The approaching night took its time as it left the sky awkwardly diffusing remnants of the sun. In the middle of a San Diego December around 4 pm, this was what I would have expected. It couldn’t have been the weather that made coming through the gate and walking amidst dying weeds on a cemented path to my front door any different than the countless late-afternoons before.
As I approached my front door and fumbled for my green, plastic-covered-key, I ignored a small can of cherry-red finishing stain (topped of course, with a ruined paint brush.) This was my dad’s accomplice in an unprofessional attempt to revamp the tone of the door’s original wood; it had been sitting there for half of a year.
With an unlocking “click,” the slightest push of my front door seemed to open a floodgate of volume. Before my first foot had fully entered the familiarity of the foyer, I identified the song that was blaring; it was “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos. I had walked in on the solo-not the guitar solo, but the piano solo: the longest, most beautiful, four minutes of British rock.
The stench of cigarettes and aroma of wine intermixed with the smell that only a full day’s worth of laundry could produce. Something was wrong. My parents’ favorite song or not, it shouldn’t have been playing so loudly and my stepmom never smoked inside.
Forgetting to let go of my backpack, I jolted for the staircase.
I was running but my eyes noticed each stair and on each stair, each stain; the hideous pink carpet was original from the 80s. As if forgetting the queue of the frog-shaped coffee stain, my brain finally registered “I have reached the top.”
At this point I started crying; perhaps it was because I thought I knew what I would see just around the door of my parents’ bedroom, or perhaps it was because I had no idea.
There he was.
My vision completely blurred as I managed to ask my stepmom, “How long?”
Putting away laundry and crying herself, she responded, “He fell into coma right after you left for school.”
Again, I asked-or tried to ask, “How long, until...”
Thankfully she interrupted, “It could be a few minutes or it could be a few weeks. Some doctors believe they can hear us. Honey, you should talk to him.” She went downstairs. I didn’t realize the blaring music had stopped until I heard the beginnings of a song. “Layla.” She was playing it again, but this time so soft that I could barely hear it.
I made my way towards the left side of the bed and grabbed his hand. I didn’t want to grab it. I knew it wouldn’t grab mine back.
I mumbled what had typically been the instigator of our great conversations, “Hi, Dad.” But at that moment, I realized we had already had our last. Talking to him was uncomfortable and awkward with him like this; I preferred listening to him: his great ideas, his vast epiphanies, his lessons.
After my babbling about my grades and all the make-up tests I earned A’s on, a thickening silence built a pressure to keep forming these pointless sentences (as if the more I talked, the less I would anticipate a response.) Quietly, as if knocking, the piano solo from “Layla” exposed itself from downstairs.
Suddenly, I simultaneously watched my Dad’s eyes open and heard his lungs grasp for air. Rising and leaning over so he could see me, I looked at him intently, as if speaking into his fading eyes. Overwhelmed by the rattling noise of his breadth, I blurted out, “Dad, I love you. Thank you. Thank you for everything you have taught me and everything you have done. I couldn’t have asked for a better father; thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” My voice trailed into weeps, there was nothing else I could say.
Franticly, my stepmom came running in and grabbed our hands. She placed one over my dad’s and one in mine and cried out, “Oh Honey, we know. We know. We know you want to say you love us, but we know. And we love you too. And we know you’ll love us for all eternity.”
For all eternity. These words struck me.
Dislodging her hand from mine, she closed his eyes.
So, this was death.
