My dad was taking his last breath and both my brothers were not there. I thought he had more time until the hospice worker walked in and said that he was “actively dying”. She told me that it was at this time she encourages the family to speak to the person who is about to leave the planet. I couldn’t say anything. I could not believe that I was the one to do all this. I had been so irresponsible in so many ways in my life, but now I had to be a grown up. I called both my brothers. Neither one could be there. Joe was having a panic attack and Rick lived in New York. My father called me “Dude” for many years. Sometimes he called me “Miss Dude”. I called him “Dude” as well. When I was 15, he called me “Wacker”. He called me a few other things that you don’t need to read. My friends in high school thought I had a great relationship with him but I didn't. He usually spoke highly about me to others but many times privately he said things to me that made me want to crawl into a hole… He would say them quietly so that even my mother didn’t hear and when I would tell her she would not believe me and say, “Oh honey, he loves you.” I don’t know who I wanted to kill first. Him or her. The priest came and gave him his last rights and the room became so peaceful. The whole hospital seemed to be quiet at 3:00 in the morning. The hospice worker said not to worry if I had to leave because he was taken care of. She said she could feel my mother’s presence and a few other aunts and uncles who had just died this last year. She could tell I was fading. The chronic pain that I had had for the past eighteen years increased. She quietly left.... probably because she thought I needed time alone with him before he died. I knew if I stayed, I would be in bad shape physically and wouldn’t be able to function for a couple of days. I needed to be okay for the funeral. I wanted to say, “I don’t know what you thought you were doing for the 50 years you were married to Mom, but you really screwed up.” I wanted to tell him that the reason I wasn’t married wasn’t because I couldn’t find anyone like him, as he had shared with my mother, but that it had nothing to do with him. I wanted to say that the couple’s therapist asked Mom privately if he always needed to be the center of attention. I wanted to tell him that his girlfriend made fun of me yesterday and said her son wasn’t doing much with his life and then laughed and said he should hang with me. I wanted to ask him what he told he told her about me. I wanted to thank him for taking such good care of Mom before she died and tying up so many loose ends this past year and walking in the park with me every other day and sharing a little of himself. I wanted to thank him for being so supportive after I sustained a spinal cord injury and could not walk and for being a real person back then even if it was only a brief time. I wanted to thank him for helping me learn to drive with hand controls when I got my first car. I wanted to thank him for taking me sled riding on Christmas Day when I was ten years old. I wanted to apologize for a million things I did and said that were just plain wrong. I wanted to tell him I was going to be ok because I knew he was very worried about me. I wanted to say, “I forgive you.” But I couldn’t. All I could say was, “Go ahead Dude, you do what you have to do, and I'll do what I have to do. And then I left.
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