Dad

I sit next to the bed and hold his hand. The clock cheerily keeping count of the minutes for me. I wonder how many people before me have held hands with their loved ones in this very room? It’s cold and clinical and as much as this space is supposed to feel like a home, it is just make-believe. I wish I could go back in time and be that fairy princess who rode dragons bareback to save the world. Were the people before me as scared as I am? Did their minds scream to run as far as they could? To the past or future, it doesn’t really matter. Anywhere but here. But I am here. Stuck in a moment that will forever live in my heart.

I can’t remember the last time I held my Daddy’s hand. Perhaps it was on my Wedding day, so long ago now, when he gave me away to the man I loved. He was so alive then. His eyes dancing joy as we walked down the aisle together. His smile illuminating his face in happiness. Little did he know that this man would go on to break my heart a million times over. He would never know. There was so much he couldn’t ever know. I’ve become very good at grieving the living.

As his fingers curl around my hand, I’m suddenly back in Palm Beach. I can feel the sun burning my skin, the water lapping at my legs, my siblings laughing around me and my Daddy looking at me. ‘You ready Lisy Lou?’ He smiles at me and I grip his hand tighter. A big wave breaks and rumbles towards us. ‘Here it comes’, he says and I gasp as the wave forces itself around me, threatening to topple me over, but my Daddy holds me safe. He turns to me, ‘That was a big one’ he smiles. Dad’s hands were so strong and brown. I felt so safe when I was in them. They twitch now, a senseless pattern, a rhythm of a life no longer really with us. I look at him, and his eyes catch mine. I can see light in them, ‘I love you Dad’ and he smiles. ‘Thank you’ he replies.

Mum stands beside me. She is so small; I just want to take her away from this pain. She talks constantly to Dad, trying to ignite a forgotten pathway, a memory of who they were together. ‘You’ll be alright’ she murmurs, as she has said countless times over the years to her children. I remember those words and how they comforted me.

‘What’s my name John?’ Mum asks, clinging to their last days together. Dad searches his muddled mind for the answer. ‘Mark’ he finally decides. Mum looks at him and smiles. ‘No, Mark is your son, I’m Jan’ she reminds him. Dad looks a while longer at her, trying to understand what she is saying. He is confused, thoughts are jumbled and he cannot find the words to answer her. ‘Well’ he finally states, ‘I don’t know your name, but I do know that I adore you’.

Dad looks at Mum and I see it. That unsurpassed love they still have for each other. At that very moment I see them both when they first fell in love, dreaming of the years ahead of them, a family and a life full of adventures before this hideous disease robbed them of days together.

I see past the frustration, the questions, the hurt and I see them. The rawness of their love exposed in the cruelty of life. And in that very moment I want to be nowhere else but here.