Memories seep through my veins
Let me be empty and weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight ♪
- Sarah McLaughlan “Angel”
And if God will send a sign
And if God will send His visions
Would everything be alright ♫
- U2 “If God Will Send His Angels”
I woke up the next morning to find the house quite still. I didn’t know who was home and who wasn’t. I just knew it was quiet. My aunt walked in the door a few hours later and told me that my father had a very difficult night, and that my mother was there with him now. She said that she was going to sleep for a while, and then as she sunk into the sofa, she was fast asleep. She didn’t give me any information about what had happened through the night hours: she was too overwrought.
I called my mother about 11am or so just to see how everything was going, and to tell her that I would be there by 2.
“I don’t think I’ll be leaving today, hon.”
“What Ma, why not?”
“I…I just don’t know…I (sniff) don’t think he’ll be here much longer…” She trailed off.
“How?! He was fine yesterday. What’s going on? What, please tell me.”
“Well, I think he’s gone into a coma or something. He’s…he’s not responding to anything…I just don’t know.” And she started crying.
“Mom, I’ll get the girls up and ready and we’ll be there soon.”
“Call people…you know…just tell them to come…ok?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
I began to pace around the kitchen, not sure what to do. I woke my sisters and told them to get up and dressed quickly. While they were getting ready I started making phone calls. I called Aunt Elsie first, no answer, and then tried to call my father’s other sister, Aunt Peggy. I had no luck there either, but I did get a chance to talk to my cousin. I told him what was going on, and to try to find his mother quickly. I was frantic and I knew it. I didn’t care. I don’t know who I called next or if I even called someone after that. I thought, “How would I find my aunts? What should I do next?”
I decided to call my cousin Reenie. She might know where my Aunt Peggy was or at least she could take over phone calls from there for me. While I was talking to her I could hear the other phone line ring in the house. I knew my aunt or sisters who had finally gotten up would pick up on another phone; they knew I was on the cordless outside, besides, it was probably my Aunt Elsie.
I heard the screen door open behind me and I turned around to see my aunt Elaine standing there. Her face seemed a little distorted, she was trying to hold back emotions. I knew it. I could sense it.
“Renee,” she hesitated, “that was your mother…”
“No! Damn you, no!” I screamed, forgetting that I was on the phone with Reenie. “Don’t you say it! Don’t you open your mouth! I can’t hear you…go away! Stay away!” I just kept screaming and yelling. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t move, “Damn it, NO!” My aunt started to come towards me, but I yelled at her to go back inside. I didn’t want that moment to be real. If she never said it, it wouldn’t be true.
“Alright, alright, just please give me the phone.”
I forgot I had the phone, handed it to her, and began circling the yard, sobbing, hyperventilating, saying “no”. I felt trapped. I didn’t know where to go. My fenced yard made me a caged animal, pacing frantically. My aunt caught up with me and I turned my back to her.
“Please don’t say it. I didn’t even get there to see him yet. I wasn’t there for him. No! It’s not time. I’m not done taking care of him. They said he was coming home. Oh please, please don’t say it…”
She grabbed for me and hugged me tight, “I know, baby, I know. It’s ok.” She just kept saying it and saying it while I cried and sobbed and convulsed.
Maybe if I screamed and cried loud enough he would hear me and come back. Maybe the angels would send him back because I was his angel not them. Maybe I was having a nightmare and my own sobs would wake me up.
My aunt began telling me what happened through the night; she hoped that maybe by hearing what he had said to her I might be able to accept what it was that had happened. She told me that he had sent my mother home about 1 o’clock in the morning, but he asked my aunt if she would stay with him. My mother left reluctantly, and my aunt had stayed willingly. She said that he talked with her for a while before he fell asleep, and woke up to the nightmare of his last hours. She said that he turned to her and said, “Did you see what I had here today? Did you see my wonderful family? I am the luckiest man in the world with all my beautiful girls. Today was the best day I have had in a long time.” She said that as he said these things, he beamed and was radiant with energy and love. She said that he was at peace with his life, and that he loved us more than life itself.
Aunt Elaine said he had gone to sleep after that, and he slept more soundly than he had in days. But after his brief sleep the pain woke him and he fought for breath. The doctors offered him options to ease the symptoms of the transition period, but he said, “no, just make me comfortable,” so they did the best they could. My aunt said he was fitful and reached out to the air. We figure he was arguing with his mother, sharing a twilight world in between life and death. She told me that when morning came with the sun coming over the horizon that he asked her what time it was and to be bathed. She answered that it was 7:30, and he replied, “good.” No one knows why he asked this or what it meant. Maybe he knew he’d get to see my mother again since she was coming soon, or maybe he knew that it would be over soon, and wanted to prepare. No one will ever know.
The nurses came and washed him, gave him more medicine and he fell asleep. My aunt said that he was sleeping when my mother got there, but he was clean, and then she left to come home and knew no more.
I’d like to believe that my mother and father actually got to see each other again, before he died. I want to believe that they got the chance to say ‘I love you’ one last time. I have to believe that he knew she was there by his bedside when he left his body. I never asked my mom any of these things because I’d rather keep my image of peace if that’s not how it happened. I also wonder if it was when I called that morning that he died. It was so soon after I had talked to my mom that she called back with a broken heart. I’d like to believe that he made me call somehow to say goodbye. You see…I was linked to his room through that phone line. It was like I was there. It could have been my goodbye.
I walked into my father’s room behind my sisters and hugged my mother and my Aunt Elsie who had gotten there just before we had. She was on her way to visit my father when I had called her, getting her answering machine. She arrived too late.
I went to my father’s bedside and looked down at what was left of him. His lips had already lost their color and appeared yellow. His cheeks blended in with his lips, and his hands looked shriveled and white. I bent down to kiss his forehead and felt the cold of death. I knelt down on the floor beside him and stroked his head as I had done just the night before. The tears began streaming down my cheeks like waterfalls. They ran down my neck and saturated my shirt. I couldn’t stop them. I began whispering to him, “Daddy, oh Daddy, I love you. You’re gonna have to be my angel now.”
In my mind I was saying, “I’ll never leave you. I’m sorry. I promise this time. I was supposed to protect you. It can’t be your time. Oh, it just can’t. I love you, Daddy.” I couldn’t stop my mind’s motion. In my denial I was hoping that I would have gotten to the hospital and found him still alive. But once I got there and saw what I used to know as my father, I was lost. I was grief stricken. I kneeled there next to him, stroking his head and arm for almost forty-five minutes. I just couldn’t get up. I couldn’t leave him.
Finally everyone came over to me and got me up and mostly to my senses. We all said goodbye and “I love you” one last time and left the hospital.
I didn’t want to talk to or see anyone. I wanted to be alone, but no one let me. People kept coming to the house and asking if I was ok. I barked, “No I’m not!” I really was grateful that so many friends and family came, but how could they know how I really felt?
Late that night, when everyone left and the phone stopped ringing, I tried to go to sleep but failed. Over and over I could hear myself say, “I’ll never leave you. I love you, Daddy. No!” I couldn’t make the images of the past months go away. These were the bad images, the ones that told me how great my father’s pain had been. They were the images of my frustration and exhaustion with caring for him. They hurt. They all hurt so terribly I felt that my heart would burst and my head explode if they wouldn’t let me be.
Four am came and I sat up in bed with a start. There was no closing my eyes anymore, resistance was futile. I was awake. I went to the kitchen and made myself some tea, grabbed my cigarettes and lighter, and pulled a beach chair out to the middle of the yard. I sat there sipping my tea, smoking, and crying. I let myself drown in the ocean of tears. I looked out across the sky, watching the sun peek over the horizon. The air smelled clean and sweet with summer wild flowers, and a soft breeze whispered all around me. The sky was bright, baby blue with only a spattering of clouds, dancing across it. The higher in the sky the sun rose, the brighter and more peaceful I felt. Instead of crying in pain I just cried. The birds were awake and singing their morning songs. At first I was angry at it being such a beautiful, new day, but then I began reaching out to it. I started talking to my father.
“Where are you, Daddy? What happened? Can you hear me and see me? I love you. I miss you so much. I wasn’t done taking care of you, Daddy. Why did they come and take you away?”
While I was talking to him I was searching the sky, as if heaven would allow me a glimpse of my father one last time. Few clouds dotted the blue landscape, and one loomed omnipresent in my line of vision. I rubbed my red, swollen, bleary eyes and looked again. There above me I saw the perfect shape of a hand. I giggled to myself (or to my father) and raised my right hand up to meet it. There before my eyes I held my father’s hand one more time. I held it tight and smiled until it disappeared into the sunrise.
It was him. He wanted to tell me he loved me and to reassure me that he would be my angel now. He would protect me and it would be alright. I fell asleep in my beach chair in the middle of my yard, feeling comforted and secure and close to my father once more.
It was a brief sleep I had out in the morning dew, but it was the only sleep (peaceful sleep) that I would have for the next few days. It was Monday then, and all the preparations for the funeral needed to be taken care of. Thank heavens that everyone else kicked into gear when I shut down because I was worthless. My sisters and mother along with friends and family began cleaning and making phone calls. The funeral director came to settle the newspaper announcements and funeral arrangements.
Tuesday came and went as if it never really happened. The only accomplishment of the day was buying a dress that was not black—I had wanted white but couldn’t find one. Yes, neurotic as I am, white, I wanted white; I refused to wear black; I always wear black so what good would it do to wear it to the funeral: it’s lost its meaning in that respect. I must have tried on at least fifty dresses and found nothing.
My sisters and I wandered from store to store in New Hope, looking through racks of potential dresses. I went to the dressing room with at least four dresses each time, but they either didn’t fit correctly or weren’t pretty enough. My sisters joked that I had finally gone off my rocker, and reminded me that the older, very Greek, family members would reprimand me if I didn’t wear black. Erica pulled a blue dress from the fifth store, saying that the color was nice for me – I think she was exhausted from my fruitless quest. I tried it on, floor-length and delicate, chiffon fabric. I bought it.
I was miserable on the drive home because I couldn’t find white. I wanted white, I was morosely adamant that my father wanted me to wear white. And who was going to argue with my mental state. Why did I have to wear white? Some attributed it to be the wedding dress my father would never see me in or, perhaps, simply the façade of my angel status in his eyes, and even, maybe, my desire to be childlike and virginal for him on that somber day.
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