This Is My Story

|| Just spill it ||

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y
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318

My hand hovers over the doorknob of the room 318 of the third floor of the hospital, but I can't bring myself to open it. I don't want to see him this way.

Isn't it funny, how one hour, one minute, even one second is sufficient to change your entire life. How it can reduce someone as strong and honest as my dad to a lifeless body on a mattress.

I see many nurses pass near me, giving me curious looks and that's what makes me turn the doorknob and push open the door. I hate being this much observed.

I do not recognize him at first and am about to turn on my heels and walk away.

He is paler than how he used to be, his lips colourless, his features more relaxed. I take a few steps toward him, then sit on a chair next to his bed. It's so quiet and I'm grateful he's not in a shared room - he would have hated it. I can't help but realize how bad a daughter I have been. I never went to visit him since he has been hospitalized, not even once.

It's weird, because I always liked to picture myself as a strong and independent woman, but lately, I found this part of my personality where I'm such a coward and I don't like it at all.

Even when he's asleep, I feel nervous being in his presence. He's my dad and I admire him, but I don't know if I really love him like a daughter should.

I remember when I was younger and I will pray to whoever was up there, for him to come to the parents meeting just to hear all the great things that the teachers will say about me, because at the time, I was still a very good student. Time passed and he never find the need to come because Matt's meeting were held at the same time and he always chose his son over his daughter. Time passed and I became less and less interested in class. I mean, who would I make an effort for? My own dad didn't care. He looked at my grades and signed the exams and reprimanded me when he had to, but his heart was never really there, but as a kid, I was always so desperate for his attention. Maybe if I fail this class he'll talk to me? It maybe seems silly, but it's the sad truth. Despite all my efforts, we never really bonded. We never meant to.

That's maybe why I do not feel much things right now, sitting on this uncomfortable plastic chair, next to him on his hospital bed in a deep permanent sleep.

I straighten myself and clear my throat. The silence is beginning to bother me. It's like if my conscience is taking this chance to scream at me. I've read in books that sometimes, talking to a patient in a coma can actually help them, that they can hear you. So that's what I do.

"These last days have been hell." I begin, looking around uncomfortably. Anywhere but at him. "I don't know what to do, how to act. Is it horrible to say that I'm acting like nothing happened? I'm sorry I didn't come to see you. I couldn't. Seeing you like this... It's terrifying. Isn't it weird, how life can be this unpredictable? You could be a doctor and still be run over by a drunk driver. Boom. In an instant, you are no more. Even your knowledge can't do anything to keep you from dying. Just like the ant you step over in the middle of the sidewalk or the flower you picked up from the ground, but you're different dad. You're still alive, breathing." I hear my voice crack. "You're all I have left."

I place my hand over my mouth, muffling my sob. I feel like a little girl again, watching my mother struggling and not understanding that she'll soon disappear from my life. I feel like the young woman I was a year ago, watching my brother, my best friend, laying on the cold bed, lifeless. Now, I am me, in the present, watching my dad's life slowly slipping from my fingers, just like water.