Dad's Mail

 

Dad died in late January of 2019. It was about three weeks after his birthday. He slipped on a sheet of ice while taking his garbage out to the road, hit his head on the ground, suffering a brain hernia, bleeding on the brain. 

I don't remember what i was doing. I only remember Paula's voice on the other end of the phone. "Lee, it's your dad. He slipped and fell and hit his head. They're flying him to UAB. It's not looking good." The next thing I remember is trying to get into the emergency room door, pulling out the small knife in my pocket, being told I couldn't bring it past the guard station. It was a small, silver lock blade, pocket knife. I remember explaining to the guards that I understood, but needed them to be very careful with it, that it was a knife given to me by my father, who was somewhere inside the building "Not looking good." The guards, used to this sort of thing I imagine, were very nice, reassuring me the knife would be there when I came out. Looking back, I knew then. After all, "Not looking good" is "Not looking good." Dad was either dying, or already dead. 

The waiting room is a jumble of memories, Dad's brother coming in, a few family members, cousins, Meg and the kids. I remember we needed to get in touch with Jeff.  I had to tell him what Paula had told me... "It's not looking good." 

The waiting part wasn't long. Or was it? Time was on holiday. Everything was upside down and moving in unconventional directions. My head was spinning even as my body sat dead still in the chair. There was noise and clamoring of an emergency room waiting area. But there was also dead silence. People kept trying to say the right thing. The words of that are impossible. But the saying of them helps.

I've tried to relay this experience several times. But the further I get from it, the more it exists in harshly punctuated moments. It hides in his contact files that I have yet to delete from my phone, jumping out to startle me when his profile picture pops up. It floods into my brain, randomly, when out of nowhere I remember having to "Make the call." He wasn't going to make it. His brain had split. It was on me to say "Let him go." 

I suppose I also used the planning, the dealing, the work part of it to distract the real part. Yes, we had to "Let him go." As much as it happened during the excruciating, guilt ridden, heart wrenching moments when we removed the breathing machine, it happened after, in the dull, oscillating emergence of the new reality. We had to let him go. We still have all the thoughts, the regrets, the memories, the assets, the explaining, the tears, the stress of dividing pennies, papers, pictures, guns and money. 

I hold on, though, in some tiny room in the back of my mind. Maybe I'm waiting for the Dad he was, the Dad he never was, The Dad he wanted to be and didn't want to be. I'm not sure. But I know it's hard to understand how I've not yet cancelled his mail delivery. It comes to me now. All his Fox news inspired nonsense, the solicitations for an old, sometimes gullible guy to send "Just ten cents," to help him heal his soul's heart, I guess. There were no records of his donations. I fear he sent more money to right wing political groups than he did to "Just ten cents a day can feed a child for a year!" But who knows...

I guess I'll save some trees soon, and "Let him go." I'm just not quite ready yet.