We Never Called Him Dad

I knew my father was ill. Very ill. I received a phone call from a friend of the family in Palestine in late June informing me that my father didnt have long to live. In spite of having come back from a month long trip in Colombia just recently, I felt it was duty to go see my father even if just to say goodbye.

I booked a flight almost immediately and headed over to see him. I was told that he seemed fine almost two weeks earlier but that he had fallen and that something in his brain completely shut down. He was awake, in bed but barely able to recognize those around him. He was able to mumble some words from time to time. I was never sure if he knew if I was in the room or not. There were some people that he seemed to be able to converse with even if just mumblings. At times, he barely acknowledged me although it appeared that he was able to recognize everyone else in the room visiting him in the humble house he owned in the West Bank of Palestine.

At times, I felt he was shutting me out...something he did quite often when I was a little boy. He often favored my bigger, brawnier brother over me as a child and his lack of recognition now brought that back up for me. Maybe I was imagining it, maybe it's a still unresolved childhood issue I've unknowingly carried around with me. Maybe he truly didn't recognize me although at one point, we did have a conversation about Allentown, Pennsylvania where I had grown up as a teenager. He recalled people and individuals in our conversation but I have no idea if he knew I was his son. Maybe he did.

I went to see him as he lay dying before my eyes. I knew Palestine, being the hot inferno that it is in the summer months, would kill him faster. I didnt' think he would make it through the blazing month of August. He did, dying on Sept. 1, at 11:30 a.m.