Choices (Book Four)

Chapter 35

Lyla

My hands run down the front skirt of my black dress as I try to keep it from wrinkling at all. It seems a bit absurd to worry about my appearance on a day like today, but it helps distract me from my life for a moment. Today is my dad's funeral. It has been five days since he died. I remember that night like I'm still there. I can still smell the scent of the sanitizer and hospital bed sheets. The sound of the heart rate monitor connected to my dad beeping away. The sight of him laying in the hospital bed, his eyes closed, his chest barely moving up and down with each shaky breath he struggled to take.

My mom had called me around ten o'clock that night when I was on shift and rambled out that my dad collapsed and they were just getting to the hospital. I met them at the front entrance doors to the emergency unit and my dad was brought in by the paramedics on a stretcher. He wasn't conscious and they quickly admitted him to a room and started tests. My mom fell into my arms as her body shook with sobs. The only thing I could do was hold her and try to reassure it everything would be okay when I was just as worried. I saw what my dad looked like laying on that stretcher and knew this was bad.

I eventually managed to get my mom up to the floor my dad had been brought to and we waited for someone to give us an update. The waiting was torture, but I would have waited a week long or more if it had meant we would have gotten different news when the doctor finally came in. My dad had a heart attack. He heart was damaged badly and they were unable to make any repairs. At this point all they could do was keep him comfortable, but they told us he wouldn't make it through the night.

We were then lead down the hallway to his room. He didn't look like my dad in that bed. He was a stranger. An old man with sunken in cheek bones, greyish skin, and silver hair on his head. My mom approached the bed first, taking my dad's hand into hers as she lifted it to her lips and kissed it, resting it there. I was frozen in the doorway, not sure if I could take a step further into the room. I couldn't make my brain process what was happening. My dad was dying. This would be some of my last moments with him and he wouldn't even be here with us. I thought back when I left the house this morning for my shift and I saw him in the kitchen. He was sitting with a coffee and the morning paper. When I glanced back over my shoulder as I hurried to leave I caught him looking over at me with a small smile on his face. I paused in that moment and smiled back before we exchanged our goodbyes and 'I love yous'.

My mom held out her free hand to me as she stayed at my dad's side. My feet thankfully carried me over to her and I took her hand in mine as we both sat at my dad's bedside. We both cried into each other's shoulders, not speaking for the first hour. Nurses came in and out the room silently checking on my dad as machines kept beeping away. My mom spoke first, whispering so quietly I almost didn't hear her. I tried to pay attention to her words as she spoke to my dad but I could only seem to focus on one thing at a time and in that moment it was to keep breathing, one breath at a time. I did notice when she finished speaking because that meant I was up next. What was I supposed to say? I didn't know how to start yet I didn't want to not say anything at all, I knew I would regret it.

I started on a shaky breath as I finally spoke. I told him I loved him. I told him I would miss him every day. I told him that me and mom would look after each other. I reached out and placed my hand over top my mom's which was still holding my dad's hand. He must have heard what he needed to because only two minutes later we listened to him take his last breath before the monitor toned signalling his heart had stopped. My instincts were screaming at me to do something, to start CPR and not just sit at his bedside. But my mom and I just held each other even tighter as we watched him pass. A nurse and doctor entered the room again, murmuring softly amongst themselves and then offering their condolences to us. They advised they would need to disconnect all the machines and get ready to transport my dad to the morgue.