How our Father and Daughter Relationship Ended

a short story by : Myric Andreasen

"You better wake up this instant. You don't know if your father is dead or alive", ratted my half-sister as she incessantly poked me annoyingly. It was maybe around 4:30 in the morning. It wasn’t a nice way to wake up a morning person this early. All I could hear was a distorted noise. But wait. Did I heard that right? I asked myself. I got up and saw my other older sister, frantically fussing over a missing underwear. Or was it missing sock? You see, i don't remember. I just woke up. She was slammed on the floor weeping on an open drawer of underwear.

"Where is it? It was here!" She yelled madly in tears, with face in the drawer.

It wasn't the first time she fussed over a small piece of clothing. When she was little, she would not go to school unless her socks perfectly matched height. But I had a gut feeling it wasn't because of missing piece of clothing this time.

“It’s gotta be there somewhere!!!” I muttered trying to sound empathetic even though  my thoughts was I wanted to yell,

“Just pick something!”

It is was my turn to rummage through the drawer for my own stuff to get ready.

The phone rang again. I answered. A woman's voice from the other line said, we should hurry. Somebody should be there claim the body.

Confused with the situation, I gave the phone to my older sister. I was a scared teenager thinking I wasn't credible enough to handle such grown up conversation. For a moment, I lost my strength standing up. I sat down on a chair contemplating what I just heard. My father has now called "the body"?

It wasn’t long when my mother came rushing to the house coming from her other house. "C’mon! We don’t have time!".

The ride was long. I was sitting with my sister and mom in the vehicle but I was alone with my thoughts. As the distance gets closer, so as the hope to find my father in a good state and we can all say that was a close call

My father wasn't the heathiest person. In fact, I stole my first cigarette from him when I was, well very very young. He was my source of a budding interest. Every Saturday, when he comes home, he stayed hidden in the bedroom of what I call, the chamber of smokes. He smoked  packs and packs of cigarette a day in the windowless bedroom. I waited for him to go to the bathroom to do my little dirty deed, went straight up to our tin roof trying to discover what was so great about a smoking.

My father was an extremely reserved person. His words were as scarce as hen’s teeth. He could only express himself when he was intoxicated. This habit went way back. But that was a different story.

The morning air was still crisp when we arrived at the morgue. The smell of freshly cut grass still lingered from that morning scheduled landscape maintenance. My sister and I were asked to wait outside as my mother went straight inside the building to address the situation. A woman in a red shirt with navy blue stripes and white collar approached us. She wasn’t much taller than I. She wore a very short hair, close to a pixie cut. Her eyes were red from tears, tired from crying.

“Are you Myric?” she asked me. Words didn’t come out, so I just nodded without any eye contact, only a small few glimpses to have an idea what she looked like.

“Your dad loved you very much”, she continued as she began to cry again in the middle of her sentence. I couldn’t look at her so I just stared down at her brown leather shoulder bag, but I could hear the sorrow in her tone. On that cue, I began my first tear for the day.

I knew this woman wasn’t a stranger. I think I heard her voice many times on the phone asking for my dad. The last time I heard her voice on the phone was that day, I finally put a face on a voice from the other end of the phone.

I could tell she wanted to chat more, but her image was blurry now of unending spiral of random emotions. The one way conversation was cut short when a staff of the hospital came out pushing a stretcher, with a body covered in a blue blanket with floral prints, twisted from head to toe, make sure no skin is showing. I knew it was our package when I saw my mother walking behind it. “No it is not my father”, I protested to myself quiety. I dared not to touch it. “No! Not this way”, I told myself.

Two women weeping over a body too thin and stiff. I looked at the other woman with indignation but with a little hint of compassion. She didn’t get close to even touch my father’s body as a courtesy to the wife.

Anger weighed heavier in my heart knowing she was with dad rather than us on his last breath, the family who should have takin part on his last moment. She selfishly kept him to herself, called us for legal wife’s consent for a release.

The day was long and hasn’t ended yet. We went straight to the funeral home. My mother and sister left to run errands needed for the wake. I was left alone sitting in the corner of the lobby. Thoughts found me again.

Memories flashed back. It only took a moment because there weren’t too many of them. It was like a short video I could play over and over again. Tears kept flowing down almost involuntarily one eye at a time, constantly wiped with my bare hands, wet hands wiped down to the side of my thighs. Nobody should see me cry. It was embarrassing. I never get the habit to keep a hanky.

A voice came out of nowhere startled me. “Do you want to file for an autopsy report?”

I was alone and I felt I shouldn’t be making this decision alone. I was only a shy 16 year old with low self- esteem.

“Could you wait until my mom comes back?” I replied, trying to avoid the conversation as quick as I could, quite annoyed my acquaintances were nowhere in sight. I wished nobody would talk to me. I wanted to be alone. I was as uninvolved in my father’s death as when he was alive. It’s just sad.

I lost someone who held a huge role in my life but we had an insignificantly small relationship. It was hard to asses my true feelings towards this situation. It was borderline grief but more than sadness.

“I don’t have a father anymore”, I told myself as loud my thoughts could say, just in case I wondered it was just a dream. I remembered more self pity on my loss. Like a pair of expensive music record were stolen from me. But still, he was my biological father that cannot be replaced.

The emotional drama skipped two steps backward when I finally confirmed my father had a different life from what I knew. That woman on the other side of stretcher weeping next to my father’s body. I shed another tear for that. I couldn’t believe the tears supposed to be solely for grieving now shared with feeling of betrayal. This was too much in one day.

A room was finally prepared for my father’s wake that night. The air-conditioner beat the 80 degree temperature outside. The cold sent my body chills, in additional to shiver weeping over my loss.

The room was well lit. sSill smelled  of previous funeral services. The empty platform teasingly gave hope that maybe my dad miraculously could still be alive like in movies. I kept my mind occupied with steps on how to overcome the denial stage of grief as fast as I could. There were no wi-fi, no youtube, no facebook and no smartphones. It was harder to let my friends know on such short and sudden notice. It was the late 90’s

The first night was uncomfortable. It was cold. I was sleeping on a hard wooden surface of the pew with a towel as my blanket. A jerk from the door woke me up as the funeral staff pushed my father’s coffin through the glass door and wheeled to the platform.

My sister, mother and I, all three of us had our first view of my dad. Our sobs triggered a tear followed with many more. Tears of his three girls dripped on the coffin’s glass. I constantly wiped it for the fear of superstition. Tears on coffin means suffering of loved ones behind, but more so I was focused on his face. I have never stared at his face that long. “There’s something in death that displays emptiness”, I thought to myself. I peered at my mother and my sister who were still preoccupied expressing their grief through weeping.

I was done crying.

What was wrong with me?, I questioned myself, wondering what was going through their minds and why wasn’t I expressing the same behavior as them. I was thinking the longer I cried, I longer I cared. Maybe I should cry more? But then I will be faking it. Does that mean I am a selfish, emotion deprived brat? Maybe my eyes were too tired to produce more fluids. That reminded me. I haven’t had anything to drink since that morning. Maybe dehydration was to blame.

More friends and relatives gathered the following night. A familiar face, sobbing as soon as she stepped through the door. I peered at her for a minute and made sure she was who I thought she was. Short brown hair, slightly fairer skin compared to mom’s. She was neatly dressed in black top and pants wearing a sparkly stud earrings that glimmered with the reflection of the room’s dimmed candelabras. Her existence was known to my father’s side, but to other visitors, nobody had a clue who she was.

My first reaction was to hold back my mother who was trying to block her way, furiously telling her to leave, but nothing seemed coming through her. Her determination showed she came here with a mission, to see my father one last time even if she had to beg for it. My sister and I hugged our mother in tears,

“Just let her. Dad, loved her too”, I whispered to her ears. I tried to sound civil as I could, but my deeper thoughts sang a different tone. There was nothing to be done that can change the past. I had to be forgiving if I want this night to pass with grace.

It was our last day in the funeral home. I was quite sad because we are leaving the comfort of the airconditioned room. My half-sister handed me a bag of my clothes for the burial ceremony she bought for me that morning at the local market. It was a white cropped top V neck with brown suede cord, and a pair of black pants that won’t fit me the next day. “Why does my sister got the cuter top?”, I looked at my sister with jealousy as she tried hers on.

The room somehow looked smaller on day light with the crowd of people who came for the funeral service. Sympathies were exchanged. Being a teenager is an excuse to avoid such small talks and conversations. I just want to be left alone with my thoughts.

During the service, the pastor called my name for my eulogy. All sets of eyes turned to me, like when a teacher called on a student unprepared, but thank goodness this won’t cost me any grade, only. embarrassment for a second. I responded to the call with a shameful and pitiful shook of head.

We took our dad to his final destination. That little hole on the ground will now be his empty vessel’s home. His weekly scheduled home coming had now came down to none.

The day ended with a final prayer followed by opening the glass casket when the loved ones could hold their deceased one last time. My heart leaped and stepped back. A sudden fear crept through my mournful mood.

My mother took the lead and held my dad’s stone cold purplish hand.

I didn’t want to touch. Zombie movies still scared me, but more so, I don’t want to remember him this way. Cold and lifeless as if made of wood. I didn’t want to let him give me another reason to resent him. Not on this day.

I let that one last chance to hold my father slipped away, but is it okay if I could only shed tears? This is not a relationship. Some resentments lingered and there were unsaid wishes. But despite all of this, I love him with all my being. Things could have been different if we both knew what I know now.

Now that I have come of age, loved a man and started my own family, all was left between me and my dad is forgiveness. There’s nothing I can do to change the past.

Our father and daughter story ends here. My father taught me and love me in an unconventional way, and soon I will use this heartbreak to write my own story.