I\u2019ve 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\u2019s freezing. Odd I found out my dad died as I\u2019m inches from a toilet. I call back immediately. Through sobs and sniffles I\u2019m given the gritty play-by-play. The retelling now spoils the one time showing of his finale. I\u2019m 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\u2019t want to go out of the window. Followed by a frantic repetition: \u201cI don\u2019t want to die, I don\u2019t want to die, I don\u2019t want to die, I don\u2019t want to die.\u201d Clawing, gripping and tethering himself to the remainder of his life. I hung up the phone. The baton now passed off to me. It\u2019s 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\u2019ve detached the meaning from it all. Now just a bedtime story I never forget to tell myself. Me, an ongoing audience of one.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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\u2019d 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\u2019t see anything and now I feel fear I\u2019ll crash. I\u2019m losing focus, growing lightheaded as my breathing goes faster and faster and shorter and shorter. Then nothing. Silence. Cranked louder than I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019ve grown used to over the past year. My dad\u2019s nurse beside her. I can\u2019t look at my mom for long. If I can barely grasp my own emotions, how am I supposed to support hers? I\u2019m their only child and knowing this all falls on me is a reality I\u2019m all too aware of. I feel selfish again. My eyes quickly dart away from my shortcomings, and I see his body. It\u2019s still lying there in his hospice bed. I try to play it cool. I question now for what. My fragile mask I\u2019ve 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\u2019t help myself but to reach my hand out for what\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019ll see it. Unfortunately, he already barely resembled himself. One eye remained open. I try to close it, but I guess it doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t have complained about that. I\u2019m told to look away as he is placed in a large black bag and taken from me. I ignored that suggestion too. Immediately I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been four months since my dad\u2019s taken his final bow and I\u2019ve 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\u2019m 31 now, he is 76. It seems like it\u2019s so long until I\u2019ll be that age. Though against my will I\u2019m constantly reminded how fast we experience living. I question if I\u2019ll even get that long anyway. I wonder each day when my window will arrive. I wonder too if I\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019ve detached the meaning from it all. Now just a bedtime story I never forget to tell myself. Me, an ongoing audience of one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":24013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[760],"tags":[171,4459,316,1513,4460],"class_list":["post-23150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-nonfiction","tag-death","tag-dying","tag-grief","tag-loss","tag-mourning","writer-jack-p-consiglio-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23150"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24014,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23150\/revisions\/24014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}