Just before his death, Dad spent his days surrounded by friends and family at the hospital. He made sure to sweeten every visit with some wisecrack or joke.
“Hey!” he’d tell my cousins, “you better behave, or I’ll visit you at night and pull your bedsheets.”
Dad would then burst out laughing, while the rest of us wouldn’t know how to laugh with him. We weren’t the only victims of his dark humor; his old colleagues and pals also struggled to not pale at his jests.
“Come on! Don’t say that!” they’d usually reply through half-hearted smiles.
Dad didn’t want to hide what was widely known: he was very, very ill, and didn’t have much time left. Embracing the facts with a laugh was his way of also accepting them.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t laugh with him. His good spirits only reminded me of how much I’d miss him when, suddenly, his spark was gone.
That same pain afflicted my sister, Firu, but in quite a different way. She’s always been able to perceive unusual things: energies, presences and the such. She secretly confessed to me she’d been nervous for some time. Apparently, our childhood home, and even the air within it, felt increasingly haunted with every hour that Dad withered away at the hospital.
“Dani, it feels as if the house is getting ready,” she said. “Getting ready for Dad’s ghost to visit, and let us know his time has come.”
Because of Dad’s dark humor -- and my sister’s peculiar sensitivity -- I had no doubt that, sooner rather than later, Dad’s soul would indeed come by to say farewell. I kept wondering what that would look like: Would he gift us a final joke? A warm memory that brought a smile to our lips before a tear to our eyes?
As his health declined, his humor waned. He laughed less, and would only complement other’s funny comments with brief sentences. Soon enough he was only able to smile or let out a gentle sigh instead of a chuckle. But nonetheless he strived to preserve his joy, even as his vitality faded.
One evening, Firu and I came home late from the hospital. We fed Dalilah, our parents Yorkie, and reheated pasta without uttering a single word. It was a rough day. It had become clear the end was very near.
Just like every night in which Mom stayed with Dad at the clinic, my sister and I slept in their bedroom. I fell drifted away the second as I got into bed.
Later that evening I woke up to my sister’s cries. My eyes remained shut, but the sobs drew her in my mind: I could picture her with total clarity, lying next to me, her face wet and her nose running.
“Go to sleep, Firu,” I said. “Don’t worry, it’ll all be OK.”
She kept crying as I heard Dalilah walk into the room, and head towards the window.
“Try to calm down-”
“Leave me alone,” she snapped back. “I’m talking to Dad.”
Her words shook me. For a few long moments I only listened to her weeping.
Could this be the visit I had been preparing for?
“Firu, please... don’t say those kinds of things.”
My consciencience asked me a favour: don’t open your eyes.
Don’t open your eyes, it begged. Don’t open your eyes.
“Dad, let Daniela see you… otherwise she won’t believe me,” Firu said.
I clenched my pillow. Don’t open your eyes.
But I couldn’t resist.
My father was standing next to the window. Looking out at the garden where he barbecued, picked mangoes and played dominoes.
He turned to me and I shut my eyes, unwilling to believe what I was seeing.
I looked again and he was still there, watching me.
My mind tried to justify this vision. It had to be the exhaustion, or perhaps it was the hope he was still alive. After all, I ached to have Dad back at home, with all of us.
But his demeanor was different from the one I expected upon his return.
He wasn’t talking. He didn’t have a single joke or playful comment. He just looked at me, without a trace of the warm smile everyone adored. His face was calm, but also sad.
A countenance that was as serene as it was resigned in grief.
I then noticed Dalilah, sitting by his side. Dad walked towards the bathroom and she followed. Even though the door was closed he never stopped walking, and passed through it as if it were a smoke curtain. The dog remained at the threshold, waiting for our father to come back.
When he didn’t, she walked away and jumped on bed with us. I started to sob.
“What was that Firu? Is Dad dead?”
All my sister replied was that he wanted to say goodbye to the house, and to let us know that he was alright.
I waited all night and all morning for a call, from either Mom or the doctors, that informed us that Dad had passed away. But the telephone stayed silent.
And much to my surprise, we found him alive at the hospital. He remained with us for a couple more weeks.
He was very quiet that morning. His state had considerably worsened. After a while sitting by his bedside, Firu silently held his languid hand.
“Dad…” she said after a couple of minutes. “Daniela saw you last night.”
He turned to me. The look on his eyes felt frightfully familiar.
It was the same expression I saw a few hours before. Serene, but drenched in pain.
“You came by the house, right?” Firu asked him.
Dad only shut his melancholic eyes, unwilling to reply to the question for which we all knew the answer, and I stormed out of room in a panic.
It took me a long while to understand why he appeared that night, when there still was weeks left before his death, and why he only stared at us in silence; holding on to a sorrow that was such a stranger to his joyful personality.
Only today I think I know the meaning of it all.
I’ve learned that the ability to laugh is not the only thing worth sharing, and that on that evening, back at his dark bedroom, Dad showed us something he wouldn’t share with most: his sadness.
Only to us, his two daughters, he gave permission to join him in saying farewell to his beloved home. Only to us did he reveal that side of himself, as real as the one that’s funny and playful: a man lamenting having to leave behind his house, his world, and his family.
