I got the call about 4:30 p.m. on Monday. The message was simple, my father was in the hospital and it was unlikely he would leave. I was not surprised, for my father has been ill for a long time and so there was no painful emotion of shock. My only thought as I stood in the baking sun was that my father would never stand in it with me again and that he was afraid.

We were never close and in the past several years we hardly had any contact at all. I somehow feel guilty and ashamed of this fact now that it is too late to do anything about it. It was after all my stubborn pride that kept us apart. My father was mentally ill, with deep seated neuroses and terrible bouts of depression. He was also very like a child in many ways. It is those child-like ways that disturb me the most as I write this. I know that he is afraid to die. Afraid of not being forgiven enough, not being “saved”, going to hell. He could never be swayed in his belief in God and now I fear that very belief is causing him terror in his last hours on Earth.

I wish that I could tell him that there is nothing to fear in death. I wish he would believe me when I say that it is only another part of life, the last great adventure that we all must undertake. I know that he understands that his mortal body will return to the dust from which it was created, but I wish he could understand the beauty in that and not be afraid. His constituent molecules will, in time, travel to all of the places he longed to see. From the highest mountains to the depths of the oceans, he will at last explore the entirety of the Earth. I wish he could take comfort in the fact that the calcium in his bones will one day be the calcium in a child, fresh to the world, at the beginning of the adventure of life. Perhaps some of those molecules will make up the bones of a sightless deep sea fish that roams the corridors of the Titanic. One of his fascinations in life.

I will try to see him before the end. Before he embarks on that final journey. I will try to find words of comfort when I look into his brown eyes, I will try not to cry. Words come so very easy to me, but not this night and not tomorrow.

Daddy, I am sorry that I was not there for you when I should have been. I am sorry that my pride kept me from telling you this before. I will always remember, as you do, the day we took Alex the Black Lab for a ride in my convertible and stopped at Sonic to buy him a burger for being a good boy. I will hold fast to that memory because it is a good one, it was a good day. I saw you laughing as the wind tousled your graying hair, and for the first time in a long time I saw a light in your eyes.

Please don’t be afraid, because you will live forever. I have stories to tell of you and they will be passed on to your grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Here, on the web, something you never saw and never understood, you are immortal. You will finally be free of the prison of your own mind and the dark things that haunted you. You will become creation, the very stuff of new life. Don’t be afraid Daddy, just close your eyes and remember the feel of the wind on your face and Alex’s fur under your hand. Remember the sound of classic rock on a late fall afternoon when the sun was beginning to turn in for the night and the horizon was a golden glow. Think of that horizon, and go and get it.

I love you,

Connor