Day 273

Eight years ago, we — Mom, Dad, my son, and I — were in Manhattan. It was our annual Christmas Tree trip. But that year, on the way home, we detoured to Central Park to visit the zoo. I remember this clearly, because while we were walking in the park, my spouse called. I answered the phone. She was distraught. She was crying so much she struggled to speak. If you know my spouse, you know she doesn’t cry — ever. Even when her step-mother — with whom she was close — died, I didn’t see her cry. So to hear her falling to pieces on the phone concerned me. When she could finally get the words out, she told me that there had been another awful school shooting, only this one was worse than any previous shooting because twenty six year olds had been killed. By the time she hung up, I too was in tears.

Eight months ago, Daddy died. We still haven’t had a funeral. No closure. No goodbye.

Being in Queens is hard. I sit on the couch and I’m back in April, waiting for news about Dad. Just sitting on the couch makes me sad. Then the house phone rings and I jump, my pulse quickens — hope, dread, fear all vying for position. But by the second ring, I know it’s not the doctor. Dad’s already dead. Now that Mom has a cell phone, I wish she’d get rid of the house phone. Months ago, I had to change the ringer on my phone. The hospital used to call me so that we could FaceTime Dad. Every time I heard that ring after, I saw him lying in hospital bed, tubes slithering in and around his body. It was too much. And today I heard the sirens of several ambulances, but the cemetery has no new graves — not yet. However, the recent ones, the ones that had been dug back in the spring are draped with flowers and Christmas decorations. I cry every time I walk past it.

Mom went to the doctor today. She’s fine. She won’t need surgery. The fall was bad, but considering she landed face first on a metal fence it could have been much worse. Mom thinks she was spared more pain, a worse injury because Dad caught her. If he hadn’t been there to catch her she might have lost an eye or broken her teeth.

A woman that used to work with Dad only recently found out that he died. She tracked me down, or rather she tracked my spouse down. She reached my spouse after trying countless numbers and my spouse gave her my number. This evening she called me to give me her condolences. The news of Dad’s death had come as a shock to her. She was devastated. During the conversation, she told me what a wonderful man my father was. I was happy she called. Happy to know that Dad touched people’s lives. That other peoples lives were a little better, a little happier because they had known him.