I just don’t know what else to do at this point.But this endless cycle of pain needs to come to an end, either way, because I don’t want anyone else to get hurt due to my actions.
It’s my soul at risk.Dad taught me that much.We weren’t religious in the same sense that other people are, but believed the basics of heaven and hell, and in the man upstairs and one below.My dad taught me that you choose your path by your deeds.You end up where you deserve to be based on how you live your life, and at the end of the day, you either pave your way to heaven or hell.
If I go through with it, it will be my one-way ticket to a place where my dad won’t be waiting for me.Yet, there’s been no sign to help find a different path.
When I fall on my ass because my balance is fucked, I stay there.Staring down at the gun, I let the best and worst moments of what I can remember play through my mind, wondering if this will be all there is for me.
If it ends here.
PART 2
CHAPTER 38
Shadows of the past never disappear entirely.They linger, haunt our present and future if we don’t shine enough light on them.
JULY 1997 – 10 Years earlier
Had I known the last time I visited during my last leave would be the last time we’d speak, or the last time he would assess me with his knowing gaze, I would have stayed longer.I’d have found a way to stretch time, make the most of our moments, maybe even talked about more deep and meaningful things.As I grip his pale, frail, and weightless hand in mine, I can’t stop thinking about all the things I don’t know about my own father, and how now, I’ll never know.
My inability to face the severity of his illness has caught up with me.The lies I’d told myself.We’d work out our shit another time.That he’d recover.He’d bounce back.He always did.
But this is different.
This is the end.
The lies I’d told myself had been born out of necessity.At the time, they’d helped me compartmentalize.
His denials about being sick, his disappearances at odd times—the fact that he looked me in the eye for years and lied straight to my face.The memory of finding him sprawled on our kitchen floor, lips blue, chest barely moving, and me not knowing what the fuck to do—this all drove a solid wedge a mile wide between us.When the truth unraveled later in the emergency room, my despair over the possibility of losing the only family member I gave a fuck about, sent me into a tailspin and I’d been scrambling for something else to hold onto.
I knew I had to find something to anchor me to this world; otherwise, I might just choose one day to follow right after him.Watching him die day by day would break me into a thousand pieces.And I just couldn’t fucking do it.
My enlistment in the Army, was my out.My excuse.I didn’t want a front-row seat to him withering away, and I told myself strangers could better provide the care he needed.
And with the belief in the lie, I could pretend his duplicity didn’t shatter our relationship.I could pretend to be the perfect son while hiding a wealth of dark thoughts living inside my mind.The Army granted me distance from it all, which in turn gave me the ability to keep the wrath that existed under my skin from showing itself.
I’d been young and in denial.It wasn’t the only path I could have taken.How ironic that as my time in the service winds down, his time here ends, giving me no time to make it right and recover what we’ve lost.
He’s not waking, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to change it.
Carefully, I shift his wrinkled hand and place it to rest over his chest.Every joint in my body rebels as I stand.Sitting here for hours on end after doing the same on the flight home has me stiff all over.My body isn’t used to being stationary.
I place my palm gently over his for a moment and listen to him take his stuttering breaths.Spittle coats his mouth under the breathing mask, and though I’ve wiped it away a few times, it quickly returns.Each breath is labored and accompanied by a sucking gurgle, and out with a whoosh through his lips.
His failing lungs don’t have the capacity to hold the oxygen he needs to live.The doctor estimates they’re at thirty percent now.Air is flowing into the mask covering his nose, but he can’t hold it in his lungs long enough to do much good.There’s not enough oxygen getting to his head, heart, and other organs, so everything is shutting down.
He’s slipped into a coma, and he’s not going to wake up.I found that out from his doctor upon arrival.
It had nearly knocked me to my knees.Beating back the tsunami of emotion took everything I had.I just thank fuck I waited until the doctor left my dad’s room before I lost my shit.Because it hit me then.The lies, along with an inferno of anger at my father, at myself, and it all became un-fucking-bearable.It took every bit of my self-control to keep myself from tearing the place apart.
When I managed to get myself under control, grief struck like a vicious bitch.I cried like a goddamn kid and not like a twenty-nine-year-old Army Ranger.
Fortunately, my dad, in his comatose state, saw none of it.
I take solace in the fact that he’s being given morphine to dull his pain.I don’t know if he’s aware of my presence.I want to believe he is, but who the fuck knows.
I fill my own lungs with his teakwood and clove scent as I finger-comb some of his wiry gray hair away from his weathered brow.I close my eyes for a moment to commit that smell to memory.It’s hard to see him this way.He’s so thin.His cheeks sunken in.
I place a kiss on top of his head.“Love you, Pop.I’ll be back.Going to head to the house, check on things, maybe take a shower, because damn.”I give myself a quick sniff and yep, I’m ripe.“I’ll be back.”The words tumble out in a hoarse whisper, emotion clogging my throat.“Hang in there, alright.”Before I can get overwhelmed, I turn to leave.
