Not my Dad.

As I write this my father is in the ICU with COVID thousands of miles away and I have to get some of these feelings out of me and into words.

I grew up the majority of my life as the child of a single parent, my father. I had a mom across the country, and eventually a step-mom. Before I even knew what a bond was I just knew matter-of-factly that it was just me and my dad. We were these two people in a hard world that just had one another to rely on. One of his favorite stories to tell is about when I was just being blessed with aggressive speech. We were on the subway and a man waved at a seemingly cute one year old me. I put my hand on my dad’s knee and yelled at the man “NO! MY DA DA!.” He laughs every time he tells it and says “My boy, my boy! You were always very smart. Not very sweet though.”

Growing up we were the sort of poor that most people don’t usually get to experience. I can still smell the sweet putrid smell of roach poison from run down roach infested apartments. I can feel the sting of embarrassment of free lunch, using actual food stamp dollars to buy food, and the noises of homeless shelters at night. Once we passed a Bennigans and the sign said “Kids Eat Free” so he stopped and brought me in. He ordered a water and kids meal for me. The waiter told my father that kids are free with the purchase of an adult meal. My father called him a “mother fucker” and we left in a huff. I can still picture the waiter running after us in the parking lot saying we could come back inside and they would feed me. Even being so young I still felt shame. I hurried to eat the ravioli so we could leave. My father seemingly didn’t bat an eye. He was doing what he could for me and calling people a “mother fucker” was a talent of his. Yet through all this we always had each other.

From my birth he was a struggling student, first at community college, then with a scholarship to Amherst College for undergrad, and then we moved back to Arkansas so he could attend Law School. We lived with his father in a run down two bedroom house in Jacksonville, AR. My grandfather was as funny as he was mean. Always joking and chewing on the end of a cigar like Jimmy Cagney. He had a leg removed from diabetes complications and burned arm skin from being a firefighter in Brooklyn, NY where my father was born.

Before my dad could start law school my grandfather passed away. I don’t remember what happened before we arrived at the hospital. I do remember my father running in holding me up to his chest so I was facing behind him. He was running through the halls of the hospital panicked. I had never seen my father like this. He was terrified and I remember feeling terrified because he was. The fluorescent lights of the hospital hallways were uncomfortable and his voice was cracking when he talked, holding back tears asking nurse after nurse where his father was. When the doctor told him my grandfather was gone my father broke down. I didn’t have the skills to comfort him but I put my hand on his knee, just like I had done in his favorite story.

Now I am sitting in a hotel half a country away and I am the one that’s terrified. I call every couple hours to check on him with the same crack in my voice. When I am on hold too long my heart almost comes to a stop expecting the worst. He doesn’t really know where he is or whats happening. He keeps telling the nursing staff I am on the way, and that I live there still even though I haven’t been there for a year, or lived there in ten. Yesterday he told them he could hear me out the 2nd story hospital window and to hurry and let me in. Even though the hospital does have a visiting policy my sister and stepmom both have COVID and can’t go see him. If I was there I couldn’t go because I just had surgery and am at a huge risk.

So here I am mentally running through hallways holding on to him. Asking nurse after nurse how he is. I wish I could be there to put my hand on his knee again and say “Not my dad. Don’t take my dad.”

I am one of thousands of people going through the same thing tonight. We hope your Thanksgiving gathering was worth it. We hope your big Christmas was magical. I hope I get to show your Puerto Vallarta vacation pictures to my dad if he gets better.