The most vivid memory I have recounts the worst experience of my life. Every thought, every movement, and every single word uttered in prayer replays in my mind on a constant loop. With time I’ve learned to bury it under other heartbreaks and stresses, the disappointments and the interminable cycle of setbacks that life is consumed with, but the sounds and images of that night still echo in my mind like a nightmare I don’t forget in the morning. The droning sound of the ECG, muffled only by the deafening silence of the room, the wet, lethargic faces of guilt and relief after we’d spent the last 10 minutes pleading for his eternal repose, and the suffocating warmth that expended the air once everything was done, despite the chills that crept
…show more content…
But I continued on with my day, laughing and fawning over John Phillips like I usually did. To both my dismay and satisfaction, he didn’t show up for class that day. In hindsight, I’m grateful for his penchant for skipping class. Only my closest friends knew of the situation brewing below the surface, and I told them with a measured casualness, as to neither bum the mood nor further alarm myself of the situation’s severity. And for a day, it had successfully worked as I began making plans for the weekend and drafting up emails to send to my Calculus professor. My heart still skipped a beat every time my phone vibrated, and the cynic in me still imagined the worse in those moments my mind was allowed to wander. But I could keep it together on the outside, and that was all that really mattered. Because I had more important things to deal …show more content…
Suppress, suppress, suppress is what I told myself. I was still failing Calculus, my papers to study abroad were still due by Friday, and I still hadn’t talked to John Phillips for the first time. It felt weird planning for the future knowing that he was deprived of his. An omnipresent guilt underpinned all my actions, and all I could think about was how fervently I stared at the heart rate machine until it finally reached zero. How desperately I wanted an end to his suffering, to my suffering, at long last. A hollowness in my body accompanied me for months. But crying was no longer an option, I was out of tears. You don’t feel anything, I told myself. Suppress. Suppress. Suppress.
I passed Calculus, I got accepted into my dream abroad program, and John Phillips finally showed up to class for me to talk to him. He wasn’t interested. But while I’m content with those outcomes of that time of my life, those that have little bearing on me today and will have even less on me in the future, I regret the time I spent focusing on the mundane when what will matter most throughout my life was right in front of my face.
Are you okay? Those are the last words I ever spoke to my father 2 months before his passing. We didn’t speak much and when we did, conversations rarely left the realm of small talk. He wasn’t a great communicator, and neither am
But I continued on with my day, laughing and fawning over John Phillips like I usually did. To both my dismay and satisfaction, he didn’t show up for class that day. In hindsight, I’m grateful for his penchant for skipping class. Only my closest friends knew of the situation brewing below the surface, and I told them with a measured casualness, as to neither bum the mood nor further alarm myself of the situation’s severity. And for a day, it had successfully worked as I began making plans for the weekend and drafting up emails to send to my Calculus professor. My heart still skipped a beat every time my phone vibrated, and the cynic in me still imagined the worse in those moments my mind was allowed to wander. But I could keep it together on the outside, and that was all that really mattered. Because I had more important things to deal …show more content…
Suppress, suppress, suppress is what I told myself. I was still failing Calculus, my papers to study abroad were still due by Friday, and I still hadn’t talked to John Phillips for the first time. It felt weird planning for the future knowing that he was deprived of his. An omnipresent guilt underpinned all my actions, and all I could think about was how fervently I stared at the heart rate machine until it finally reached zero. How desperately I wanted an end to his suffering, to my suffering, at long last. A hollowness in my body accompanied me for months. But crying was no longer an option, I was out of tears. You don’t feel anything, I told myself. Suppress. Suppress. Suppress.
I passed Calculus, I got accepted into my dream abroad program, and John Phillips finally showed up to class for me to talk to him. He wasn’t interested. But while I’m content with those outcomes of that time of my life, those that have little bearing on me today and will have even less on me in the future, I regret the time I spent focusing on the mundane when what will matter most throughout my life was right in front of my face.
Are you okay? Those are the last words I ever spoke to my father 2 months before his passing. We didn’t speak much and when we did, conversations rarely left the realm of small talk. He wasn’t a great communicator, and neither am