Comfort Rain

It started to rain this morning and it took me back to seventeen years ago. 

I am Ruth, I am seven years old and I will be turning eight in December. I like to wake up early everyday so I can watch cartoons before I go to school. Today I woke up extra early so I can watch Sherlock Holmes. I had breakfast and got ready for school. My older brother and I walk to school. It’s not that far away so we go early and play on the swings at the park. It was raining today so we didn’t get to play. Hopefully by recess it stops raining.  

I remember that I hated school, everyday I pretended that my stomach was hurting so that they would send me home. I think it’s kind of funny how much this actually worked. I even remember going to the doctor and the doctor telling me he needed to open my stomach to see what was wrong. I was so committed to the scenario that I agreed to it. My mom and my grandma stopped believing me so they wouldn’t come pick me up anymore. I would stay in the nurse’s office all day long and eventually I began helping her. 

This morning my stomach was actually hurting. It was bad. I tried telling my teacher but I had already gone to the nurse everyday last week. She just told me to wait, so I did. I wasn’t at school for a long time before I heard my name get called. They also called my brother’s name. Maybe we had a dentist appointment that my mom forgot to tell us about? I actually like the dentist. I never have cavities and the dentist is so funny. They also give me candy when we’re done. 

I packed up my stuff and put my backpack on and walked to the office. My class isn’t where it used to be because it had rained ice and the roof fell. We didn’t go to school for a week! For right now my class is in a bungalow. It was farther to walk but Ms. Lomax was there to make sure I went to the office. Ms. Lomax is the yard lady. She tells us when recess is over. Sometimes she’s nice, sometimes she’s mean but I like her. 

I passed by Ms. Nelson’s office and said hi to her. She has always been so nice to me. I saw my neighbor at the office. Why is Mabel here? Her kids don’t come here anymore! Did she forget that they went to middle school already? I ran up to her and hugged her. She hugged me back but she looked sad. I heard my mom but she was crying. What happened? She couldn’t tell me what was wrong because her crying was so bad. The last time I saw my mom cry she accidentally cut her fingernail off. She was chopping wood.

I saw my brother come running towards us. He saw my mom cry and looked at me like saying, “What happened?” I just shrugged my shoulders because I don’t know why she’s crying. 

I replay the look that my brother gave me. I looked at each other and nervously smiled because we both were confused. Deep inside my stomach was still hurting. Even today I feel a knot in my stomach that I felt that day. On this day I wasn’t lying about my stomach ache. I think subconsciously I knew what happened but I was only a kid, my mind couldn’t understand it. 

We walked home and Mabel was holding on to my mom to help her walk. We only lived two blocks away from school but walking back home today felt so long. Maybe we were walking slowly. Usually my brother and I race home but today we didn’t. We got closer to the house and I saw all my neighbors at my house. There were more people than when we had parties! I ran inside and there were so many people I had to squish through them. I knew that Doña Consuelo was here because I could smell her. She smells like beer and sweat. Doña Consuelo is this lady that likes to get drunk and she picks up cans and sells them for money. She would always bring me toys that she found but my mom would never let me keep them. I had to push her a little bit so I could get to him. 

That’s all I really wanted. I wanted to get to him. Because I believe that deep inside I knew that something had already been taken away from me but I needed to just touch him. I believed that if I held his hand, I could somehow transfer some of my life into him. 

The ambulance was already there and they were checking him, but I wanted to hold his hand. I reached to grab his hand but someone picked me up and took me outside. I wasn’t supposed to see him like that but I knew that he would wake up if I held his hand. 

I remember Doña Consuelo said, “He opened his eyes! He woke up!” I wanted to run back in to see but my grandma didn’t let me go. Someone told Doña Consuelo to shut up. I thought that was funny. 

They covered him with a white blanket and took him to the ambulance. It was still raining. I know the doctors are smart and they will find a way to make him better. 

Yesterday my dad called me to the room and gave me a big hug. He said that I need to be strong and he told me not to cry. 

He knew he was dying. It’s not until now that I realize that that was his goodbye to me. His exact words were in Spanish. “No tienes que llorar. Tienes que ser fuerte. Siempre has sido una hembrita valiente. No vayas a llorar.” (You don’t need to cry. You have to be strong. You’ve always been a strong female. You better not cry.) That was only part of what he said. As a kid, I was optimistic about my dad because there was so much that I didn’t know. 

I know that my dad has been sick. Something was wrong with his stomach because he didn’t eat breakfast and drank too much beer. He had surgery twice already so it had to be better. Last year they opened him up from his chest all the way down to his stomach. He got staples all the way down. My mom got mad at him because he pulled out the staples by himself. He was in the hospital not too long ago but I think he is better because they sent him home with us. The nurse even showed my brother and I how to change the bag of medicine that goes in the needle on his hand. She said that it makes him feel better. 

I know that my dad is sick but my dad said not to cry so that means that he’s going to get better. 

My dad first had ulcers then he was diagnosed with cancer in his stomach. He went for two surgeries but the second one they looked inside and closed him back up. The cancer had spread everywhere and there was nothing more they could do. They gave him two weeks to live. He lived four weeks. 

 In his last days my dad was eating more. Of course, as a child I thought this meant that he was getting better. In reality he just wanted to savor his favorite foods before he was gone. 

My dad has been in the hospital for two weeks now and I haven't been able to go see him. Every time he goes to the hospital they put him on the second floor next to the window. They don’t always let him in to see us but we stay in the parking lot and wait for him to come up to the window. He usually goes by the window and waves at us. The last time he was here, I got sick too. He was on the second floor and I was on the third floor but they didn’t let him come see me! I already miss my dad but I am also excited that I’m going to meet his family. My grandma and I are going to Guatemala to go meet his family. We’re leaving tomorrow in the morning. 

We were going to bury him in Guatemala. I didn’t know that until the day of the service. 

You would think that in seventeen years I would’ve had plenty of time to process the loss and recover from it. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you that I haven’t. I still feel like a seven year old me waiting for my dad to come home. 

I still secretly hope that one day he would walk through the door and say “Hey, I’m not really dead.” For some reason it feels like a very attainable fantasy. 

I hadn’t processed the loss but today I will, because today I feel the same way I felt seventeen years ago. My dad died on Monday, September 20, 2004. Today is Monday, September 20 and it feels like my dad is dying today. I have lived a full life without him but I hadn’t let go. 

I am letting him go today. I am letting go of the “what ifs”. What if he had never died? I can come up with a million outcomes of what it would be like but the reality is, he is never coming back. 

Technically we are still in summer, and it never rains in the summer but it is raining today. It occurs to me that the rain has always been the comfort that I've needed. I was crying in my car but I rather stand in the rain. If I cry in the rain, the rain will wash away my seventeen year old tears.