I went to visit because my sister said he didn’t look good. I was in denial and told myself that my sister was overly-dramatic. But I knew I had to go soon, so I changed my plans and called T, my partner from work, from the airline gate. The call is still a sharp memory for me, maybe because of the way T extended herself so genuinely, telling me to take my time. I can see the early morning light in the terminal. The hard whiteness of it. The blue carpet. It’s all there like an anchor in my mind.

When I got to North Carolina, he was fragile and sleeping a lot. We had not seen each other in a while because he and mom had decided not to come out the year before. Dog shows and social commitments had tied them down. My own children had kept us in California.

The Easter before was the last time the previous spring. I still have a picture from the visit, a shot from their country club patio, taken when we still squandered time like it was a fathomless body of water we could drink from without thinking of what we were drinking.

I sat in the chair he’d inherited from his aunt Helen when his mother died 20 years before. It’d been re-covered many times since, but was still solid and good, a simple wooden arm chair. light and feminine with restrained colonial carvings. Comfortable. Familiar. Strong. A family chair that held its own stories.

He lay propped up in bed as we talked, mostly about my siblings and my mother. He explained how he split the money up, how it all went to my mother. There was a plan for it all and he drew out the details on an apartment he bought for my youngest brother. He explained how he’d paid off a house for my sister to relieve her finances in the midst of a tough divorce.

And he talked about her a lot. She was still alone then, fighting the father of her children for everything, a man who’d lied to her about who he was and was now hiding everything he had. He worried about her depression, and I read it as a signal to me to look after her, to help her as I could.

He said the only thing he regretted was not being able “to see how it all turned out.” His kids. His grandkids. He enjoyed seeing the story of lives unfolding. And without saying it I knew how deeply he loved them all.

It put a new angle on my respect and love for him that I’m not sure I know how to explain. If nothing else it was a generous and amazing gift of a reminder to pay attention to what is happening.

Anyway, I showed him a film I was working on and he was quiet like usual, keeping whatever criticism he had over it to himself.

Then I left and for the rest of weekend I saw him only when he came out of the room. An egg for breakfast. A visit with the young hospice nurse who was attractive on her own, but wore pants that were painted on and that I could see he was happy to look at. (I’ll admit I definitely gave her a double take.)

By the time I put my bags back in the dark rented Mustang, he’d turned yellow and was beginning to look hollow. It rained on the drive back to the airport.

The last time I saw him was on a Facetime call from the lobby of the church the Shotgun Players had turned into a theatre. H was doing a show and I came in the rehearsal break. It was L’s birthday. He was turning 1. We brought cake to the cast and then my Dad called and I took the call. He sang happy birthday to L who looked wide eyed and cooed at the square of light holding my father’s face. It was a bit chaotic and I thanked him but apologized.

“Love you,” he said.

“Love you, too,” I said and hung up.

H cried after, shaking ever so slightly the way she does when something has happened and shifted in the depths.

He didn’t want a funeral. Or anything close to a ceremony. Even after years of kneeling in a Catholic church, he was unconvinced of anything after. It was not a rejection, but from his bed it seemed more a simple acceptance that even so close to the edge, there was nothing known about what was next except that he would not be in this place.