste life, to keep exploring, learning. To stay curious about the unknown, and not let anyone or anything hold you back.
“We write to taste life twice.” ~ Anais Nin
I learned from him to taste it once, to risk, to make mistakes, to go forward no matter what, into the uncertainty.
And I write now for him.
It seems strange to not rush to be with him, but as a family, that’s how we roll. We are free spirits. And I need to go. I didn’t really even know why, before. I don’t know what’s out there–but that’s exactly why I have to go. And he gets that.
Soon you will be free of you pain and suffering, and you will rest, but in body only. In some way, your spirit will be the most free.
I will always carry you with me, but no one soul will ever know me like yours does.
The Small Girl Chronicles 