My Little Black Book

I have days that are neither good nor are they bad. I have come to notice that they are fluid like the tide moving in and out and welcome that analogy. Because on the days that are not so good, I remember that it is only temporary, and that tomorrow will bring me the possibility of a better day. That being said, today is not an ebb and flow kind of day. Today is a bad day. Today is a dark day. Today is a day that I cannot find the bright spot, that I cannot find the light. It is like I am being swallowed into the stomach of the universe where I will wait to be digested and shat out at its will. I know, that sounds entirely overly dramatic, but it is where I am today.

I sit in session after session, listening to my clients talk about the difficulties of their lives, their divorces, their affairs, their family issues, their insecurities, all whilst appearing to jot down notes in my little black notebook. But what I have really been doing is writing your name and birthdate over and over again in the margins of the pages.

Today would have been your 57th birthday. Today would have been a day filled with cake and celebration. It would have been a day where you told me not to do anything special, all the while hoping that I would pick up some catfish from your favorite by the pound, joint and expecting a chocolate cupcake from the gourmet bakery, the one that reminded you of the place you always got cakes from as a kid on the southside of Chicago. But today will not be full of cards and presents. There will be no tone-deaf singing from Zoe or screaming from Mya (man, that girl truly hates that song). Today will just be a day of quiet recognition dotted by moments of profound sadness.

It is strange because this isn’t your first birthday since you passed. That one blew by us last year in a muddled mess of uncertainty and hoopla with conversations of a the “new pneumonia,” that was beginning to plague the world. I think that it was the fact that it had only been three months since you had died and we were still processing that loss, but last year did not have the impact that this year does.

It kind of surprised me, to be honest, how much the anniversary of your birth saddens me more than the anniversary of your passing. I think I figured it out though--your birthday is a reminder of the life that you lived, of all the promise and hope that filled you during your time on this Earth. Your death, which was both sudden and not so much so, was a relief. It was a release from all of the pain and sickness that had parked itself in your body for nearly a decade. It was as though the universe had let go of its grip on you, finally exhaled and pushed you on to the other side.

You do not know this, but I know the exact moment you died. It was 4:40 pm and I had just picked Mya up from the Autism Center. We were on our way to get Zoe from school when I got the worst headache I had ever experienced, and I felt like I was going to die. My head felt like it was splitting in two and I nearly vomited all over myself in the front seat of the Jeep. I was certain I was having an aneurysm and I started crying because I was afraid, I was going to crash the car and kill Mya in the process. Then, just as suddenly as it came, it passed. It was less than 40 minutes later that the girls and I walked into the house, ready for a relaxing weekend after a very long week at work.

The moment we entered the kitchen I knew something was wrong. The air in the house did not feel right to me and for whatever reason I told Zoe not to go into your room. Mya, however, blew past me, like she is prone to do, and rushed down the hallway to your room like she did every day after school. I yelled out:

"Mya, wait!"

Almost as quickly as she had taken off, she came back to the kitchen with a panicked energy, grabbed me by the hand and dragged me down the hall, all whilst screaming and pointing at the bedroom. I had the presence of mind to yell out to Zoe to stay in the living room, because I knew in my soul that whatever I was going to find in that bedroom was going to change the course of all of our lives.

Your crumpled body on the floor reminded me of an old rag doll I had as a child and for a brief moment, time stopped, and it was as if everything in the room was suspended in midair. Things began to move slowly, and I remember yelling to Zoe to stay on the couch as I ran for the phone in the kitchen. I dialed 911 and rolled you onto your side to start CPR, but I knew you were already gone. I knew it as surely as I knew my mother’s soul had left her body when she was in her coma, two days before she took her final breath.

I gave our address and your stats to the operator like I had a dozen times before over the last seven years.

"56-year-old, African American, male, with a history of diabetes, heart attack, hypertension, stage five kidney failure, congestive heart failure, he has been on dialysis for five years. No, he isn't breathing. No, I do not feel a pulse. Yes, he is still warm to the touch. No, there is nothing in his airway."

It all seemed so surreal, even though had prepared for this very moment many times over the last three years as you were always in the ICU in the middle of December, struggling to make it one more year. As I continued compressions I could hear Zoe wailing in the living room, her adolescent mind listing all the things that she and you would never do together.

“My daddy daughter dance. All of my birthdays. He won’t be here for them. He won’t be here for them. I do not have a daddy! I do not have a daddy!”

I yelled out to her, trying to comfort her all the whilst the operator coached me through CPR. The entire time, Mya wandered in and out of the room and all I could do was wonder if this experience was going to send her into a regressive state, how horrible it was going to be to call your oldest daughter to tell her that you died on her 30th birthday, and how I was going to find the words to tell your mother that you were gone.

The entire time I did compressions I just kept thinking over and over:

“He is warm to the touch. This just happened. He hasn’t been laying here long.” But I knew in my heart of hearts that you were gone.

I wish I could say that the rest of the night is just a blur, because if there were ever a night in my life that I would prefer not to remember every detail of, this would be it. However, even now it still plays out in my head, like an old black and white film, where I remember each and every tiny detail. I remember every single phone call I made, while sitting in the room next to your lifeless body. I remember reaching out and holding your hand while I waited for the coroner to come, knowing that it would be the last time I ever traced the callus on your knuckle and thinking how odd it was to not feel your hand close around mine. I remember your face, as they rolled you out on a stretcher, peaceful, without the slightest hint of the pain you had endured for nearly a decade of your life. And most of all I remember the moment, when all the chaos settled down and the house became eerily silent. That was the moment that Mya brought me the photo of you and Zoe from the Daddy Daughter Dance, placed my finger on your face, and touched my cheek as if to ask, “What the hell just happened here?”

She continued that ritual every night for an entire week until one night I said "He's gone. He won't be back." After that she put the photo in the desk drawer, right in the spot where she used to put your phone so you would charge it for her every night, and she never opened that drawer again.

I have not told many people this, but the night before you died, I sat in my car in the garage, weeping because you had been in so much emotional and physical pain the week prior. It was December 5th, the nine-year anniversary of my mother passing, and I prayed to her to come and get you. Through heaving sobs, I said:

"Mom, he has been through so much and I just don't think he can take it anymore. This time is bad, and I think it is going to kill him. Just come and get him. Come take him home. Tell whoever is in control that he has suffered enough and just let him go."

And later that night, after they took you away and the girls were in bed and I was somewhere in between awake and some muted version of sleep, I felt you take hold of my hand and caress the back of it with your thumb, the way you used to when we were first dating. And though I knew that your physical presence on this Earth was over, I was sure that your energy was lingering here. It would not be the last time that I would feel your presence or hear your voice echoing in another room. Zoe even once told me that she was certain she heard you coughing one night as she was drifting off to sleep. And more than once, I am certain that Mya has played chase with you through the hallway of the house, something you had not been able to do for years.

After my client leaves, I take out my little black notebook and I write a quick note to remind myself that it is okay not to be okay. It is the same one that you gave me on my birthday the year before you died. I have kept it with me every day since you passed, slipping it into the inside pocket of my worn-out jean jacket, carrying it like a personal bible to bring me comfort. It reminds me of you, with its worn-out cover, frayed pages and cracked spine it is the perfect representation of all that you endured, and I will carry it with me, as I do you, for an eternity.