Well I guess I should start with the how. Two years ago, in late February, my dad had a stroke. This completely took us all by surprise, because my dad barely ever even got the flu, you know? We were just like… wow, are you sure? It completely blew us away. I remember that day so well. It’s funny how the worst days of your life are the ones you can never forget. I got woken up by my aunt at 9, and she told me my dad fell. I sat up quickly in my bed, thinking he was hurt or something. I actually thought the worst was a broken leg. I called my mom over and over again, since she was at the hospital. But she didn’t give me much information. I DID get that it was a stroke. And it happened while he had come to see one of the people who live in one of our apartments. And he passed out there, and the lady called the ambulance. I saw his cup of coffee downstairs, half drunken. Apparently, the lady had called him early in the morning while he was having breakfast because her heater wasn’t working or something and he had gone right away saying he would drink the rest later. That was the kind of guy he was. He always put other ahead of himself.
So he had a stroke, and it was partially on his brain stem. For those of you that don’t know, the brain stem basically controls the brain. It controls opening your eyes and other things. Right away we realized that wasn’t good, but he was my dad, you know? How do you just accept that he isn’t going to make it until it finally happens? And even when he does, how do you just get over it? We were in the hospital for one week. He as transferred to Jefferson, the top third neurology ward on the east coast. That gave us all false hope too. You know, the thing about medicine and science is that we always presume it has the answers. We always presume that doctors can fix us. And when science seems to fail us, or maybe simultaneously, we turn to religion. And so blindly, we’re supposed to believe that the greater being up there is going to come down and save us. We’re supposed to keep our faith.
But what happens when no amount of doctors, or scientific achievements, or medical enhancements, or miracles can help? I saw my uncle, my dad’s older brother, cry as we stood in my father room. This is a man, head of our whole family, that didn’t even cry when his mother passed away in 2001 and here he was, weeping over his little brother. And my nine year old brother. How were we supposed to explain to him that our dad wasn’t going to wake up? How were we going to tell him that our dad was never coming back?
For one week, we practically lived at that hospital. And everyday, hundreds of people came to see him. Not just our family either. His friends, his coworkers, people whose lives he had touched. As they passed through, they would tell us some story of their encounters with my dad. And each one would make us smile as we looked at my dad’s coma state body. Because every story sounded so much like him, so kind, so funny, so selfless. He was the type of person who would drive to Boston at 3 in the morning because someone needed his help. He was the kind of person who had been offered the spot of Vice-President at his company, but had turned it down because then he would be confined to an office all day without getting to see any of the other workers. He was the kind of person who brought cups and cups of coffee and boxes of donuts to the garage people at his work every week. And he was dying.
I honestly started to hate God. I actually kept that up for six months afterwards. I didn’t understand how God could take someone so kind, and so selfless, and just so good from this world, from his family, when the world was in dire need of more people like him. For so long, people said it was his time, that God wanted him with Him, that it was meant to be. How was it meant to be that I would have to be without my father for the rest of my life? That my nine year old brother would grow up without him? No. In my mind, God had given up on us.
At his wake at our house after he passed away, a thousand people came throughout the day. A thousand. At the funeral? The whole funeral home was full, and people were waiting outside. I had never seen that many breakdowns in my life. I had never felt so broken myself, so alone. Even with Drew there, which I think may have been the only thing to help me through it all, I felt alone. They held a wake at his childhood home in India, where another of my uncles lives still, and more than 4000 people came. This was how many people my dad had helped, how many lives he had touched. And this was the man that God had taken away.
I stopped seeing the good in life for a long time. I started being so cynical, so quiet, so sarcastic. Nothing really had a point. And if it did, it didn’t matter to me. Why should I care, I would think. In the end, it wouldn’t matter how good you were. It was all in the hands of God, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what everyone was telling me? That was when Drew and I started drifting apart slightly. I loved him, but I felt guilty. I had turned so dreary and I was pulling him down with him. And so I started drinking. A temporary and not good fix to it all. But it was. I would party a lot more. I would be wasted all the time. I would try to forget everything. That was the point, that was the reason. I wanted to be empty.
That’s actually why, in case you haven’t noticed, Joe always becomes an alcoholic in almost all of my stories because of his problems. It’s a quick fix, and it was my fix. I relate to it so well. And it was wrong. I know it was wrong. But Drew saved me, just as I have the girl save Joe.
Drew did save me, which is one reason I know I’ll never stop truly loving him. He pulled me out of whatever I was going through. He helped me deal. I had actually stopped crying after the funeral. I had nothing left in me. But Drew helped that too. I was finally able to start mending. It wasn’t anything he did, but more what he said. He reminded me of everything my dad believed in, everything my dad was. He told me my dad would be ashamed of what I was doing, that he was probably looking down on me, and wondering where he had gone wrong, what he had done to make me do this. It was harsh, but it was true and it was effective. I started being me again.
I never really became the old me though. Everything I did, everything I saw, everything I thought of, I wanted to make my dad proud. I wanted to help as many people as I could, and live up to be his little girl. I realized how much my dad meant to so many people, and I started to realize that I had never really appreciated him. It made me start to appreciate everything I had. It made me look at the simple things, the small things to be happy. I started to write more, venting and things.
I actually listened to the Jonas Brothers, Appreciate, and I Will Be The Light, and Please Be Mine on repeat for a long time afterwards. I think that it made me emotionally connected to the Jonas Brothers in a way that I wouldn’t have been otherwise, and I think that may contribute to my writings. In case you guys always haven’t noticed, there isn’t usually a father figure in any of my stories. It’s because I can’t write about this perfect dad because my dad was perfect, and writing about a perfect dad makes me feel like I wanted my dad to be like that. I can’t write about a messed up dad because I’ve never experienced that. She Screams In Her Pillow was actually hard for me because of that. But yeah, I mean, you write what you know, right? And what I know is that writing the part of a dad is too hard for me.
I know this was really long, and I’m sorry for that. Thanks if you read this. It really does mean a lot. I just – I miss him, you know? And it’s hard sometimes, I’m not going to lie. But I do make it. I make it everyday. But I still can’t help but feeling that, even after two years, he’s going to barge into my room and ask me to type his memo or fix his phone or something. He was my dad. And I don’t think the pain of losing a parent ever goes away. But that doesn’t mean I can forget him, or even want to forget him, you know? I just – I love him, even now.
