I stood alone in his room after he died. My Mom and sibblings departed almost as soon as we'd all realized he was dead. The balloons I'd sent him for his 77th birthday -- just two days prior-- drifted silently toward the sunlight from the one window in the room.
My Dad's long battle was over. His Parkinson's Disease had arrived when he was about to retire from a long career at the Post Office. It was a job he'd pretty much hated, but kept going to every day -- through rain, sleet and gloom of night -- and all the while, aching for the time when he no longer would have to do that. He retired, and then the end began. Fifteen years of gradual, physical deterioration and imprisonment in a body that no longer took commands. A body that stiffened and trembled and, in the later years, fell to the floor, often badly bruising him. My mom tells me he never uttered a word of complaint.
It's difficult to be certain of my memories of him as a young man, but I recall his love of singing - such a pure tenor sound - speed skating and playing basketball. He loved drum and bugle bands and patriotic/military songs. I remember his wretching into the family toilet after nights of drinking. His doctor warned him of mixing drink with his stomach ulcer. Those were scary times for me. I remember his violent temper, the game of "wait until your father gets home," and the beatings that would come within moments of his arrival. My most cherished times were when I had math homework and he would help me when I asked him to. I sometimes faked that, just to be close to him. There were also happy times when we sat on the living room couch on a summer afternoon scoring Red Sox games. I danced with my feet on his shoes at a family wedding. I sat on his shoulders at the fireworks and parades.
But, when I got to be a young woman, like many fathers with budding daughters, he withdrew whatever affection had ever been there. At first, I wondered if he just didn't like me anymore. He pulled away and stayed on the periphery of my life until the very end. Over the years, I'd made my own attempts to connect with him, talk with him, know him. I slowly realized that it takes two people wanting a connection to make a relationship. After a while, I stopped trying. When we saw each other at family gatherings, we were cordial and friendly, like distant cousins. He did not ask me about my work, my opinions or the men I dated; he never once called me on the phone, initiated a hug or expressed any affection. I came to think of him as a man I once adored when I was a little girl, who now lived at my mother's house.
Then one day, near the end of his life, I was alone with him in his hospital room. The disease had deprived him of the use of his voice, so we couldn't have that death-bed cliche' talk which happens often in movies. It was meal time and he needed help to eat. I'd finished feeding him what little he wanted and turned back to look at him, feeling an aching kind of sadness. Curious, I asked him, "Where do you go when you disappear?" His very blue eyes sparkled and he looked right at me. His whole face lit up with a smile. I touched his hand and felt genuinely happy at that moment. which lasted about 30 seconds, maybe. His lips moved, but there was no sound. His eyes shifted downward. Then he was gone again. Breathing, heart beating, eyes blinking, but gone. Vacant. Much like I'd remembered him at home, staring into the television night after night as his children grew up around him.
I grabbed the balloons from out the room the day he died. I carried them to my car, then with a prayer I turned them loose, knowing that his body was free of whatever pain had entrapped him. I prayed for the spirit that had deserved more voice in that body.
That night, as I readied for bed, I recall wondering if my Dad loved me. A childish wonder, but a question, nevertheless. And later, toward dawn the next morning, I had a dream. It was but a flash of a dream, yet seemed powerful and alive. He stood before me, opened his arms and held me as I am today.
Some say that dreams are wishes. And there are some who insist that it's possible to cross over from the spirit world to the material one. No one can really know. And it doesn't really matter.
Smiling when I awoke, I felt lighter and unburdened somehow. I thought to myself, "What has loosened upon the death of my father? And this dream ..." In a spark of insight I realized that hidden under years of judgment, pain and misunderstanding, it was love. Love got loose. It fluttered free, soared above the weight of grief and sorrow for what had been and for what could never be. Love wrapped around me and reminded me that it is always there, whenever I want to let it in.
Marsha Cormier
