I’ve missed it. A call that my dad died less than a minute prior. I was busy on the other line frantically trying to get his oxygen ordered, but I guess he already pulled all the air out of the room. I was there with him less than twenty-four hours ago. Yesterday, I saw him alive. I even spoke to him three hours ago too. He seemed fine enough at the time. How selfish of me not to be there and miss his final act. His solo, his last monologue. Shame on me. A chill runs down my spine and every bit of my being overflows with sadness and anger. I want to scream out into a void that continues to forget to acknowledge me. I stand anchored to the floor in the bathroom of my one-bedroom apartment. It’s freezing. Odd I found out my dad died as I’m inches from a toilet. I call back immediately. Through sobs and sniffles I’m given the gritty play-by-play. The retelling now spoils the one time showing of his finale. I’m painted a vivid scene. His eyes wide open with fear and confusion. His body, stiff, immovable and strong. Shocking for a man barely 100 pounds. His voice, full of conviction, clarity and determination. Commanding that he doesn’t want to go out of the window. Followed by a frantic repetition: “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.” Clawing, gripping and tethering himself to the remainder of his life. I hung up the phone. The baton now passed off to me. It’s now my responsibility to have to share his last moments. No one lets you in on the secret that when a loved dies, you have to relive it with each retelling. At this point, I’ve detached the meaning from it all. Now just a bedtime story I never forget to tell myself. Me, an ongoing audience of one.

I quickly packed a bag and started the hour-and-a-half drive to him. He and I, currently a couple of states apart, but it feels at this point like a cross-country trek. Might as well have been. It’s been raining all day, and I grip the steering wheel tight to keep steady. It would be a shame if my family lost two lives today. My emotions sting as they bubble up inside me. Years of the inevitable, forcing through my cracked shell in an instant. Like those volcanoes you’d make in elementary school. An ooze of reality that I thought I had accepted through my own arrogance. I started to hyperventilate. It makes me wonder about my dad, and the fear that seemed to be his only guiding light to the end. My breath crescendos, my lungs barely refilling. Between the rain, my tears and my astigmatism, the car and highway lights around me fracture and expand. Dancing mockingly and obstructing my view. At this point, my fingers are nearly degloving the wheel. I can’t see anything and now I feel fear I’ll crash. I’m losing focus, growing lightheaded as my breathing goes faster and faster and shorter and shorter. Then nothing. Silence. Cranked louder than I’ve ever heard it. The stark difference in just a second leaves my lungs aching, searching for a full breath. My body, seemingly disconnected from my mind. I craved it never found its way back. Forever left with a dull ring echoing throughout my skull.

When I finally arrive at my childhood home, I come back to my senses. Time to be a good son. As I walk inside, I see my mom is still sitting by his bedside. An image I’ve grown used to over the past year. My dad’s nurse beside her. I can’t look at my mom for long. If I can barely grasp my own emotions, how am I supposed to support hers? I’m their only child and knowing this all falls on me is a reality I’m all too aware of. I feel selfish again. My eyes quickly dart away from my shortcomings, and I see his body. It’s still lying there in his hospice bed. I try to play it cool. I question now for what. My fragile mask I’ve been conditioned never to remove leading the show, even now. I slowly make my way over. My feet feel heavy with each step. I can’t help myself but to reach my hand out for what’s left of him. I nonchalantly yet desperately search for a sign of life, a shred of hope. Looking for one beat in a chest now cold and motionless. I refuse to give up. I guess I am my father’s son. I keep checking. My hand never leaves his corpse. I was told by his nurse to stop. I guess the body starts to release toxins after death, or something. I ignored her. No way would my dad hurt me. I put my hand in front of his mouth. Nothing. I shifted my hand to his chest. Nothing. My ear then replacing my hand. Nothing. I hear nothing. How haunting it is, to experience nothingness to this degree. I examine his face, not wanting to forget the details since this is the last I’ll see it. Unfortunately, he already barely resembled himself. One eye remained open. I try to close it, but I guess it doesn’t work like it does in the movies. His eye snaps back open and he continues to stare upwards. I look closely into it. Afraid that something was left behind. An eye is expected to be the window into the soul. His window left ajar, interior evicted. He would have complained about that. Again, only nothingness. At least the lights were put out. He wouldn’t have complained about that. I’m told to look away as he is placed in a large black bag and taken from me. I ignored that suggestion too. Immediately I’m hit with fears of him suffocating but then matched with intense imagery of his body engulfed in flames. Another pill of reality too big to swallow but forced to consume. Forced to endure. He now sits on the cabinet in the living room.

It’s been four months since my dad’s taken his final bow and I’ve had no choice but to move on to my next act. As time passes, the world callously reattaches weight and responsibility. Grace is lost with time. At this point, it feels like it was a farce to begin with. I feel so alone in the crowd. My pain is old news to anyone except me, creating constant invalidation at the hands of myself. I’m 31 now, he is 76. It seems like it’s so long until I’ll be that age. Though against my will I’m constantly reminded how fast we experience living. I question if I’ll even get that long anyway. I wonder each day when my window will arrive. I wonder too if I’ll be ready to head on through. I, being my own lead performer. I wonder If someone will mourn me like I do him. Or if my story will just lose itself in the arrow of time and in the void of it all. Maybe then it might just be able to acknowledge me.