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“It’ll be fun,” Dad said, his toothless grin on full display.
I tried to muster up my best smile to meet his. I tried to pretend that the drive out to the river cruise wasn’t several hours in stop and go traffic that I thought we were going to avoid by leaving absurdly early. I tried to pretend that I didn’t resent being crammed into the extra seat of my uncle’s SUV or that the air outside wasn’t painfully thick and hot. I tried to pretend that I didn’t feel out of place in the Philippines when it should have been my ancestral home. I tried to pretend that I didn’t painfully miss my Grandma Sarah despite my other grandmother being within arm’s length. I tried to pretend that I didn’t hate the loose cotton blouse and pants my mom had insisted I wear despite how much I hated the bright colors or that I knew she had picked out that outfit because she wasn’t a fan of my terrible tan lines or the stockiness of my limbs.
Above all, I tried to pretend I was happy, even when I had so many reasons not to be.
One reason stood out above all the others, but I couldn’t bear to think about it. But all the same, it lingered in my mind with enough power to compel me to turn to Dad while everyone else went inside the small building that housed the company hosting our river cruise. It was almost a shack, really. I thought as much, though the thought came coupled with a helping of guilt. I knew better than to be so judgmental, but sometimes, it slipped out anyway.
Whatever opinions Dad might have had on the matter were kept close to his chest, but I couldn’t imagine he was so quick to judge. There was no sign of it on his brow or his larger expression. He was focused too much on himself and his own discomfort. Without a word, he took a few meandering steps around the car to stretch out his legs and get his blood moving again. Though he tried to hide it, I could catch a glimpse of a grimace on his face. The stiffness of his legs was more apparent in how he struggled to walk. And his swollen ankles occasionally peeked out from his long pants.
Despite his attempts to hide it all, I saw so many of the details. I knew to look for them. This was the pattern, the way of things with him, but we all expected it to get worse. That was just how dying often worked.
Six months before that trip, my father was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, but that wasn’t what killed him. It was, however, the catalyst behind his death, you could say, because it was the reason our little family unit (excluding Grandma Sarah) took that trip to the Philippines. Previously, we had gone every three years: when I was three, six, nine, and twelve. I was fourteen when he got the diagnosis. There was a chance he would make it to our next scheduled trip, but he wasn’t willing to risk it. Dad wanted a chance to say goodbye to everyone back in the Philippines, the family he had gained when he married Mom. He had come to love them as much as Mom did. And he missed them before he was even gone.
But he hid it well. Even if this was supposed to be a farewell tour, he put on his best smile and cracked all his usual jokes. He even added one to his usual docket.
“Look, with my luck and how expensive the tickets were last minute, I’ll probably make a full recovery,” he said a time or two. “Miraculous healing. All because God loves His irony.”
While we all laughed, we knew it wasn’t true, that things weren’t going to happen that way, but we all needed to believe he was going to get better. If not, we would collapse into sobbing heaps on the floor, so we went along with it. We went along with everything, including his itinerary for the trip.
Before the plane landed, Dad wrote out a list of all the things he wanted to do. He was careful when he did it, checking every guidebook and review site he could find. The trip wasn’t endless, after all. We only had a couple weeks, and he only had a couple years left. Although we were reluctant to call it a bucket list, that’s what it was. Or rather, it was a segment of the list focused on what he could do in the Philippines, with the family that he might not see again.
The river cruise was one such thing, for reasons he never fully went into. He liked the water, he said. He liked the idea of seeing a new part of the island while leisurely cruising on the river. He had been on a few boats in his life, which he had always enjoyed.
“It started with this boat tour in Chicago,” he said to me, abruptly, disregarding his last thought in favor of this. “I should take you. Last I heard it was still running, and it was a good time. We’ll have to head out there when we get back to the US.”
He didn’t say why we had to go right away. He didn’t need to.
However, no one else in the family enjoyed being on any form of water. I had cousins who worked on cruise ships, but so many Filipinos do. It’s not about liking the water, per say, or like the feeling of being on the ocean. It’s just good money. It’s a good career opportunity. There’s value there, even if it doesn’t line up with what you like. But despite that, we all agreed to the river cruise idea. Even if we didn’t want to go, it was still worth it because Dad wanted to do it.
It all seemed so simple. And yet, my grandmother had some doubts. Both grandmothers, in fact. Despite the language barriers, Grandma Sarah and Grandma Carmelita Grace were on the same page about this cruise. Their objects were more muted, however. The ill feelings in their guts were hard to name, and without that distinct name, they did not object too loudly. We were all inclined to chalk it up to the obvious concern, to the way the grim reaper seemed to linger on my dad’s shoulder. So without any fight, they each agreed to pray and keep a close eye on me.
But as the family stepped into the boat, I could still see the fear and concern in Grandma Carmelita’s eyes. She was chewing over something. Her mouth was twisting and turning over, but it was probably just one of her hard candies and not something she felt compelled to say. Both were probably true, frankly. She was gearing up to outlive her son-in-law, after all. That had to be surreal.
Despite whatever her thoughts were on the matter, she climbed onto the boat all the same but with Uncle Alfonso’s help. The boat was docked well, but boarding required a step up that was difficult for someone at her age. She was 78 years old, after all. Her hips and joints showed it. That was expected. That was part of the natural course of one’s life, the sort of thing my dad would never fully experience.
But of course, I didn’t want to think about that. The thought kept coming up, and I kept trying to banish it from my mind. I ran headlong into the next moment, only to get away from the thought swirling in my head. It didn’t always work, but it was the only thing I could think to try. So I followed her onto the boat with a quick step and no thought to what the best order or seating arrangement would have been. To be polite, I accepted Uncle Alfonso’s offered hand, but I didn’t think I needed much help. I was young, in relatively decent shape, and my lungs hadn’t started their ongoing mutiny just yet. At that point, they had no need to. There was no stressor or event that forever broke them or their trust in me. They hadn’t been pushed to the brink in an almost unforgivable way. I was still whole, still unbroken. It was a good feeling while I had it.
But knowing I was going to lose it when Dad died or at some other point in the near future, I was in a daze, not unlike my grandmother. We were lost for two very different reasons that just happened to link back to the same source. We were connected to each other and yet horribly disjointed at the same time. But the faint tethers that held us together pulled me to sit next to her in one of the front rows beneath the large canopy. She let me sit against the railing and rested her arms on the table in front of us. Each row of chairs had its own table. And given that we brought snacks and lunch, I should have been happy to see it. I should have felt something or anything. But instead, I felt nothing.
In hindsight, I should have been more alert and more mentally present on that trip. I should have committed every moment to memory. I should have been cherishing everything about that final excursion. It wasn’t just about my dad, either. There was always a chance Grandma Carmelita wouldn’t be here when we came back. Her age was working against her, never mind all the possible freak accidents that could happen at any time and without warning. Those could have taken anyone in the family tree. Rationally, I knew that was all true, but it wasn’t something I could act on. Instead of being active and engaged or loving and involved, I stared out at the river ahead throughout the rest of the boarding process. The sea of familiar voices drowned out the sound of the world around us, of animals lurking in trees, and of the running water below.
But through the cloud of noise, I could hear my father’s low and rumbling laughter echoing throughout the boat as we set off from the riverbank. It cut through the rest of the voices and the low rumble of the engine. It kept me distracted as we rode along the river, chatting amongst ourselves and passing out the first round of food. We were casting the first brush strokes of whatever that day was supposed to be. Dad had the image of a picnic on the river in mind. He wanted this to be a nice relaxing day out on the water. And the potential was there. The poetry of it all was there, magnified by how well the boat glided down the calm and beautiful river beneath us. It wasn’t as blue as one might think, but the faint greenish brown hue didn’t bother me. I could have stared at it forever. I almost did.
My dedication to view was something my grandma found concerning. There was no cause for it, after all. There were likely fish in that river, but they were not inclined to make their presence known. To comfort both or either of us, she reached up towards my face and brushed a strand of hair back behind my ear. When she did so, I turned to her and tried to muster something that vaguely looked like a smile in that light, but the muscles of my face felt weak. Grandma Carmelita understood, though I could not say what I was thinking. She took my hand in hers, and for a moment, I felt a bit stronger, but the feeling was fleeting.
Just then, my mom leaned forward in her seat and put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. I hadn’t realized Mom was there. I hadn’t thought to keep an eye on her and Dad as they took their seats. It was one of those many things that I should have cared about but didn’t. And it turned out the two of them were directly behind Grandma and me.
“I think Will should sit next to Mia,” she said.
That sounded straightforward enough, but beneath the surface was a reminder of the situation: Dad was sick, dying even, so he and I should have the sort of moment that the living could treasure and the dead could take with them into whatever comes next. In other words, I needed to sit next to him. We needed to have that moment together, no matter how much it hurt me.
My grandmother’s earlier anxieties seemed to return. There was a flash of fear and concern in her eyes. At first, she hesitated, but regardless of her fears, my mom was right. It was a straightforward argument. But even still, I felt her grip on my hand tighten. She struggled to let me go.
My breath caught when I was holding onto her just as tightly. And I shouldn’t have been. Mom was right: I should be with Dad. And I did want more time with him, which was the real problem at hand. But I grimaced at the sight I was causing, at the mess I was making by being reluctant for no reason. If anything, all I was doing was fueling her anxiety and dread.
“Okay,” I mumbled.
And Mom promptly glared at me for mumbling. She always did. She didn’t appreciate that I tended to be on the quieter side, that I kept my words and thoughts as close to the chest as I could. To her it was a sign of disrespect that I didn’t just freely give what she assumed was hers. That bothered me, but there was nothing I could do about it.
My grandmother was the one to turn around and tell Dad that we all needed to rearrange ourselves. Her taking on that task was her way of preventing whatever explosion was brewing between me and my mom. That was the best way of approaching the issue, really: limiting contact between us whenever possible. And it worked fairly well.
Dad nodded in response to her, but to me, he grinned that infamous toothless grin.
“Free seat upgrade,” he joked.
It wasn’t funny. Nothing was really funny anymore.
Slowly, Dad moved to the front of his chair. All the while, he winced and stifled the groans of pain that lingered in his throat.
The sound stopped my heart. It was a small thing, to be sure. It was the sort of noise he made a dozen times before, and it was just from him struggling to get out of his chair. It was him struggling with movement. That wasn’t anything new. It had been happening with an increased frequency as of late. But it was still alarming. It was a symptom of his not so gradual decline.
Mom lingered at his elbow while I rose to my feet. “Dad?” I asked.
It was a half-formed question. I couldn’t bring myself to ask the rest of it.
And he could not bring himself to answer. His response was guttural and half formed.
“I can come sit by you,” I said. “I’ll take the upgrade.”
Or I thought I said as much. I thought that I spoke up loudly enough to be heard, just as my mother would have wanted, but no one reacted to the sound of my voice. Not even my grandmother moved or otherwise acknowledged I was there.
For a moment, I was just a ghost, lurking amongst them and watching while my father continued to ease himself forward in his chair. The logistics of being a ghost are the sort of thing that no one ever thinks in depth about. We focus on the possibility that we can pass through walls or float about our days, and in doing so, we lose sight of other aspects of the experience. Consequently, I was caught off-guard by the rush of helplessness that came from observing but not being able to do anything like offer a solution or some comfort. It was magnified by the timing of it all. I was too young to deal with this. Children are meant to outlive parents. That’s the kind order of things and going against it brings about an unimaginable pain. But even though it is the natural order of things, it’s not supposed to happen too early in life. It’s supposed to take time, decades even. I was just a teenager; I had little more than one decade under my belt.
So of course, I panicked. I felt a rush of energy and emotion coursing through my veins. It was a buzzing I couldn’t ignore. But being that I was still young and naive, I didn’t understand the way things were or had to be. I didn’t even fully understand the concept of safety. I just knew I wanted that anxious feeling to go away. More than that, I wanted my dad’s illness to go away. But if I couldn’t have that, then I wanted to at least help him.
I tried to lean closer to him just as he took a sharp breath in and lowered his shoulders. The reason for his move, for his trying to get out of that chair, slipped from all our minds, banished to the same oblivion I dwelled in. There was just his struggle, his suffering, and another bad omen to deal with.
“Dad?” I whispered.
Once again, no one responded. It was more understandable that time. I was speaking softly. I did the exact thing my mom hated so much. But I couldn’t help it. I was young and scared. I was weak.
That weakness meant I couldn’t fight against the growing pressure in my body, the need to act, to do something, to burn through the energy coursing through my body. There was also a pull towards my dad. There was a need to be close to him, to be in arm’s reach where he could comfort me. He was the one who needed comfort, though, right? He was dying and being confronted with reminders of his morality when he should have been enjoying himself. That had to be difficult. Even then, I knew as much, but I still focused only on me.
I put my right foot on my chair with no thought to what was coming next. It was a way of getting closer to him, to petition him for what I needed, but at the same time, with the small row of tables set in front of the chairs, I wouldn’t have been able to clear that leap. I couldn’t just jump into his row, not without hurting myself or breaking the boat’s furniture. And that small bit of logic held me back, it kept my other foot from stepping onto the seat. Instead, my left knee joined my foot on the chair. The wood held firm against my full weight. I was steady, I thought. Everything was fine.
Carefully, Dad started to straighten up, to lift himself off of the chair, but it wasn’t easy for him to do. He was visibly straining. His face went red while he held his breath. A slight shake overcame him. Regardless, for a moment, it seemed worthwhile. He was slowly rising off the chair, bit by bit. But just as the three of us gathered around him started to relax, the breath he was holding burst out of his mouth, and he dropped back into his seat with a hard thud.
“Da–” I started to say, leaning forward over the back of the chair.
I faintly caught a glimpse of his eyes, dark brown pits where emotion and thought occasionally descended into an endless void. Like mine. And when I saw them, I thought I could see something else lurking beneath the surface. I thought I saw the flicker of something I was too young to identify. It frightened me, though. It stoked the burning anxiety again. And that storm was running rampant inside of me. It was driving me mad. I was desperate to escape it. I tried to come up with some other thought or fantasy to retreat to, but the vision never came together. Despite that desperation, I only knew only one other way of coping or one other sanctuary for me. I only knew to get closer to dad. I needed him and his steady embrace. So I leaned forward, towards and off the end of the chair, to the small table that had no hope of holding my weight up.
It wasn’t the smart thing to do. Unlike the meek and mild voice I gravitated to so heavily, that was the sort of thing I should have been scolded for. That was a real and present danger that I continued to throw myself headlong into. But no one noticed. I didn't even notice what I was doing. We were all focused on Dad. We were watching him with an unmistakable intensity. The air around us grew thick, but that didn’t matter because we were all holding our breath. But from that and the weight of our stares, the pressure on Dad’s shoulders began to grow.
When I look back on that trip and all of his terrible jokes, I can see the thread of logic that connected all of it together. He wanted to pretend everything was fine. He wanted the normalcy and peace of mind that was often denied to the dying. Even if everything was objectively not okay, he wanted us to think that it was. These lies were well meant. They brought us comfort, but they soothed him as well. It was an illusion he needed to go about his final days.
And in that moment, as he was struggling, he lost that comfort, that shield from the grim nature of his circumstances. There was a reason to panic, you might say. He had a reason to push himself even harder for his own sake. From that reason–that need–he dug deep for any ounce of strength hiding within him, and it was more than he expected.
He stood up quickly, suddenly, far faster than anyone would have expected. Even he was caught off guard by his speed. But he bolted upright, into the space I inhabited on my uneasy perch. The force of it, of the strike of his head against my mouth, shoved me back even before I registered the pain of the impact. And it knocked every thought out of my head. My mind was completely blank. I knew nothing. I knew no reason to be afraid for myself or some reason to be concerned about my wellbeing. The fear for Dad was washed away, but it left behind a blank slate where no thought could catch its footing. Everything slipped off. The unanchored thoughts were swirling. My head spun as my hip slammed against the railing beside me.
I should have put my hands down. I should have reached out for the object I had just struck or anything around me. I should have done anything to stop my fall, but I didn’t. In the blur of that moment after the accidental strike against my face, there were so many things I should have done but didn’t. My hands instinctively first flew to my mouth, but when they realized there was something else to contend with, a river I was falling towards, they could not figure out what to grab. They flailed in the air. They waved about and found nothing for their trouble.
I went over the railing after that. I went off the deck and into the air for a brief moment before I hit the water below. The breaking of the water’s surface wasn’t as hard or painful as I would have thought it’d be. The distance wasn’t so great that the river was reluctant to welcome me. Quite the contrary, I was swallowed up with ease. The rush of cold struck me first, sapping the warmth from my body as the baggy clothing I was wearing instantly soaked through, billowing in the water around me. It had to be picturesque, especially as I slowly sank far deeper into the watery abyss than I would have thought possible.
It was just a free fall, really. I was being pulled down slowly and consistently. And I wasn’t doing anything to pull myself back to the surface to even stop the descent. I knew how to swim. My childhood had been full of swimming lessons, but that part of my brain–that memory that should have been stitched into my very core–didn’t come to my rescue. It remained out of reach as my focus drifted elsewhere.
Just then and for reasons that might have been understandable, my lungs started their first mutiny. Despite the dangers therein, they took a sharp breath in when I was already below the waterline. They filled themselves with water, so there was no air in my lungs, no reserve to sustain me while I tried to gather my senses. I was left with no buffer to hold me over. I was drowning. Well and truly drowning.
My limbs tried to flail about, but just like they had in the air, it did not help me but entangled me further into my own clothes. The cold seeped deeper into me, siphoning what little energy I still had. I could do nothing to stop it. I couldn’t do anything but hold my mouth shut as tightly as I could. It kept any more water out, not that I had any bit of air to lose. But it was already too late, by some standards. If I couldn’t get myself out of the water, nothing else mattered.
As precious moments ticked by, my vision grew blurry, but just before I lost the ability to see, my eyes caught a glimpse of the shadows in the water above me. And that in some way is not significant. There are many things in rivers that cast shadows, but I faintly recognized the two above my head. One moved with precision and purpose. He swam right towards me without any hesitation or trouble. Meanwhile, the other drifted for a bit before he stopped and scrambled just beneath the surface.
That was the last time I saw my father alive. I saw the inflexibility of his limbs as he struggled to swim, to paddle, to do anything that would get the both of us out of the water. I saw his last few good kicks just as my Uncle Alfonso’s hands hit my arm. I was safe then, my dad might have said. Uncle Alfonso was always fond of me. He would have never let me drown. Maybe that was why Dad stopped trying to swim or paddle. Maybe he saw my rescue and let his limbs go limp.