Anything, Just Anything

Ten years ago today a hospice nurse whose name I don't remember came to the spare bedroom in my father's house to tell me he had died. Or maybe not. Maybe she told my boyfriend first. Maybe she told him in the kitchen, keeping her voice low, so he could come break the news to me himself. Maybe he woke me up to tell me, gently stroking my leg until I opened my eyes and waited for him to find the words. Or maybe I was already awake, and bracing for it. Maybe I looked at him pleadingly, secretly hoping it was over.

I don't remember.

Ten years ago today I sat in that spare bedroom, hugging my knees to my chest, humming to myself to block out the sound of the body bag zipping shut, because my father had died ten feet from where I was still alive. Or maybe I didn't. Maybe I lingered in the doorway, morbidly fascinated by the whole scene, numb enough to watch the collapsible gurney get wheeled out into the Florida sunshine.

Maybe it was both. I don't remember. 

Ten years ago today I texted Mason, whose own father had died a few years before, one single word: fin. His own one word reply came quickly: triste.

That I do remember. That definitely happened, just like that. 

I don't remember much of what happened the day my dad died. I remember other things instead, like the incredible love my boyfriend and friends showed me, from the minute I found out he was sick until he was gone thirteen days later, rolling onward for months after I went back home to LA and dealt with the fallout. I am endlessly grateful to myself for writing it all down. If you go back to my posts from April 2012 to fall of that year, you'll see. You'll see how deeply I was loved, and how many magical moments I experienced in all of that love.

But back to my dad. 

I remember things about my dad that I've never written down or talked to anyone about, because the only people who would nod and laugh, well, they're gone too. So it's just me left to remember the random, weird shit about my dad that pops up out of nowhere, like when I do laundry.

My dad was a laundry guy. Me, I'm not a laundry person. I will wear the same thing five times before I wash it, and even then I do so unwillingly, sure I am degrading the precious, expensive fibers of my favorite pieces. But my dad fucking loved doing laundry. He kept his washing machine and dryer in the garage, and kept them immaculate--just like the garage. And he did laundry all the goddamn time. Washed his clothes seemingly daily. Didn't care about shrinking them. And they were already pretty tight to begin with, because despite his best efforts towards staying fit, my father put on a few pounds every year. That can happen when you slam nom M&Ms during Soprano binge sessions. 

And my dad's wardrobe stop evolving sometime around 1989, so we're talking corduroy short-shorts and polos in colors that haven't been fashionable since the Reagan administration. Lots of banana yellow. Oh, and no fabric softener. My dad was anti-fabric softener. Not an allergy issue. Possibly a cheapskate issue? I'm not sure. But there he was, with his stupid, shrunken polos keeping no secrets for his sixty-something belly, and the ridiculous shorts that crept alarmingly high when he sat down. He was an absolute clown in this regard and I would give anything, just anything to run the stupid fucking rough fabric of one of those stupid fucking canary yellow polo shirts between my fingers, because maybe it would help me remember whether I was even in the room when they took my father's body, because I should have been.

I should have been.

Ten years is a long time. You get a lot of scar tissue built up in ten years. But life is ever armed with a scalpel, and it can cut you back open in an instant, and nothing you can do about it. 

If the only day I could have with him again was the day he died, I would take it. I wouldn't have left the room, selfishly, childishly, to go nurse my own heartbreak. I would have stayed by his side and not averted my gaze once, even though his own eyes were glazed over and elsewhere already. I would have kept telling him things that he wouldn't have heard, about what his love had meant to me, and all the ways his personality had shaped mine. And if I could go back to April 30, 2012 but take April 30, 2022 with me, I would lean close and whisper all my news. Dad, guess what? My company is sending me to a gala. They're sending me to big fancy black tie party because they believe in me, and think I can make good things happen.

And I would tell him that after the gala, I'm going to go spend the weekend with someone special in this new city I've made home. And Dad, get this, I would whisper. He's an engineer, just like you. But much better looking. And here I would pause, for laughter that wouldn't come. Then I'd continue:

And yes, Dad, sometimes I am sad like mom and sometimes I am lost like Matt. But I am doing the best I can out here for all of you, and I'm sorry you're not here to see it.

That's some of what I would say. And then I would be quiet and still and let him fall asleep, and I wouldn't leave for anything.