the day my dad died (revisted)

tw: cancer, death

November.

Omar flew in on the seventh. I love my older brother so much that I forgot for a moment the reason why he flew in. I told my friends at work, "My brother is flying in today." I didn't tell them why. They didn't ask; it was close enough to the holidays that they must've made reasonable assumptions.

My fiancé and I moved our wedding date up to the twenty-fifth, so my dad could make it, so my dad could see me get married. I wanted my dad to see me get married. I began romanticizing the idea of it, a wedding in late November, playing it out in my head; that was all I could do. I would not get the wedding I originally wanted. 

My wedding would not be in the spring, because if it was then my dad wouldn't be there. Instead, it would be in the fall. All the trees would be dead, their leaves already buried under a light powder of snow. The gown I bought in August had not yet arrived, so I would dawn a thin white dress I had in the closet. There would be no aisle for me to walk down with my dad.

He couldn't walk anymore anyway. 

Omar told me there was no use in crying about it. He said the universe wasn't going to pause just for me to get married. I looked at Omar and wondered how he could have assumed I would dare think such a thing. I, of course, had been more than aware that every prayer of ours had fallen on deaf ears. If there was anyone willing to listen, nothing would change for something as insignificant as a wedding. 

I felt it unfair for Omar to be the one to say this to me, as true as it was. He decided it was his job to give everyone a reality check, as if we had been going about our business blissfully while he had been on the other side of the country. Omar had not been the one to take our dad to his appointments; I was. Omar got to have his full wedding up in the mountains and take photos with his newly-wed wife by the lake. My wedding photos would be accompanied by the pills on the kitchen counter and the IV drip in the living room. 

People asked me why I changed the date of the wedding. They asked this and hoped I wouldn't notice their furtive glances to my stomach, which revealed nothing. Omar's wife was never subject to the same speculation I was regarding her marriage. But I became the latest subject of gossip among many different circles.

I told them, "Clint and I started dating five years ago on the twenty-fifth. We're getting married then because it's our anniversary." I don't know if I lied more for their comfort or my own. 

Either way, I jumped the gun. On the sixth, I sent out digital invitations to our friends and family. But on the eighth, when my dad finally came home from the hospital, his body frail and withered, his right eye black and bloody, and our family reunion joined by a nurse, a social worker, and a chaplain, I knew the twenty-fifth was too far away. 

Omar and I helped our dad from the wheelchair to the recliner while they talked. My dad flinched at every movement. My other siblings stood close by, wanting to help, but unsure what they could do. My youngest brother, Benjamin, sat on the couch, stone-faced and staring at nothing. I began to wonder how it must feel for Aunt Sandy, for Aunt Penny, how it must feel to outlive your youngest brother.

The nurse talked first, telling us that they were here for us just as much as they were for my dad. They explained that their job was to make sure he was 'comfortable.' They said a whole bunch of other things too that didn't really make a difference. Nothing could have made a difference.

The fact was we were just too late. 

It had been too late from the beginning.

We didn't catch it in time, and my dad was going to die. 

I wondered if my younger siblings understood that. They hadn't been around to meet Moxie, the bulldog we had, that I tried to shake back awake. They never met Grandpa Lee, who had a blue toilet and carpet in the bathroom, and who always wore a ball cap no matter what. They didn't know who Tío Franco was, who recorded me a 'Happy Birthday' video when I turned six. 

Maybe if we had taken my dad to the hospital when he first broke his ribs, despite his protests, we would have known why so many had broken so easily. Maybe we would have seen what caused his bones to become weak and brittle. Maybe we could have caught it sooner, started treating him sooner. 

Maybe then those strangers wouldn't have been in our living room. 

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. 

The chaplain talked next. He talked and he talked. And when everyone else bowed their heads in prayer, I looked over to my dad. My dad. My dad, who could fix any problem, who could do anything, hardly resembled himself. I couldn't find the features we shared anymore.

My dad had been reduced to skin and bones. Mom had been trying to keep his weight, to offer him enticing food for the past year, but he just couldn't do it; he could not eat. It didn't matter how much she pleaded with him. When those strangers left, I asked my dad what he wanted from the grocery store. He wanted ice cream, Tillamook cookie-dough ice cream. 

When I returned from the grocery store, the boys helped my dad from the wheelchair into his seat at the head of the dining table. The eight of us sat there solemnly, a stark contrast to the usual shouting and endless interrupting. All that could be heard was the silverware against the ceramic of our plates and the dog panting under the table. 

And then the sound of my dad's fork against the table. My dad only had a couple bites of food before he set the fork down and hung his head over his plate. "I'm sorry," he said without looking over to Mom, without looking over to any of us. Mom told him not to apologize. He didn't say anything else. He did not cry. We all watched as she placed her hand on his arm. 

He ate a bite of ice cream. 

On the ninth, Omar came into my room while I sat at my desk writing. I closed out of my document before he got any closer; there wasn't a way to explain the eulogy I had begun in October. 

Omar asked me what the plan was for the wedding. He said our dad probably wouldn't make it to the twenty-fifth, and if he did, we probably wouldn't want to celebrate with our dad dying in the other room. He said he didn't think it would be possible for Mom to host at all. 

So, I rescinded the invitation I had sent out only three days prior. Clint and I met up with the friend who had agreed to marry us, and we moved the wedding up to the sixteenth. Our friend asked us if we were sure we wanted to go through with it, having a wedding under such circumstances.

I didn't want to change course for a third time. And I wanted my dad to see me get married.

On the tenth and eleventh, my siblings, my fiancé, and I went to my youngest sister's basketball games. On the way there, I crumbled. I cried in the car alone with Clint. I told him everything was terrible, awful. I told him I couldn't see my dad like that anymore. 

And I wished, regrettably, that it had been something quick and sudden, like a car accident, so then at least all of this would have been over last August, when we first received the diagnosis. So then at least, we wouldn't all have to watch it happen, so my dad wouldn't have to suffer through all of it. 

And it was a stupid thing for me to say out loud, to even think, because my dad would always choose to stay and suffer for longer. If my dad could, he would have gone with us to the basketball games, even if it hurt to sit in those bleachers. I saw my dad cry in March; I knew he didn't want to go. 

Mom lost her first husband the day she found out she was pregnant with Omar. Omar's dad took a left turn too quickly and a car hit him, killing him instantly. Mom told us we should feel blessed that we were being given time to say goodbye, because she had never gotten that with Omar's dad. 

But I didn't like that. I countered, in my head, that there was no blessing in what was happening. A blessing would have been my dad at Alexandra's basketball games, or my dad at Isabella's graduation that May, or my dad in the passenger seat while Benjamin learned how to drive in February. A blessing would have been my dad walking me down the aisle. 

Because no matter which way I looked at it, my dad would never get to do any of those things, those very important things. He would never get to meet his grandkids, would never get to grow old with Mom, and would never get to sit with us, all of us, at the dinner table again. 

And that's not a blessing.

On the twelfth and the thirteenth, my dad slept in his bedroom. Each time I went to check on him, my mom sat in a chair at his bedside as he slept. My dad was in pain, that much was clear, despite the nurse's promises that he would be as comfortable as possible. His breaths came and went short and shallow; blood was filling up his lungs. 

I kissed his forehead, but I never lingered too long. I couldn't do it. There was this terrible smell that clung to his skin, and I was scared it would follow me out the door. I'd hold my breath when I went in there, in that room. It was something I had never smelled before, but instinctively I knew what it was: necrosis, death. 

There was only one time that my dad was awake when I went to check on him. His back was arched, chest in the air as he wheezed, struggling to breathe. And he looked at me, wide-eyed, gasping. There wasn't anything I could do to help but stand there until he shifted more comfortably. 

"You don't have to say anything," I said, "But I want you to know that I love you."

I waited for a response, knowing I wouldn't get one. I hadn't heard my dad speak since the eighth, and the voice I heard was not my dad's. It was raspy, hollow, and hard to understand. 

My dad turned away from me onto his side, closed his eyes, and went back to sleep. That was the last thing I ever said to my dad. 

I don't know what the last thing he ever said to me was. 

Out in the kitchen, Mom argued with Omar; she wanted to take my dad to the hospital for platelets, but my dad told her no. She wanted to take him anyway. The kids weren't anywhere in sight, but I was sure they should hear everything.

Omar asked her, "Would you rather die at home or in a hospital?"

On the day my dad died, I had been summoned for jury duty. I drove myself downtown in silence. The frequent trips to the hospital made the drive easier. I arrived at 7:40 am, stood anxiously in a line of people much older than me, and followed them up to the fourth floor where we waited until we were called. 

I read a book that wasn't very good, ate a pack of cashews, and sipped on some apple juice. 

They called the jurors with the tan numbered tags first. Then the blue, pink, and green. Until finally, they called orange. I was juror number twenty-five. I sat in the courtroom as the judge asked us loads of questions to make sure we were impartial. The case was some civil lawsuit about a minor car accident that happened in October of 2018. I thought, How can you still be mad about that?

The judge then asked us if there was anything that would make it difficult for us to focus on the trial. I raised my number and told him my reason: "My dad is in hospice." Except, he misheard me because of the way the words choked out. I didn't bother correcting him; I could hardly speak. 

The juror sitting behind me raised his number and spoke, "I don't have a reason to leave, but I just wanted to clarify what she said. She said her dad is in hospice, not the hospital."

The judge told me he was sorry and thanked me for being there. I just sort of nodded; I was legally required to show up. 

They dismissed me. 

On the day my dad died, I left the courthouse at 10 am and arrived at work at 10:15. I joked about my jury duty, about how I was dismissed, all while not telling anyone the reason I was dismissed. They didn't ask. We talked about songs, books, and movies.

I was still at work when Mom called me at 4:14 pm. I answered the phone in the back, "Hi, I'm at work." Mom asked me if I had read her text, and I told her I hadn't. 

"Oh, okay Hija," she said, "When you're done, just come straight home. Your dad isn't doing very well."

On the day my dad died, my supervisor asked me if I wanted to leave fifteen minutes early. When I came to the front with all my things, my fiancé was already sitting there in the lobby. I approached him and we embraced. I repeated to him what Mom had told me, and asked if he would come home with me. He said, "Yeah, of course."

I drove home from work. 

When I got there, my aunts were sitting on the couch. Mom stood in the center of the living room, facing east to the windows. Her shoulders were slouched, arms crossed over her chest, and her right hand held onto a crumpled tissue. She turned to me with swollen eyes. 

"Hola Hija, you're home."

I walked up to her and hugged her.

As she held me, she said, "Your dad died. Omar and John were here with him."

"When?"

"Around three," she told me, pulling back and tilting her head as she looked at me, "Would you like to see him?"

He could have been sleeping, if he weren't so still. And I wanted to touch him, to shake him awake. But I didn't, because I knew he wouldn't wake up, not this time. 

It was over.

I stood there a moment, staring down at my dad in the bed. Mom kept going on about how proud he was of me and how much he loved me. But I already knew all that. 

And he knew I loved him too.