Life’s all about “Living“… not just living, meanwhile death doesn’t necessarily mean the end. After the death of my father, on December 30th, 2004 I am remembering more about life with and without him. How a once loving father lost his heart and life more than once. Not quite sure why all of this is so easy to ramble through my brain and into words on a page. Perhaps in some way I have help. Help from someone who I just can’t seem to forget. Memories seem to be flashing through my head as if I was watching the television clicking through the channels. A little of each show, then “click” on to the next channel. I just can’t seem to get past the death of my father. Is it because there were no good-byes? We had what one might have described as an oil & water relationship, it just didn’t mix. Nothing seemed to blend. Each time I went over to visit, I’d be in the living room and he’d sit in the bedroom. I can still hear those one worded conversations. What… No… What ever. I think what bothers me most is the inability to visualize his last days. I keep trying to bring up those pages in my mind, but all I get is that dam, gray-white-static-sounding channel in my mind where a picture is supposed to be. “Click-Click” the channel doesn’t ever seem to change. Then it hits. A picture, Perhaps two that I see clearly besides those annoying little flashes that are just those flashes of childhood memories I have forever embedded in my head.

Nine years old and I lost my father for the first time.

It’s 1977, and I was nine years old. Life as I knew it was great. I was Daddy’s little girl and I remember very clearly when ever I was sick he would tell me to go get the pillow and he would lay it onto his lap where he would then boost me up and I would sink into the coziness of that freshly-aired pillow cased pillow. Ready to watch TV, I would quickly doze off to a sound sleep, feeling quite comforted by the warmth of his strong arms holding the pillow. Suddenly life as I knew it came crashing down. My father had awoken one night in a cold sweat, and pains in his chest. Thinking it was only heart burn he asked my mother for some tea and went to drink it in the cool night’s air. When the pain didn’t subside he drove about a mile and a half down the road to Uncle Mikie’s house. Uncle Mikie then drove him, sweating-panting and hanging out the window as a dog would from Thompson Ridge to Horton Memorial Hospital in Middletown. We had later learned that while there he had passed away three times and each time they were able to revive him and bring him back. I remember Dad saying it felt like a hundred elephants had trampled over his chest. I think some how, some where during those near death experiences something was lost--his heart. Now I know it must sound cold hearted, but ironically that’s how he was. After that he seemed never to be happy about anything, never able to show warmth or affection as he had. He had gone from a father that Dana, Dukie, Anthony and I would run to every time he walked through the door to some one I was afraid of. Seeing how mad he could get in a moments notice and watching him choke my sister until she was turning blue. All because a stupid argument of whether or not she would have been able to go somewhere. I felt in my heart that that would be the first time I had lost my father. Because of his lack-of-heart, but it wouldn‘t be the last. Through out twenty-seven years his heart would only worsen in compassion and muscle. Finally in 2004 he was put through the process of being a heart transplant recipient. I had mixed feelings. Would his new chance at life, bring a change in his new heart, and would he have heart with this new one?

December 10th, 2004, not just my brother’s birthday anymore.

I went over to my parents like any other day, expecting to visit for Anthony’s birthday while Dad sat in the bedroom, or on the computer chatting with family like he always did. As I walked in I was greeted with my mother who would say, “We can’t stay. Your father got the call to go to the city to get his heart transplant.” “Can we go for a ride; Ty & Kels would like to go?” “ Do what the hell you want , you always do anyway” Those simple-never-before-hurtful, but so-unbearable now, words will always be embedded in my head as if it were a re-run that just won’t stop. I remember telling Ty that I wish he would die. “I won‘t even go to his funeral“, I remember saying. “Yes you will, He‘s still your father.” “I Love You” was the words he had told my mother, Dana, and Anthony. Why didn’t he say them to me, I often find myself thinking. I rebelled yet again. If he didn’t want to say them to me I wouldn’t visit him in the hospital. Why should I be nice, we’re like oil & water? We don’t mix. He’ll be home soon and it’ll be back to the same old routine. Dana & Tom traveled from Illinois for the Christmas Holiday, but most importantly to visit him. Every other day Mom, Dana, Tom, Anthony, and even Ty went to visit him at the New York Presbyterian Hospital. Every visit he was sedated, until one un-expected visit. Once again He whispered “I Love you “to my sister and mother. By the time Anthony & Tom went in he was sedated once again. With Christmas over Dana & Tom headed home, hopefully awaiting the day Dad came home and recovery at home would start. Little to any of our knowledge my mother was experiencing extreme pain of her own. From all the traveling back and forth to the hospital her legs gave way. She had gone from crawling, to slithering around along the floor like a snake to where ever she needed to go in the house, unbeknownst to any of us. Finally on December 30th, 2004 she couldn’t bear the pain. “Come on get dressed your mom is going to the hospital in an ambulance.” My husband said as he entered through the door. “What?” “Your mom, she’s going to the hospital. She’s already in the ambulance. We need to meet her there.”

Am I in fast forward now?

It seemed like what was eternity in the sterile environment of the Arden Hill Hospital Emergency Room, not knowing why she couldn‘t walk and why she‘s in so much pain. Finally she got a room. Dana was called that she was in the hospital and what room she was in. Ahh... now we could finally go home and rest. It’s 11:00 pm when we arrived home after almost twelve hours in Arden Hill. I brought her medicine to her home so I didn’t forget them somewhere. As I walked in on a ½ started conversation I over-heard “Ok thank you for calling and letting us know, when my mom gets home we’ll discuss it.” “Discuss What?” Anthony’s on the phone. Ok it must be Dana. He hangs up. “Discuss what? “ I said. He looks at me and then yells angrily “Your Father’s dead.” “What?” “It was the cops; they’ve tried to get us all day. He died just 20 little days later, who would have known that as my mother was getting transported to Arden Hill Hospital by ambulance, my father would be alone in the New York Presbyterian Hospital taking his very lasts breaths of air. I called Dana who had just made it back to Illinois. “Dana.” “Yea” “You need to come back.” “I can’t. Why? ““Daddy’s Dead, You need to come back as soon as possible. “ Phone conversations with Dana had continued over the following few days. She said she would make the calls to the funeral home and take care of all the details but I had to do the leg work. I claimed his body from the New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, and with Dana as she had promised we made the arrangements for his funeral. I attended his funeral, which I always said I would never do, and which seemed very strange to think that he was actually gone. Dana says I wouldn’t want those memories. Memories of him lying in the hospital all strapped down with tape so tight across his mouth, the rest of him around that area was bulging from the tightness. She said when he said “I Love you” it was for all of us. It doesn’t sink in, it just doesn’t click. Where is it? I keep trying to rewind but it isn’t there. I can’t seem to find those words playing anywhere.

For everything there’s a reason…

I often found myself thinking that I’d be different if he had passed away. I’d be able to finally be free. Free from what… I didn’t know his power over me perhaps. I thought that if he was gone that I’d be able to live. I keep hearing the saying my mother would always tell us. “Don’t ever wish anyone dead; because you never know what could happen then how would you feel?” All I keep wondering now is did I even know my father at all. Was he his real self when I was nine, or was he really the monster I knew just before he died? I keep trying to remind myself that there’s a reason. A reason why he was the way he was. A reason why he left words left unspoken. A reason why I, was the only one who, didn’t go to the NY Presb. Hosp. to see him. A reason I had to break the news to everyone of his death. I remember what seems to be another flash of memories. In a dream from 1994 just after the birth of my daughter, My brother, Dukie who also is gone and has been deceased since May 21, 1992 (My father‘s birthday, How Ironic.) told me, “ Don’t you know God only lets you see what HE wants you to see.” So perhaps for some reason I was left not to see anything. Perhaps I was protected from the images of Dad lying in that dreaded-oh-so-white-sterile hospital bed, strapped down as his body began to wither away. As he reached his edges limit and his life’s lungs took that one last breath of air as he perished to release his spirit to everlasting life. My memory surely is empty of all that. Perhaps, in some strange way I was protected out of love, his Love. Could he have found his heart where ever he might be, if in fact after life does exist? I have learned one thing though, being alive doesn’t always mean you’re living, nor does death mean that you’re gone, you’ll always live forever in those hearts that you’ve touched upon in your lifetime.