The Goodbye I Never Knew

It was almost a year ago, to early to see the sun rise. The morning my whole world was flipped upside down and I hadn’t even realized it yet. I received a text that wasn’t a surprise. My dad was in the hospital, another bowel blockage. He got them at least twice a year. A heavier set man, drives a bus for a living, spent so much time working and not enough time focused on himself.  I told myself everything was going to be okay. I rolled over and went back to sleep. It was not much later that I woke up again. I decided to go check on him before work, against my mothers advice.

He was sound asleep. So calm, so peaceful, so unaware of what was to come. About an hour had gone by and he was suddenly awake from a obnoxious ring tone, God knows he loved those. It was my mom, making everything about her as usual. How she wasn’t going to come see him if hes going to be asleep the whole time and how she wasn’t feeling well either. Typical excuse. The possibility of her to make any situation about someone else was slim to none.

He turned, and he was startled by the sight of me. He said ” i didn’t even here you come in, when did you get here?”. I  explained that I would be leaving for work shortly and just wanted to stop by and see how he was doing. He reassured me that he was okay. Hiccup after hiccup and I finally started to chuckle….Why do you keep doing that? I asked. He went on to tell me how he was so nauseous and how the medication was making him feel groggy. To take his mind off the pain, I joked about how good of a view hes going to have for the fireworks on July 4th. He laughed, said that this spot wasn’t nearly as good as the one hospital room he had 4 years ago. He was right, that view put this room to shame. In the middle of him talking his nurse came in. Reassured me everything was going to be fine and this was just going to be a waiting game. My dad seemed to take that news very well. He closed his eyes and started to drift off.

I decided that would be the best time to leave. I got up and gave him a hug goodbye. Immediately he began talking so clear to me. ” I love you so much, you know that right?” as tears fell from his face and his lips quivered. I giggled (It was a running joke that my Dad could cry over ANY possible thing) “of course and I love you too, everything will be fine” i said……Everything would be fine? I truly believed that. Not a single cell in my body raised a flag over the current situation. My instincts couldn’t have been more wrong.

Within days, my Dad was gone. Stripped from right in front of me. I watched him say his last words, I watched him open his eyes for the last time, and I had no clue what exactly I was witnessing. The last few moments with my Dad was nothing like I would’ve ever pictured in a life time. I watched a man who was relatively healthy, deteriorate within a matter of a few days. Not only was it heartbreaking, it was life shattering.

#Grief