Laura and I visited Dad daily. For the first few weeks, every day we visited, his clothes were piled high on his bed. His winter coat crowned the mound of clothes. We were told that when Dad woke up, the first thing he did was get ready to leave.
“Boys? Boys?” Dad asked, at the top of his voice, as soon as he saw us. His hearing aids still hadn’t arrived. Consequently, his voice boomed a hundred decibels louder than everyone else’s. We felt sorry for Dad’s roommate—a gentle soul who always smiled but never said a word.
Summer turned to autumn, then to winter.
Our boys brought Dad a large poster of the Minions to hang on his bare wall. The little bright yellow creatures, with magnified eyes, spouting gibberish, were the joy of Dad and the boys as they watched the movie together time and time again.
Our regular visits to Dad turned into rituals as we stopped at the canteen to buy Coca-Cola and Kit Kat, his favorites.
Sister O’Reilly, in charge of the ward, made sure each resident was given enough attention by her staff. She still found time to chat with us and update us.
“You said you wanted Kassare, his nickname, on his door? Your dad’s complaining. He wants it changed to Remy.”
“Remy? That’s what they must have called him at work.”
A day later, she came to us again. “Your dad keeps raiding the freezer for ice cream.”
Laura laughed. “Like father, like son.”
Weeks later, Nurse O’Reilly rushed to their side, her face caught between a smile and a frown. “Remy tried to escape. He waited at the door and followed a couple out.”
I recoiled. “How did you find him?”
“He asked the receptionist to order him a cab.”
Dad’s first anniversary at Cedars came and went. By now, he considered himself King of the Walk. He had made so many friends and was back to his old gregarious self. It helped that, little by little, his medication had been adjusted for the better. Once again, Dad hid his hearing aids, despising them. But eerily, he seemed to understand what was being said to him. Was he lip-reading? I took Dad roaming in a wheelchair, up and down the hallways. Every now and then, Dad hailed someone by name. Whether it was their real name or not, I never found out, too embarrassed to ask.
One day, an orderly came up to us, perplexed. “Remy asks for paper and pencil every day. Then he writes down the license plates of cars parked in front of his window.”
Smiling, I answered, “At the end of each shift at his parking lot, Remy always prepared a list of car plates to hand over to the next shift worker.”
One Sunday morning, a month after Dad’s anniversary, I went on my own to visit him. Dad was sleeping, emitting the occasional soft snore. For once, he was at peace. It was such a relief not to see Dad’s clothes piled up on his bed, ready to leave. He had created an environment around him of people he connected with, who liked him too. And he suffered no pain.
It was time to leave. I left his usual Coke and Kit Kat beside his bed and told the nurse I would return later.
“Could you please buy him another pair of sweatpants?” she asked.
I drove Laura to church, then to Dim Sum at Regency Palace in Chinatown. From there, we headed to Chinook Mall and Hudson’s Bay to buy Dad’s pants.
My phone rang.
Later, I couldn’t remember the exact words, just a gentle, sympathetic voice telling me, “Your dad died in his sleep.”
An ocean of memories drowned me. Dad on his blessed Vespa, collecting me from soccer practice in Africa; tropical evenings spent buying luscious fruit and snacks outside our mosque in Dar es Salaam; Dad’s overwhelming zest for living, transforming every mundane task and moment into something memorably special. His mischief. I measured my own disciplined methods of raising my boys against those of my freewheeling father. I wondered how much joy I had instilled in my boys, sadly a pittance compared to what Dad had bestowed upon me during those precious summer months spent visiting him each year in Africa.
In the middle of the store, Laura wailed and wept inconsolably. Too stricken with grief, I could shed no tears until much later.
