Take Me to the Sea

“Take me to the sea.”

My dad’s voice jolted me awake. Somehow, I’d slept through the beeping of the heart monitor all night, but as soon as my dad whispered those words I was awake. It was all dark in the hospital room; the moon was beginning to fade in the window behind me. I turned to look outside and the sky was black and starless. I began to think I was dreaming that my dad spoke. I closed my eyes again. I didn’t need to watch over my dad if the moon was on the job.

The armchair was some ancient fabric loosely folded over faux mahogany. It was probably plastic and painted to look expensive. I rubbed circular patterns on the fabric with my eyes closed, thinking about how Katherine probably knew exactly what it was. I saw her explain to me that it was some terrible combination of nylon and a word I could never pronounce. She told me on our first date that as a Sagittarius she was naturally curious. I had to pretend I cared about a lot of things she pretended to know. When she spoke in my dreams, the heart monitor sounded like her voice. Then, my dad’s voice woke me again.

“Son.”

I grabbed his hand in both of mine, holding on gently, and watched his aged eyes emerge from behind his eyelids. They had turned gray in his age, like the sky when it rains. I could no longer see the green I’d known so well as a kid.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

My dad sat up and took the pulse oximeter off his finger. He pulled the tubes away from his nose and swung his feet off his bed, sending the heart monitor into a frenzy. But, his breathing was calm.

“Dad, you’ve gotta lay back down.” I tried to usher him back into his bed, but he pushed my hands away.

“Take me to the ocean, son,” was all he said. Over and over.

He stood on the linoleum floor, bracing himself with my hand. Panic set in my mind to the tune of the heart monitor until my dad pulled the pads off his chest. The beeping became a single screech. I unplugged it from the wall and it was quiet again. My dad laughed at that. So did I.

Katherine probably would have told me that it was because I was a Cancer that I was helping my dad. But, I didn’t care what she thought. Why did I think of her, though? 

I remember that Katherine had four friends, or maybe three, that went to nursing school and then two became nurses. One of those quit after a year to write horoscopes. So, the one friend Katherine had in hospitals made her an expert on all things healthcare when she lived with me. Somehow, I remembered, too, that she told me when shift changes were. And when nurses were most tired. 

When I opened the door to the hallway, there was no one outside. The placard on the door had my dad’s name written in Expo marker and he erased it with his sleeve.

“We have to hide our identities. Like secret agents. Do you remember that game?,” he laughed.

“Yeah. It was my favorite,” I said.

“Mine, too.” He paused. “The ocean, boy.”

I draped my dad’s arm over me to help him get away. It felt almost like a hug, and I’ll admit, I wanted it to be. He hadn’t hugged me since he’d been admitted here. Katherine never hugged me, either. Not anymore, at least. The warmth was more than welcome in the cold and dark of the hospital.

A bit of light snuck in through the windows as we ran together to the car. We managed to evade every nurse all the way to the parking lot. I kept wishing the whole time Katherine was there to be disappointed in me.

I lowered him into the car and he said, “You don’t have to grab me. I’ll do it by myself.” His face was pale, but he smiled as he lowered himself into the car.

I still shut the door for him. The moon was now nearly gone, and the sky was changing colors above us. I could see it’s silhouette behind the clouds like it was waiting for us to finish our night before it went to sleep. The moon has always been kind to my dad and I.

The lights on my car lit up the whole parking lot and I saw hundreds of other cars. I guess I forgot that there were other people in the hospital. I’ll bet other people were dying today, probably faster than my dad. Someone sat up groggily in the car in front of me with a blanket over them, sleeping away the final hours of some loved one and I interrupted them. Mine were the only lights in the parking lot, like some sort of beacon for the dead and dying who wouldn’t leave in these cars. 

My dad was leaving, though. When I looked over at him, he was smiling.

The sky was brightening as we approached the beach. The moon had hidden behind clouds, but not yet gone away; I could see the small circle lingering in the sky. Katherine used to put moon patterns on some of her art, I remember. It was always something that could never happen, like the moon bigger than the earth or something. But, I never told her what I really thought. I always lied and said I loved it. 

I lied to my dad, too, as I helped him out of the car. “You’re gonna be alright, dad,” I said.

He grunted in reply. The only person who could ever see through my lies. Not that I did it a lot, but when you spend so much time with someone, you see all sides of them. He’d caught me lying since I was a kid; he knew me up and down. I looked at my dying father and realized he’d probably seen me do much worse. And he still smiled when I helped him down the beach.

When we got to the water he dropped my hand and moved on his own. I stayed a few paces behind. He kicked sand around his feet into the water and waved at the moon as it passed away. I laughed as he began to sing, like he was coaxing the sun up the horizon. 

The only thing Katherine ever told me about the sky that I believed was that the sun was hopeful. Whenever the sun came up, it meant new beginnings. It was bright and happy, a symbol of good things to come. Katherine never told my dad, but he seemed to know it, too. He sang “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles and danced small circles in the surf.

We walked along the water together and it washed over our feet, cold in the early morning. I looked over at my dad. He took in a long, salty breath and looked back at me. His eyes were green again, and in them I saw the reflection of the sea.

Katherine hated the beach. That’s why it never worked. This is where Dad and I lived. When mom left all those years ago, Dad taught me to swim on this beach in St. Augustine. Then how to surf just down the coast in Cocoa Beach. All we’d ever needed was each other. Katherine was that way at first. But, it was always about something else, an omen or fortune in the sky, never about what was real. She would look at the sun and ask it what it wanted to tell us. I saw the sun rise with my dad that day with tears in my eyes.

My dad sat down and grabbed my hand. I sat in the sand with him, looking out at the sun coming up over the clouds and thought about the sun. It was smiling at us.

“Thank you,” Dad said after some time.

I couldn’t say anything.

Dad lay back on the sand and looked up at the purple sky fading into red. He patted the sand and said, “Why don’t you rest with me a minute?”

I lay back and closed my eyes. This is where I came when I married Katherine, and then again when I left her. I played those moments on the back of my eyelids, then saw my dad’s face with the rest of my life.

“Are you okay, Dad?” I asked.

“I’ll be just fine.”

The waves began to pick up. I got up to look over the ocean and saw the sun peek over the horizon. The new beginning shone on the water like Heaven was gonna come down on us any minute. My dad took one deep breath in the ocean air, then passed away right next to me.

I’m writing this from that beach, just a week later. I’m sitting in the sand, in the same spot where I did when my dad died. The sun is setting behind me now, but it’s breath is on the ocean in front of me. The waves are telling me that he’s okay and some of the birds have come down to sit next to me as I watch the sky change colors.

“The sun is our friend. Don’t forget that. If you can feel the sun, you’ll always be home.” My dad told me that once. I think it’s worth remembering.

There is no sorrow in my heart. I think gratitude is the right word. His spirit is here in the sand and just there in the water. When night comes on, it’ll be in the stars. Then, the sun will rise in front of me and I’ll see him again.

He is always with me at the sea.