DEAD! No movement, no sound, NOTHING! It was definite, my dad was no longer alive. I quickly ran towards the table and wrapped my arms around him. The coldness of his body, the plumpness of his belly, and the wideness of his mouth revealed to me, my dad was gone.
The screams. The tears. The anger. The pain.
“Daddy, we were just talking about graduation!”
“Daddy, no, please don’t do this to me.”
“You just said you can’t wait to see me graduate.”
“Daddy, I need you!”
“DADDY!!!!!!!!”
The nightmare began.
Night One
This was the first night I slept in my parent’s bed in years. It was also the first time I ever slept with my mom in their bed alone. I could hear the pain in my mom's voice as she cried profusely. The tosses and turns began. Tears constantly ran down the side of my cheeks. I could not stop crying. This hurt was like no other I’ve ever felt before. This was probably the first time in my life I cried so hard, but silently. I cried in silence because I could not bear the ramifications of letting my mom hear me. As we laid in bed, the agony of seeing and hearing my mom in pain made me call out to my dad, but there was no answer.
My head started spinning. The rhythm of my heart started beating faster and louder. I felt my chest getting tighter and tighter, once again, my anxiety was taking over.
I cried even harder. I was in disbelief, it all seemed so unreal. I just wanted to close my eyes and wish it was all a dream. There was one problem with this, I couldn’t close my eyes. With every attempt, the vision of my dad manifested itself. All I could see was my dad’s lifeless body lying on a table. Repetitiously, these words would play over and over in my head, “Is my dad alive?” and I clearly heard the answer “Yes”.
The black t-shirt. The pajama bottoms. The white socks. The table. The room.
My dad’s body.
The images were clear as day. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t close my eyes. The flashbacks would keep coming back. “Please make it stop”, “just stop, just stop”, I whispered softly, but it would not cease. I didn’t know what to do as the nightmare was taking over. I needed this image to get out of my head. I wanted my dad back. I needed my best friend to hold me and tell me everything was going to be alright. I needed him to wipe my tears as he usually would, but this didn’t happen. I tried to close my eyes again, hoping to see something different.
The black t-shirt. The pajama bottoms. The white socks. The table. The room.
My dad’s body.
It replayed in my head again and again. I refused to fall asleep that night. I did everything to make myself stay up. I felt lost without my dad. It felt like I couldn’t function, think or even speak. I found myself in a daze, looking at the ceiling, trying to figure out if what I was going through was real. I then found myself lying on the bathroom floor feeling hopeless and dead inside. It seemed as though a part of me died along with my dad. The moment my dad took his last breath, I felt like I took mine.
The weakness. The hurt. The disbelief.
As I laid on the bathroom floor, I remembered my dad left me a voicemail earlier that day. I didn’t listen to the voicemail thoroughly when I first received it. When I did listen to it, chills went through my body. In that voicemail, my dad told me…...TO BE CONTINUED.
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