When you weigh the pros/cons of moving abroad, it’s that dreaded middle of the night phone call that hits heaviest. Dire news of a loved one. While you’re an ocean away. The guilt. The helplessness. The distance that suddenly isn’t “just a plane ride away.”
Two months ago, I got that dreaded phone call. I said goodbye to my dad over Facetime. I couldn’t squeeze his hand or kiss his head. I sobbed into the phone, watched my siblings huddle around the hospital bed, and stared through a screen as his lips turned blue.
His passing was swift. A hemorrhagic stroke took him from us in a merciful matter of minutes.
Days later, I boarded a plane to take my 6 year old to Paris, for a much-anticipated birthday adventure. I’d debated canceling the trip, but my family swore they’d never forgive me if I did. (Even death can’t stop this family of maximizers.)
So, I wandered the gilded halls of Versailles and perused patisseries while my sisters called mortuaries. Gradually, I let go of the guilt. Because isn’t that how it goes? Death and gilded glory, loss and abundance – hand in hand.
This Memorial Day, I’m remembering my dad and the goodbye said over St. Apolonia train station in Lisbon.
I wrote this on the plane back from Paris.
Just like that
Just like that—
A visit to his grandson, over.
A road-trip playlist turned to bedside hymns.
Just like that—
His last words uttered.
“I’ll just hold on to you,” he says, giving up on his seatbelt.
Just like that—
The bleeding has reached the brain stem.
“There’s nothing to do.”
Just like that—
The man who threw fits lays, limp fisted.
No more objections, a final surrender.
Just like that—
His bedside snacks, neatly arranged that morning, now gathered in a bag with his “things.”
Just like that—
A day meant for hiking trails is spent swapping tales.
Clinking mimosas, “To Wally!”
Just like that—
A date night in Lisbon becomes a vigil.
Goodbyes said over St. Apolónia train station.
Patron saint of hasty departures, pray for us.
Just like that—
Last squeeze, kiss, thanks.
His lips, now blue.
Marmie grabs her red vest. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Just like that.
Walter B. Kaspareit, September 30, 1939 - March 19, 2022
What a tender tribute to a beloved father, and a perfect way to observe Memorial Day. My dad, also a Navy man, has been gone over 17 years. His was a long, difficult exit through dementia. I'd said goodbye to his essence countless times and thought I was ready for his final passing. I was wrong. But we go on, ever grateful for their love, for the examples they set, for the memories they left.
Tori, your essay touched me in several ways. I, too, said goodbye to my Dad, the veteran, in March of this year. I was also reminded of my mother-in-law’s passing in 2005, when my son was nine years old. My son grew up playing traditional Irish music, which is a fancy way of saying that he grew up playing music in bars. The day his grandmother died was also the day he was scheduled to play a set with his fiddle teacher on stage in a bar in downtown Atlanta. We wrestled (briefly) with the idea of canceling his “gig”, but in the end decided that Grandma would have wanted him to play. Not only was it good to get out of the house that night, as wrong as it felt at the time, but now our family’s permanent memory of an otherwise gloomy event is of a key moment in our son’s development as a musician. Not quite an Irish wake, but close enough. As you properly concluded, your trip to Paris served the same dual purpose: a tribute to a life well-lived and a reminder that the show (life) must go on.