Oh, hi! I’m your appendix!

*three months later*

What’s up?! We’re bilateral pulmonary embolisms!

And, of course, happy new year.

You ‘ol son of a gun. Thank you for finding the positive.

“Even one good movie” 😆

Oh my. This is too much for first thing in the morning.

Ha HA ho ho!

GARBAGE day!

Etc

Not a parent & won’t be, but I do work with kids full time. This is spot on, and extends to all sorts of other things made for them. Kids don’t get enough credit for what they’re capable of doing, understanding, or appreciating.

Over time, my anger about his alcoholism and his treatment of my family faded. But those bits of memory from the final weeks are sharp and bright as ever.

I sat halfway back, occasionally peeping the side of his face through the rows of people, wondering “is this the last moment I’ll see him? Is this it? Now? Now?” The noise of the casket closing was thunderous. I closed my eyes as they walked the casket past me.

I remember running late to the funeral, and then being shocked to find that it was an open casket. I didn’t know I would see him again and it was traumatic. The church was overwhelmingly gold inside.

I remember waking up to an answering machine message that he’d passed in the night.

I remember my friends bringing me soup and taking me to a college hockey game. I remember the kindness of the professors who let me delay taking my exams.

I remember being afraid to touch my dad, whose sharp, erratic breaths were jarring and inescapably loud. Those noises haunted me for months. When I did have the courage to touch him and speak to him, his breathing quieted, and I swear he cooed.

I remember the pitch black of the drive home, sparse street lights along the freeway whipping overhead.

I remember the eerie green lights of the hospital and how we had trouble getting in because it was well past 10pm.

I remember the eerie quiet of the ICU, and how it was silver like a spaceship.

I remember my initial reaction being intense irritation. My first round of final exams were happening in a matter of days, and it felt like intentional sabotage.

I remember getting a call several days later that he was in the hospital, unconscious, and that I should come and say my goodbyes. I remember exactly where I was on my bed, where I was looking, the light in the room.

I remember how he came back to school with me for the weekend. I had to prepare him no-salt foods for his medication (what the treatment was, I didn’t know). He held my hand as we watched a movie on the couch. I saw him off at the bus station, his dark hair whipping in the wind.

I remember the shock of seeing him in person at Thanksgiving a few weeks later, his skin completely yellow.