I’m Always With You

The feeling that was gripping Yuen’s heart as she pulled the comforter up around her chin was heavy - like an elephant was sitting on her chest. Her nose caught a whiff of something that was unmistakably her father, though he last used that comforter and pillow six months ago. It had been six months since he could sleep in his own bed, and three months since an insipid brain tumor shut his body down and took him away from her.

She was sleeping in her dad’s bed because she’d flown home to help her mother prepare to leave the home they’d shared for more than 30 years. Yuen also spent the first 23 years of her life here. 

The aching in her chest never left the entire day she spent with her mother. Indeed, every vantage point in this house reminded her of what used to be and could be no longer. 

She lay her head down and could still smell the stale dandruff that had drifted from his head seemingly so long ago. Her mother never slept with the bedside lamp completely off these days. It was a remnant of her final months with dad, when that tumor took away his cognition in such a way he couldn’t find his way back to bed after going to the bathroom. She feared so much at that time. The fear, however unreasonable, still lingered.

She’d turned the knob to LOW, dimming it to the bare minimum and had drifted into a restless sleep already, so Yuen closed her eyes.

There was just darkness, but it didn’t frighten Yuen. She was curious and peered closer. A shape began to loom through the endless black and seemed to multiply around a single focal point. Yuen felt like she was looking through a kaleidoscope. The shapes rotated slowly, coalescing into of all things, the form of her father, who moved toward her with arms open.

Yuen felt such joy and being able to see him and feel his warm and comforting embrace again. The narrative of her father’s long battle with glioblastoma was forever embedded in her head, but seeing him in front of her, healthy and smiling, superseded any concern she had about his health.

“Dad, I missed you.”

“Me too, Bao Bei.”

“I’m so glad you came to see me,” Yuen declared. “How are you doing?”

“I’m well,” he replied. His words were few, but the warmth coming from his face - and his eyes in particular - gave Yuen such peace she didn’t waste time on idle conversation.

In the quiet, Yuen took advantage of the opportunity to assess him. In his last days, he could no longer walk. He had a catheter in place. His eyes were hollow, and he had even pushed her away from him when she tried to keep him from leaving his bed, certain he’d fall to the floor (which he did). He even tried to eat a napkin in a rare moment when he could sit still with the family at the dinner table.

He no longer resembled that sick man ingrained in her memory at all. He appeared youthful, Yuen thought, almost like the pictures of him from when she was still a toddler. He walked upright and strong. Most assuredly, his face was open, his eyes were kind, and he looked like her dad again.

Yuen thought of the grandparents who had also passed away in the last few years. He was alone here with her. “What about the others?” Yuen asked. “Why can you come see me but they aren’t here?”

Her father replied somewhat cryptically, “sometimes people go into the hospital not knowing they’ll never come out again.”

In her head, Yuen tried to jog her memory of how her grandparents had all passed. I don’t think that’s accurate, she thought internally, as one grandfather - her dad’s dad - clearly knew he wasn’t coming back out. But it seemed like such an insignificant detail to quibble over.

“Can you please stay with me?” Yuen pleaded with him. “Don’t go away. Can you stay here?”

“I’m always with you,” he said conclusively.

The kaleidoscope re-emerged, and instantly, her father disassembled into many pieces and faded away.

Yuen awoke a little disoriented but quickly realized she wasn’t in her own home but in her father’s bed.

The visitation was not the freshest thing in her mind, but given a few moments to assess what was happening, a feeling of warmth and joy flooded her heart. Finally, she thought. He came to me. She lay in his bed and breathed in deeply, willing the visitation to resume, but coming to her senses it was a wonderful dream and most likely a figment of her own mind wishing to see her father again.

It was only then it occurred to her it was still dark out. 

She reached over to turn on the bedside lamp.

The knob was turned completely to OFF, and her mom was still asleep on the other side.