The Death of Our Father
On August 29, 2008, our father died. He had been diagnosed with Stage IV stomach cancer at the beginning of the year and, despite a heroic attempt to heal himself, he succumbed. Neither of us lived near our father, though we visited him regularly during his illness. When our family phoned us to quickly come home to see him before he passed, Linda-Marie flew from Asheville, NC, arriving the next morning and Diane flew halfway across the world from Beijing. He died while Diane was still on her way to him. In each of our articles, we address his death and touch upon his life and our love for him.
True Love
Linda-Marie Barrett
I watched my father die nine years ago. My mother, older sister, two brothers and I held him as he passed; we prayed from a found book of Catholic prayers, chanting words we knew would comfort him, filling emptiness we couldn’t bear otherwise. In private conversations earlier that day, we’d told him in our own ways how much we loved him. We hoped he could hear us; he was so drugged on morphine that his open eyes were unseeing and his only communication was loud, anguished moaning. Yet at the very end, when my mother looked into his eyes and shared a strength that a lifetime of marriage had nourished between them, my father looked at peace. Those moments were the most intense, beautiful, and profound of my life.
Mooncakes
Diane Barrett
Writing about my father is a way of connecting to him, his spirit. It is incredibly difficult as I feel my emotions immediately whipped up in his prominent role in my life. Although he isn’t here, his connection, his guidance, his deep and abiding belief in my goodness remain alive, still informing and influencing me. As we consider my Dad’s passing, I wonder why some experiences happen the way they do. Traveling home from Beijing to say goodbye to my father for the last time was ripe with delays and challenges, like trying to get through customs to catch the last leg of my trip home. As I went through customs, the agent told me she needed to check if my mooncakes had egg yolks. She asked me if I knew which ones had egg yokes. As I didn’t, she began to break apart one mooncake at a time. I lost it after the third mooncake. I screamed at the custom agent through my tears to look at the few items in my bag. “Do you not see the black dress?”