How a man that did so little ended up meaning so much...
He was thin, frail. He had no hair atop the head that was cradling his injured brain. He was restrained and in pain and connected to machines like some kind of Frankenstein and I could not save him.
My heart broke when he left. My heart broke every time I thought of him after that and every time I saw him, what few times that was. And of all the emotions that I could feel. Anger. Hurt. Confusion. All I felt was heartbreak.
He was my father. I couldn’t be angry. I even tried to be angry because for me it’s an easier thing to deal with, but all my body did was feel hollow and like my heart was being filled with cold water.
Fourteen years had gone by and over that time I’d seen him exactly three times. Three times since I was five or six. Three times before this day fell into my lap…
“Oh good you’re home,” my mother said amidst traffic and city sounds. She was calling on her cell phone.
“Yeah, I was about to leave though, why?” I replied.
“I have to tell you and the twins something important. I’ll be home in half an hour.”
“Something important,” was never good with my mother. Nothing ever was, but “something important” usually meant anger and tears and fighting and cruel and most certainly unusual punishment. My stomach dropped as my mind raced through the past few days. What could I have possibly done wrong this time?
“What’s it about?” I asked, voice a little shaky.
“I’ll be home in half an hour.”
She hung up.
I had exactly half an hour before she’d come crashing through the door like a policeman at a drug raid.
I was looking through old pictures while I waited. There was a lot of me and the twins, some of my older sister. I saw one of me, I was probably no more than two, putting on my father’s sunglasses as he looked down on me.
A car door slammed. There were footsteps. Footsteps I recognized. My mother was home. She opened the door and I tensed up. Ready for the inevitable, but it didn’t come.
She was calm, but the look on her face wasn’t one I could decipher. She told us all to sit down in the living room and once we were there she told us.
“I got a call from your aunt in New York. She found out some news about your father. He’s in the hospital, he had a seizure and cracked his head open-”
I immediately thought she was going to tell us that he was dead. I could feel the tears welling up behind my eyes and I furrowed my brow to keep them there. Thoughts and memories ran through my head and past my eyes. Learning to ride a bike. My 4th birthday. Drawing with Dad. Falling asleep and him carrying me to my room. He’s dead. I’ll never know the man he was. I’ll never know how we’re alike or about my heritage or hear stories about his growing up. I’ll never know my family-
“I just saw him and it’s not pretty. He’s very out of it. He didn’t even know who I was. He kept asking for a knife so he could cut his I.V. but they’ve got him restrained anyway.”
I looked away. I didn’t know how to take this. This was strange. Part of me always had this little spark of a hope inside that someday he’d be ok and that someday he’d come waltzing back into our lives like the good dad he should have been, and that spark went out when I heard this news.
The twins were crying. Their faces red and cheeks wet. Their eyes round and full of tears. Instead of feeling compassion and sympathy, I felt angry. For some strange, strange reason, my father to me is only my father. My older sister is my half sister, from a different marriage my mother had, and my little sisters were only two years old when my parents got divorced. They remember him only through pictures. My memories are real. And my want to find him and know him is bigger than almost anything else in my life. He’s my father. And I know that I’m wrong for thinking this.
“Do you want to see him?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied. The twins nodding their heads.
“Alright.”
Paige stomped out of the room, grabbing the phone on her way. She ran upstairs, wiping her eyes. We’re a lot alike in that way. Showing emotion for us is usually not very easy.
Siobhan wiped her eyes, but in her attempt to collect herself she just broke down again. My mother walked over and held her.
I turned away again, angry. I folded my arms across my chest. I took a deep breath. I was stunned. I had no idea what to feel or what to think. I was terrified. What if I went there and he didn’t recognize me? Or what if when I told him who I was, he didn’t remember? I would be completely devastated.
I walked through my house, up the stairs to my room. I sat there. I would be leaving soon to go back to my dorm for the week. School seemed pointless at this moment. Almost everything I would normally complain about seemed silly. Stupid.
I gathered my things and I walked downstairs. I said goodbye to my sisters and told them I’d be back tomorrow to go to the hospital. I opened the door to my mother’s room and told her I was leaving.
“Come here.”
“What?” I asked.
“There’s something else I have to tell you. I was talking about this to your aunt. You’re next-of-kin to your father.”
My mind was blank. What the hell does that mean? Is he really that sick? Is he going to die? Was I inheriting something? It couldn’t be anything too great. The guy had been homeless before this.
“What does that mean?”
“It means, since you’re his closest living relative that’s of age, that in cases where he can’t speak for himself you have to make decisions about his medical treatment.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. Everything was blank. Melting into white. Almost as if that moment had taken me out of time completely.
I closed the door without saying a word. I walked out of my house and the two blocks to the bus stop. I had been stunned and now I was shocked. I couldn’t form a complete thought the entire trip back to school. All I knew was fear.
When I finally did come to my senses, they were raw. Raw and bleeding. I was scared. I was depressed. I was angry. What was he going to look like? Why did this have to happen? I’m only 18 years old, how can I make these kinds of decisions? How can I deal with this kind of pressure?
It was ironic. There was no other way to explain it. He created me, and in doing so had a responsibility to me. He had a responsibility as a parent to see that I got through life ok. And he fucked it up. And here I am, eighteen years into the world, fourteen years since he fucked it up, with a responsibility to see that he gets through this ok.
I went online. I wrote about it. I called a friend. He seemed kind of cold and told me straight out how things were going to be. He told me that chances were that my father would get better, but he’d always be an alcoholic. My friend told me that he knew me and if in the event my father did get better, and became a part of my life that no matter how hard I tried and how much of my heart I put into it, I couldn’t save him.
The last part of his speech echoed in my mind, pulling a string in my heart that made my eyes tear up. I couldn’t save him. That was it. I’d been trying to do it all along. Even though he’d never been with me physically. He was constantly in my mind and that spark of hope was me trying to save him. It might not make sense to you, but if that spark of hope hadn’t been put out before, it was definitely out now.
I wanted to crawl up and die. I felt empty. I felt, in that moment, that life was no longer good enough to live. I hung up the phone soon after. I needed a distraction. Someone to cheer me up. I wiped my eyes, but they soon overflowed. No one distracted me or cheered me up that night. I fell asleep feeling utterly alone.
The next day I rushed home after class to go with my sisters to the hospital.
I got to the house just as they did and there was an awkward feeling in the air. We were all trying to ignore what was about to happen. We were all putting it out of our heads that in just a few hours we’d be frozen with fear.
It was always in the back of my mind. Throughout the laughter and amidst the jokes, every smile hurt. I couldn’t eat, and sleep didn’t come easy the night before. Only after I had exhausted myself with tears could I finally close my eyes for the night.
Knowing I had to keep a stiff upper lip for the twins made it that much worse.
We walked the few blocks to the bus stop, the twins and I joking along the way. Looking back, it was as if we were savoring every good moment we had. We knew something traumatic was in the future, but we had each other and we had now, and up until we were entering his room, we made sure to take advantage of that.
My mother’s boyfriend, came with. And I still don’t know why I let that happen. He stayed in the waiting room, but his presence made me uncomfortable and he definitely didn’t belong. I think he felt out of place too.
We met my mother outside the doors of the hospital and we walked in. We got a pass and we went up the elevator to the third floor.
Smiles stopped. A chill came over me, suddenly. I felt nauseated and alone. The doors opened, every step, every ding, every sound was startling. All my senses were about to explode. I had goosebumps.
Only two were allowed in the room. My mom asked who wanted to go with her first. I knew I had to volunteer myself, but before I could the twins said in unison, “Mairead.”
My steps were slow down that narrow hallway and my mother had her arm around me. It wasn’t comforting. It felt forced. Like she didn’t really know what else to do, but this act, this false act of compassion seemed like something a mother would do, so she did it.
“I’m scared, Mom.” I said, staring at my feet as they shuffled closer to the door.
“Well, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she snapped back, coldly.
She had no idea. No fucking idea. She didn’t know what the past 14 years had been like for me. She had no idea what this moment meant. She couldn’t understand, but she didn’t even try.
The room was dark. I could barely make out his form lying there. As I got closer I saw he was restrained. His flimsy hospital gown was barely covering him, a pathetic attempt at decency. His head slowly moved from side to side and he looked like he was writhing in pain, but he may have just been trying to escape.
I sat down in the chair next to him and stared. I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore, but I didn’t care.
He was so thin. So thin and old looking. It was the most shocking thing I had ever seen. A man I used to look up to, who used to throw me over his shoulder and run around the house, now couldn’t even lift his head, could barely see me.
His eyelashes were thick with congealed tears and sweat.
I held on to the bar of the bed. I would have held his hand but I was afraid to scare him, afraid to touch him.
My mom asked him if he wanted to see the twins, he said yes.
“It’s a fine way they get to see you in,” she replied.
My heart crumbled. It was always a battle to make him feel like shit. I didn’t care about the unpaid child support. I cared that I hadn’t seen him, but none of that was on my mind now. All that I wanted was for him to acknowledge my existence. I wanted him to get better. I was grateful for having seen him at all.
She didn’t have to make things worse.
My mom asked if I wanted to leave. I said no. So Siobhan and Paige came in and they stood by his bed.
I’m not sure if they had smiles on their faces or not. The kind of smiles you know aren’t genuine. The kind that mask fear. Like when you’re not sure what emotion you want to convey, so your face just goes into this blank stare and awkward grin.
We didn’t stay long. I wanted to, but we couldn’t. I hugged him and told him I’d be back the next day.
And I cried the whole way home. For the lost 14 years. For the twins. For what I’d been holding back. And for what I had to face now.
He was thin, frail. He had no hair atop the head that was cradling his injured brain. He was restrained and in pain and connected to machines like some kind of Frankenstein and I could not save him.
My heart broke when he left. My heart broke every time I thought of him after that and every time I saw him, what few times that was. And of all the emotions that I could feel. Anger. Hurt. Confusion. All I felt was heartbreak.
He was my father. I couldn’t be angry. I even tried to be angry because for me it’s an easier thing to deal with, but all my body did was feel hollow and like my heart was being filled with cold water.
Fourteen years had gone by and over that time I’d seen him exactly three times. Three times since I was five or six. Three times before this day fell into my lap…
“Oh good you’re home,” my mother said amidst traffic and city sounds. She was calling on her cell phone.
“Yeah, I was about to leave though, why?” I replied.
“I have to tell you and the twins something important. I’ll be home in half an hour.”
“Something important,” was never good with my mother. Nothing ever was, but “something important” usually meant anger and tears and fighting and cruel and most certainly unusual punishment. My stomach dropped as my mind raced through the past few days. What could I have possibly done wrong this time?
“What’s it about?” I asked, voice a little shaky.
“I’ll be home in half an hour.”
She hung up.
I had exactly half an hour before she’d come crashing through the door like a policeman at a drug raid.
I was looking through old pictures while I waited. There was a lot of me and the twins, some of my older sister. I saw one of me, I was probably no more than two, putting on my father’s sunglasses as he looked down on me.
A car door slammed. There were footsteps. Footsteps I recognized. My mother was home. She opened the door and I tensed up. Ready for the inevitable, but it didn’t come.
She was calm, but the look on her face wasn’t one I could decipher. She told us all to sit down in the living room and once we were there she told us.
“I got a call from your aunt in New York. She found out some news about your father. He’s in the hospital, he had a seizure and cracked his head open-”
I immediately thought she was going to tell us that he was dead. I could feel the tears welling up behind my eyes and I furrowed my brow to keep them there. Thoughts and memories ran through my head and past my eyes. Learning to ride a bike. My 4th birthday. Drawing with Dad. Falling asleep and him carrying me to my room. He’s dead. I’ll never know the man he was. I’ll never know how we’re alike or about my heritage or hear stories about his growing up. I’ll never know my family-
“I just saw him and it’s not pretty. He’s very out of it. He didn’t even know who I was. He kept asking for a knife so he could cut his I.V. but they’ve got him restrained anyway.”
I looked away. I didn’t know how to take this. This was strange. Part of me always had this little spark of a hope inside that someday he’d be ok and that someday he’d come waltzing back into our lives like the good dad he should have been, and that spark went out when I heard this news.
The twins were crying. Their faces red and cheeks wet. Their eyes round and full of tears. Instead of feeling compassion and sympathy, I felt angry. For some strange, strange reason, my father to me is only my father. My older sister is my half sister, from a different marriage my mother had, and my little sisters were only two years old when my parents got divorced. They remember him only through pictures. My memories are real. And my want to find him and know him is bigger than almost anything else in my life. He’s my father. And I know that I’m wrong for thinking this.
“Do you want to see him?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied. The twins nodding their heads.
“Alright.”
Paige stomped out of the room, grabbing the phone on her way. She ran upstairs, wiping her eyes. We’re a lot alike in that way. Showing emotion for us is usually not very easy.
Siobhan wiped her eyes, but in her attempt to collect herself she just broke down again. My mother walked over and held her.
I turned away again, angry. I folded my arms across my chest. I took a deep breath. I was stunned. I had no idea what to feel or what to think. I was terrified. What if I went there and he didn’t recognize me? Or what if when I told him who I was, he didn’t remember? I would be completely devastated.
I walked through my house, up the stairs to my room. I sat there. I would be leaving soon to go back to my dorm for the week. School seemed pointless at this moment. Almost everything I would normally complain about seemed silly. Stupid.
I gathered my things and I walked downstairs. I said goodbye to my sisters and told them I’d be back tomorrow to go to the hospital. I opened the door to my mother’s room and told her I was leaving.
“Come here.”
“What?” I asked.
“There’s something else I have to tell you. I was talking about this to your aunt. You’re next-of-kin to your father.”
My mind was blank. What the hell does that mean? Is he really that sick? Is he going to die? Was I inheriting something? It couldn’t be anything too great. The guy had been homeless before this.
“What does that mean?”
“It means, since you’re his closest living relative that’s of age, that in cases where he can’t speak for himself you have to make decisions about his medical treatment.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. Everything was blank. Melting into white. Almost as if that moment had taken me out of time completely.
I closed the door without saying a word. I walked out of my house and the two blocks to the bus stop. I had been stunned and now I was shocked. I couldn’t form a complete thought the entire trip back to school. All I knew was fear.
When I finally did come to my senses, they were raw. Raw and bleeding. I was scared. I was depressed. I was angry. What was he going to look like? Why did this have to happen? I’m only 18 years old, how can I make these kinds of decisions? How can I deal with this kind of pressure?
It was ironic. There was no other way to explain it. He created me, and in doing so had a responsibility to me. He had a responsibility as a parent to see that I got through life ok. And he fucked it up. And here I am, eighteen years into the world, fourteen years since he fucked it up, with a responsibility to see that he gets through this ok.
I went online. I wrote about it. I called a friend. He seemed kind of cold and told me straight out how things were going to be. He told me that chances were that my father would get better, but he’d always be an alcoholic. My friend told me that he knew me and if in the event my father did get better, and became a part of my life that no matter how hard I tried and how much of my heart I put into it, I couldn’t save him.
The last part of his speech echoed in my mind, pulling a string in my heart that made my eyes tear up. I couldn’t save him. That was it. I’d been trying to do it all along. Even though he’d never been with me physically. He was constantly in my mind and that spark of hope was me trying to save him. It might not make sense to you, but if that spark of hope hadn’t been put out before, it was definitely out now.
I wanted to crawl up and die. I felt empty. I felt, in that moment, that life was no longer good enough to live. I hung up the phone soon after. I needed a distraction. Someone to cheer me up. I wiped my eyes, but they soon overflowed. No one distracted me or cheered me up that night. I fell asleep feeling utterly alone.
The next day I rushed home after class to go with my sisters to the hospital.
I got to the house just as they did and there was an awkward feeling in the air. We were all trying to ignore what was about to happen. We were all putting it out of our heads that in just a few hours we’d be frozen with fear.
It was always in the back of my mind. Throughout the laughter and amidst the jokes, every smile hurt. I couldn’t eat, and sleep didn’t come easy the night before. Only after I had exhausted myself with tears could I finally close my eyes for the night.
Knowing I had to keep a stiff upper lip for the twins made it that much worse.
We walked the few blocks to the bus stop, the twins and I joking along the way. Looking back, it was as if we were savoring every good moment we had. We knew something traumatic was in the future, but we had each other and we had now, and up until we were entering his room, we made sure to take advantage of that.
My mother’s boyfriend, came with. And I still don’t know why I let that happen. He stayed in the waiting room, but his presence made me uncomfortable and he definitely didn’t belong. I think he felt out of place too.
We met my mother outside the doors of the hospital and we walked in. We got a pass and we went up the elevator to the third floor.
Smiles stopped. A chill came over me, suddenly. I felt nauseated and alone. The doors opened, every step, every ding, every sound was startling. All my senses were about to explode. I had goosebumps.
Only two were allowed in the room. My mom asked who wanted to go with her first. I knew I had to volunteer myself, but before I could the twins said in unison, “Mairead.”
My steps were slow down that narrow hallway and my mother had her arm around me. It wasn’t comforting. It felt forced. Like she didn’t really know what else to do, but this act, this false act of compassion seemed like something a mother would do, so she did it.
“I’m scared, Mom.” I said, staring at my feet as they shuffled closer to the door.
“Well, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she snapped back, coldly.
She had no idea. No fucking idea. She didn’t know what the past 14 years had been like for me. She had no idea what this moment meant. She couldn’t understand, but she didn’t even try.
The room was dark. I could barely make out his form lying there. As I got closer I saw he was restrained. His flimsy hospital gown was barely covering him, a pathetic attempt at decency. His head slowly moved from side to side and he looked like he was writhing in pain, but he may have just been trying to escape.
I sat down in the chair next to him and stared. I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore, but I didn’t care.
He was so thin. So thin and old looking. It was the most shocking thing I had ever seen. A man I used to look up to, who used to throw me over his shoulder and run around the house, now couldn’t even lift his head, could barely see me.
His eyelashes were thick with congealed tears and sweat.
I held on to the bar of the bed. I would have held his hand but I was afraid to scare him, afraid to touch him.
My mom asked him if he wanted to see the twins, he said yes.
“It’s a fine way they get to see you in,” she replied.
My heart crumbled. It was always a battle to make him feel like shit. I didn’t care about the unpaid child support. I cared that I hadn’t seen him, but none of that was on my mind now. All that I wanted was for him to acknowledge my existence. I wanted him to get better. I was grateful for having seen him at all.
She didn’t have to make things worse.
My mom asked if I wanted to leave. I said no. So Siobhan and Paige came in and they stood by his bed.
I’m not sure if they had smiles on their faces or not. The kind of smiles you know aren’t genuine. The kind that mask fear. Like when you’re not sure what emotion you want to convey, so your face just goes into this blank stare and awkward grin.
We didn’t stay long. I wanted to, but we couldn’t. I hugged him and told him I’d be back the next day.
And I cried the whole way home. For the lost 14 years. For the twins. For what I’d been holding back. And for what I had to face now.
