"Daddy, it's me. Deneitra"

I'm not sure what I expected to find, but I know what I wanted to happen.
I wanted him to hear my voice, recognize my eyes and WILL himself back to this world,
a world he left on Wednesday, December 16th.


Whenever my mother and I spoke by phone, she mentioned how good my dad looked.
"Your father is still such a handsome man," she would say.
But would I see what she saw?


During our short drive over to the nursing home, I phoned a friend, someone who had seen my father since his incarceration.
"Gwen," I asked. "It will be my first time seeing him like this. Mother keeps telling me how handsome Daddy looks. You've visited him. What do you think?"

I don't remember how Gwen answered. It didn't matter. It had taken her too long to respond.
Besides, I was pulling into the parking lot and my mother had already pointed out a parking space for me to take.


I was about to find out for myself.


I did recognize my father, but not as the man I'd kissed good-bye just two days before his collapse in December;
and not as the man I'd visited over the summer, with the entire HutchBunch in-tow. What had he told Jeff?
...that this was the best day he'd had in a long time?
Did he know something that we didn't?


Watching him lay in bed, body not quite straight; mouth twisted like one of those "old" men in a nursing homes; hands clinched and curled like claws - I stood waiting...
waiting for his gaze to meet mine,
to capture me,
to remember.


I stood immobile long enough to notice the curl of his lashes, long and thick. My sister has those lashes, I thought. I looked for the freckles I counted as a child.

"Daddy, it's me. Deneitra. I came to visit you."


Was he there? Did he know that I was?

I had questions without answers.
This is not what I expected.
This is not what I'd hope would happen.
I left his room that evening, wondering if he'd ever rejoin this world.