Go. Leave!

Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash

My dad died when he was 57. I was 27. "Go, leave” were his last words.

Earlier that day, we found him on the bedroom floor at his cousin's house in Bellevue, Washington, where he moved to from Big Pine Key after discovering his terminal cancer three months before. He couldn't get up off the floor. We couldn't lift him either, so we called 911 to take him to the VA hospital.

Now, hours later, he lay motionless on a hospital bed, his eyes closed, and his breathing was loud and rhythmic. I cried, unleashing my tears without restraint because I thought he was unconscious. Suddenly, he opened his eyes, pushing out one word, "Go." I stopped crying, confused by the word. He pulled back his lips in a grimace, "Leave!"

I ran out of his hospital room into an empty grey hallway, my footsteps and heart resounding in my ears. The next time I saw my dad, he was dead in his metal hospital bed. His half-brother John, cousin Sarah, and a random Navy acquaintance who happened to be visiting from Florida stood in silence around his body.

Later, I realized that life doesn't deliver tidy endings. I remember telling a friend that my dad's death was torture, not because I loved him so much, but because I didn't love him enough. Real life isn't like TV, where you hold your dying father's hand while he tells you he loves you or says I'm sorry, or where you slip peacefully away as your daughter holds vigil at your side.

It was just the end.

"Go. Leave." I'll never know why my dad spoke those words, but I had a story. He doesn't want me there. I'm not his real family because I'm adopted.

I crafted that story using the seed I knew best. I must have been 8 or 9 years old. My dad took me to a barbecue picnic where he drank beer all afternoon. He called me over to his green and white plastic lounger on the grass, “Shirley, you’re adopted,” he slurred. Until that day, I didn't notice that I wasn't the expected sum of a 6'3" white man with light blue eyes and hair the color of straw and a Japanese mother striking enough to catch the eye of Macy's in New York City. I could have been a model, she would always say.

Since that day, I nurtured my seed, watered it, and watched it grow into a tree. Eventually, it towered above me, casting shadows in my forward path with twisting branches and soft green canopy.

Now, I play with words like seeds because words, like seeds, bring life to our stories.

I imagine a fire roaring through our Mexican-style stucco house in Yucaipa, California—crack, hiss, whoosh. Smoke stings my eyes and nose. I see my dad crushed under one of the dark brown beams from the ceiling. I can't lift it, so I stand frozen. My dad yells, "Go. Leave!" Save yourself.

I imagine my dad sitting in his nubby brown recliner, watching M*A*S*H, his favorite TV show, and drinking a beer in his Portland, Oregon house. He erupts in anger because he can't hear his show. "Go. Leave!" Shut your mouth.

I imagine my dad dying of cancer in the Seattle VA hospital. "Go. Leave!"

Let me go.

As I reimagine my memories, my old story drifts, and other stories whirl around my mind. Is this false hope or fantasy? Does it matter? I hold my stories lighter while new, unexplored possibilities spark and connect in my brain.

My dad died when he was 57. I was 27. “Go, leave” were his last words. In remembering my original story, I ultimately alter it and construct new stories to weave into my evolving identity, shaped by memory and my shifting consciousness.

Decades ago, I was wrong about one crucial thing at the Seattle VA hospital. My dad's death wasn't the end of our story. I'm writing our story and will keep writing it until I’m done. I've always been the author of my story. I didn't know it until now.

I am the author of my story, not because I control it but because I explore and represent it on the page. Writing my memories, I see how my life and stories intersect with others and the different times and places I inhabit. I see how history and context influence my choices, identity, and life path. I feel open and not closed to memories, experiences and other people, including my dad.