Remembering my father on the anniversary of his death

Eight years ago this evening I had eight chicken breasts in the oven – Chicken Parmigiana - for a dinner party with a group of girlfriends, when the phone rang.  It was my mother calling to say that I should come home quickly. My father was in the hospital and had taken a turn for the worse. He wasn't going to make it, the doctor told her.  I phoned one friend to cancel the dinner and asked her to call the others. I wrapped the chicken and put it in the trunk of my car. I rummaged through my closet for a black dress, and told my 13-year-old daughter to do the same. Somehow we threw together things to put in a suitcase and drove 4 1/2 hours straight to the hospital where my father lay dying.

He was still lucid when we arrived. He was genuinely surprised to see us. "What are you guys doing here?" he asked, apparently unaware that he had only hours to live. What could we say? That we were there because we wanted to be with him at the end of his life? That we were there because we couldn't let him go without one last  opportunity to gaze into his face and etch its every detail in our minds, without one more squeeze of his hand, without one more chance to wrap our arms around him?                                                                    

I know the science is disputed, but it's hard not to be captivated by the idea that at any given moment the oldest cells in our bodies are between 7 and 10 years old.  Ongoing cyclical cellular regeneration keeps us constantly creating  “new and improved” versions of ourselves. But it IS true that skin cells are renewed every two weeks and blood cells every 4 months.  And it's true that the very bones that house our beings are completely rebuilt every eight to ten years.  That means that parts of the ME who walked into my father's hospital room eight years ago may no longer still belong to me. The cheek that I pressed against his is long gone. The arms that held him for the last time have been replaced.  The blood that raced through my veins when I saw the flatline on his monitor no longer exists.

Apparently the only body parts that last a life time, are the inner lens cells of the eye, the muscles of the heart and the neurons of the cerebral cortex.  That makes so much sense.  That explains why I can close my eyes and see my father sitting in his favourite recliner chair with my infant daughter on his chest.  That explains why I feel pain sometimes under my ribs when I start wishing I'd handled some of our arguments differently.  That explains why I can -with virtually no effort - call up memories of the sound of him drumming his fingers on the dining room table...or the smell of his pickled garlic, or the feel of his glasses in his shirt pocket scratching my face whenever he embraced me.

He died, believing that I'd found someone to take care of me for the rest of my days.  That was important to men of his generation...it was unfathomable to him that I'd been alone for a decade when my marriage to my daughter's father ended.  He'd been so relieved to know that I'd found someone new.  He could finally relax.  I am so grateful that he didn't live to see me go through divorce again.  He would have found it so painful and been so worried about me.

But I survived....again!  You raised a survivor, Dad!  And I healed sufficiently to risk loving yet again.  An eternal optimist!  It's okay Dad.  It all worked out okay, and I'm happy again.  Rest in peace my beloved father.  I will see you again... in a while.