Warning: Strong Content

I wrote this while I was waiting for my mother during her liposuction surgery Friday. Something about seeing her on the gurney and being in the hospital triggered very powerful memories of the day my father died. It’s been almost two years … I hoped these flashbacks had left me. It seems they have not. I struggle to achieve peace about his death and it seems I am failing. I carry terrible guilt in my heart for not being “over this.” I should be better by now.

I am often better. But last week, I was not. No, I was not at all better.

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Here I am in a hospital. Again. The cold restroom sent me back to that morning. Black sweatpants. Maroon T-shirt. The cold, cold A/C. The bottle of water. My stomach in my throat.

Dad on the gurney, dressed as if for gardening. Green polo shirt. Jeans. His boat shoes. Dead seven hours later. So much blood.

The smells here trigger my memory. Stone-face nurses and contemptuous doctors. “Well, she has to calm down. I need his history.”

They scoped him. He was clotting. “The next 48 hours are crucial.” Forty-eight hours later we were choosing his casket. The ICU nurse was pretty. She wept with us. My brother, in the next room, discussing organ donation.

This can’t be happening.

The conference room. Doctor wore wire-rimmed glasses. He told us what we already knew. I interrupted. “Is he going to die today?” The answer was yes. My husband’s striped shirt, shoulder wet from my tears.

It was so hot that day.

My sister, in the air over Chicago. Needing her.

I see people crying, grieving. I see them all over this hospital. Did I see them before? Before it was me?

I hate it here. Why can’t I forget? Should I forget? I need to forget!

The Poo, in my belly. Her picture in his pocket in the cemetery. Did she feel my heart breaking?

Most days these images are tucked away. Why are they so clear today? What a terrible, brutal clarity.