Happy Wednesday, folks! (OK, so I may have watched President Obama on Letterman recently and the word "folks" has infiltrated my brain.) Interesting side note: apparently "folks" can refer to working-class Americans, Congress, and terrorists. But enough about me before I go into a rant about my undying love for David Letterman... it's post time!
This week's publication comes from Morgan Barnhart, from her memoir based on, what she calls, a time in her life when she wasn't going anywhere. This selection, "Slipped Away," begins the story of Morgan's relationship with her father, who passes away before he can see her carry out his wish that she join the Air Force. Morgan is a writer, voice actor, and fitness consultant living in New York.
Slipped Away
By Morgan Barnhart
I was watching TV as I normally did every night after work. I remember exactly what I was watching too: The Cosby Show. I loved that show. Still do, actually. I was laughing away, unaware of what was happening no more than ten feet outside my bedroom door.
It’s funny, you know, thinking back on it. I really had no idea what was going on. I was so blind to everything. Not just that night, but through out the entire two weeks in which his life slowly faded in front of my eyes. I was so busy with work. (Yeah right, I wasn’t that busy with work. I just pretended like I was.) I would come home and see my dad at the dinner table barely able to eat the canned pears set in front of him fifteen minutes ago. My Uncle was kind enough to help take care of him while I refused to. I didn’t verbally refuse to, but through the act of ignorance, I refused.
I didn’t see it. Or didn’t want to see it. I wanted to see him getting better. I wanted to watch him get up and walk outside and play with our dog as he usually did. I wanted to see him get in his car and go to the grocery store or his weekly visit to the pharmacy to get his dozens of medications refilled. I really just wanted him to be able to have a coherent conversation.
He didn't really seem to be getting better, so after much arguing about the fact that he needed to go to the hospital, he flatly refused to go. I let him think it over while he laid in pain. After an hour or so, he finally agreed to let me call an ambulance. What's really sad is that I couldn't even call an ambulance for him, I made my best friend do it.
He came home from the hospital a completely different person. He babbled about characters from his stories coming to life and laughing at him, telling him that they were going to take his cherry. I just thought he was teasing me. I kept pulling away, not wanting to hear him, telling him I didn’t understand. I kept saying I didn’t get it, what are you talking about, there’s no one here. Then he asked if my cherry had been taken. I felt so uncomfortable. Not because of the question, but because I didn’t know what to do. I was lost and confused and didn’t want to be having that type of conversation with my father.
Even then, I ignored it. Telling myself that it didn’t matter. The next day he seemed to be a lot better, as if he had come back to life. At least, that’s what I hoped. I thought it was great that he had recovered from the delusions. Maybe that was a sign that he was finally getting better for real this time.
But it didn’t. He laid in bed for days at a time, only getting up to maybe get a drink of water and eat some canned pears. I wasn’t home too often, but when I was home, he was always sleeping. I never even went into his room to say hi when I came home. I walked passed as if he wasn’t there. I ignored him, not wanting to face my dying father.
The night my Uncle finally came into my room in the middle of The Cosby Show and said, “He’s gone.” I thought he was just saying that dad had run away or something. I don’t know, my dad was crazy sometimes, it could have happened. But that wasn’t what he was talking about at all.
He was gone.
Even then, when I walked to his bedroom, I couldn’t face him. I wanted to continue feigning ignorance. I couldn’t face reality. I couldn’t. He's my father. Nobody ever expects their father to just up and leave one day without any notice.
I forced myself to take a quick peek, but quickly backed away I gripped my shirt tightly and began breathing heavily and quickly, as if I were hyperventilating. I kept telling myself it wasn’t him. It wasn’t him! He was just sleeping. Just sleeping.
Tears ran down my cheeks. I felt my heart tighten and my mind go completely blank.
It was him.
He was gone.
In the blink of an eye....he slipped away.
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