A Likely Time to Die

I don't know if I was dreaming or not. It's all too much a blur. Just three hours removed from shutting my eyes after getting home late from a concert, my ears still pulsating from hard rock anthems, another piercing sound shattered the silence of a very early Monday morning.

I thought I heard the much-too-upbeat-for-3:30-in-the-morning jingling of my phone’s ringtone. I rolled over, groggily grabbed my phone, and caught the end of a 906 area code flashing across my screen before the morning plunged back into silence. The area code was all too familiar, my hometown in Michigan some 800 miles away, but the number, unrecognizable.

Maybe a random mistake or some drunk asshole from back at home, I thought, with an unease beginning to settle in me.

And then it rang again.

This time the number was familiar—my dad.

As I mustered up the courage to answer it, a million tragedies raced through my mind. What happened to my mom? Though they weren't still together, they were close. Or maybe it was my brother. Or perhaps someone else.

Shaking, I answered.

"Hello?"

A woman on the other end who I didn’t know and whose voice I didn’t recognize pierced the silence, sobbing.

"This is Jeri, your dad’s girlfriend. I’m so sorry, sweetie, but he’s gone. Your dad is gone."

Jeri. I had never met her, and I didn’t really know my dad was dating someone. I had my suspicions, but we never really talked about it. Maybe because my parents’ divorce that was still fresh from just a couple of years prior was still a sore spot for me. I hadn't taken too well to my mom's new relationship, after all.

"What? How?" I asked.

I don’t remember all the words, but it was a heart attack. She found him in the living room around 2:30 am. She said he was slumped over on the floor, still barely breathing when the ambulance came. They worked on him, but to no avail.

"I thought I was taking good care of him," she sobbed.

I remember trying to briefly talk through with her what was going to happen next. I remember letting out a little laugh, my typical defense mechanism, saying, “Well, Jeri, it’s nice to meet you.”

I told her I'd get up there somehow later that day, that she could stay at the house if she wanted, as my dad's dogs were there and needed someone to check on them. She said she'd like to stay. We parted ways on the phone, me promising to see her later and thanking her for letting me know and for taking care of him and being there with him.

I hung up, plunged back into the silence of 3:30 am on Monday, October 7, 2019.

I often think back to that phone call for many reasons, of course. But I often think about Jeri. How hard it must have been not only to have been in that situation to begin with, to watch someone die. But then to have to call his daughter and tell her that her dad was gone. Someone who she didn't even know and hadn't spoken to before. Unimaginable.

I walked over to Gary’s side of the bed and shook him. He barely nodded awake.

"My dad died."

"What??"

"My dad died, and I need to get home."

The next call, my mom. My call was just before 4 am. She didn’t answer. I sent her a Facebook message telling her to let me know when she was up. She responded immediately, so I called her back.

"Dad’s dead," I said matter-of-factly.

"WHAT?!" She shrieked. "HOW?"

Though they were divorced, having separated after 35 years of marriage, they were still on good terms, and my mom still claims they loved each other and may have ended up back together. Who knows. It was hard for her, too.

It fell on her shoulders to get in touch with my brother Jesse and figure out the best way to tell him, which would involve going through the Arkansas Department of Corrections since he’s serving a 50-year term there. Another sad story for another day. I told her I’d be in touch throughout the day and let her know when I'd be in town.

Living 800 some miles away from your tiny hometown in the middle of nowhere with not many good options to fly into makes getting there difficult. I immediately jumped online, looking for flights. Then I contemplated driving. Gary insisted I fly so I could get there as soon as possible, and then he could drive up and follow me later for the funeral or to do whatever else needed to be done in Michigan. He'd take care of things at home for right now.

Flight secured, I got to work emailing colleagues, canceling my classes, and writing messages about my upcoming absence to my students. And then, with about 5 hours of nothing to do until my flight left, I started cleaning the house.

Gary had been sitting on the couch in a daze this entire time and was staring at me incredulously.

"What are you doing? Just sit down."

But I couldn’t. If I stopped, my mind would stop and think about it. I cleaned, I shoved everything humanly possible into a suitcase, not sure how long I’d be staying.

Was he in pain? Did he think of Jesse and me in the end?

I think it was around 5 am when I started to get other phone calls from family. Mike and Sherry, his favorite niece and nephew. I think 9 am was when my brother called. I knew this would be tough. He's been locked away 12 years by now and hadn't seen my dad in about two years, but he had been planning to come to Arkansas to visit me and then Jesse in November, a mere month later.

"It’s not true, Kel, tell me it’s not true. My dad’s not dead," he sobbed.

Of course, I had to tell him over and over again, breaking his heart again each time, that it was true. He must have repeated it dozens of times in our call, asking for my confirmation, hoping for a different answer each time. We vacillated between sobbing and silence, sighs and words of comfort.

I don’t remember much about the flight up to Wausau or meeting my mom at the airport to drive me from Wausau to my dad’s house in Bessemer. My dad’s house. I guess it was mine now.

Walking through the door around 9 pm that night, steps away from the spot where some 18 hours earlier he had taken his last breath, was disconcerting. Luckily some friends had been able to get up to the house and get it unlocked, tend to the dogs, and turn on the lights, so we didn't have to walk into a dark house. Jeri, who promised she’d stay and I gave permission to do so, had been shooed away by my far overreaching uncle, which is yet another story for another day.

But about the house…

Even though my parents had built the house on family property some 25 years earlier, there was always something creepy about certain spaces in and around it. It’s a very modest house, as of late in disrepair, sitting on 3 acres amidst my dad’s family’s 40 acres on the outskirts of a small, rural town. Perched atop one of the highest points in Gogebic County, it has a million-dollar view of Lake Superior in the distance and the surrounding rolling hills of the Ottawa National Forest and the Porcupine Mountains. It is one of the most beautiful locations in the area, with stunning views and a calming stillness. But something about being in that driveway at dark, alone, always made me uneasy. And it wasn’t just me. My cousin felt it. Gary felt it. My brother felt it.

Other spaces had their oddities, too. Like my old bedroom. There was a witching hour of sorts in that room, I swear. For years I would see things, figures. Feel things. Weird things would happen. Things would move. Electronics would switch off and on, turn up, change stations. Weird shit. And I have friends who would come over for sleepovers in high school who would back me up on it, as they witnessed it, too. And so did Gary. Staying in that room freaked him out. And every time this supernatural pall would settle upon the room and the unbelievable would happen, it was between 2:45 am and 3:00 am. I began tracking it because I started to recognize its predictability early on.

But amidst the unease, I went on, taking care of business in a blur. Loving on my dad’s dogs, Max and Grizz, and comforting them in their sadness and loneliness. It was heartbreaking watching Max walk around with one of my dad's shirts, crying, resting his head on it for a fitful sleep. Starting to clean up the house, overrun with my dad’s junk from antiquing, or as he called them, treasures. Planning a funeral. Finding important documents. Tracking down keys to vehicles and houses. Welcoming guests. Reminiscing. And then, after about a week and a half, quiet.

The funeral over, visits from friends, family, and neighbors slowing down, I had a lot of time to sit in that house and reflect. My mom stayed with me off and on in those two weeks I was there, which helped. But a highly superstitious person and someone who gets scared easily, the thought of staying in the house that she once shared with him where he had now died scared her. He was actually the second person to die in the house, as my dad’s first girlfriend after their divorce had lived there and eventually died there, succumbing to cancer as my dad and her children cared for her.

And as I sat there in the quiet, sometimes doing nothing, sometimes sorting through photos and crumbling memorabilia of a man that once was, something struck me. I went over to the table and grabbed the narrow, thick envelope holding copies of my dad’s death certificates. And I glanced at the time and place of death.

October 7, 2019 . 2:46 am . Home.

I let out my typical curt, semi-amused laugh, which isn't always appropriately timed. 2:46 am. Why not?

I had told my parents about the unsettling things I had seen and felt for years. My dad tried to come up with explanations. Family lore since the land had been in the family for generations. Something about a grandfather drowning in the creek behind the house. Maybe that’s who was to blame for it all. My mom tried to will the stories away, creeped out even thinking about anything supernatural happening in the house.

In this old house where unnerving things had happened to me for years in those disquieting 15 minutes between 2:45 and 3:00 am, why not 2:46 am, dad? Just a likely time to die. Or maybe as likely as any other time, I suppose.