97. Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Date: November 28, 2001

Age: 24

I got to spend my birthday in Gatlinburg, Tennessee--giving a speech to a bunch of cops.

Love you

Dad

There was absolutely no way to find an appropriate card for this post, and really, before I came down to Miami earlier this week, I had just grabbed a handful of postcards with no rhyme or reason to them. Therefore, this is the best I can come up with to say that my dad died on Monday.

Sunday began with a comedy of errors--C's flight to Miami arrived about an hour after mine, so I waited for him. As soon as C found me he said, "I picked up someone else's bag, I have to return it to them." Thankfully the woman who ended up with his noticed the mistake before leaving the airport and called his cell phone, otherwise he would have later opened up a suitcase filled with bikinis for her island vacation.

The plan was to rent a car and drive to Dad's, and pick up B when his flight arrived later that afternoon. When we got to the house, however, it was clear we weren't going anywhere, and B was going to have to take a cab over. H was already crying, with news from the hospice nurse that Dad probably would pass away that day.

He made it through the day, however, and through the night, where we all slept on the floor around him. He passed away at 7:45 Monday morning.

That 17-hour vigil was undoubtedly one of the most significant moments of my life, and there's so much to write about it. And I will, but I think I need to wait until he's put to rest, and I'm out of his house. For some reason I feel it's disrespectful to blog about it now. Probably so much of this blog is disrespectful, but there you go.

Dad rediscovered religion in the past few months, so the funeral is a Catholic mass, followed by burial, then reception at his house. H's house. Sunday and Monday she could barely hold it together.

I will say this about his last day on Earth: he had been lying on a couch, and with the pillows removed, it was deep enough for two. Sunday night into Monday, when my brothers and I slept on the floor around him, H slept beside Dad on the couch and held his hand. In the morning, I watched her wake up. She looked at his hand still in hers, no doubt checking the color of his fingers--we all were, as the hours passed, because we were told that his fingertips would begin to turn blue as circulation slowed, a sign that he was nearer to the end. She saw the blue, like I had just a few moments before when I returned to the room after a quick shower, and she started to cry silently. She was awake for only a minute or so when his breathing stopped. 7:45.

I'm doing okay. The day of his death was better than the last day of his life. Yesterday was exhausting. So will today. But then the life I knew in which my dad was always a part of it--at least in his own way--will be finished, and I'll begin to live with him truly absent.

Goodnight, Dad, rest in peace.