May 20th, 2010. One of the hardest days of my life. Usually, one cannot pinpoint the day that your life takes a turn for the worse, but I can. This was the day I lost my father. He didn’t die. In fact, he is still very much alive. Alive, walking and talking, but not exactly making sense.

Life: the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. If someone is a carcass, dead inside, but still breathing, does that mean they are still alive? If the only way they are living is the endless bottles of pills filling kitchen cabinets and crowding the nightstand, do they still count as a human?

The human body is fragile. So fragile that a tablet, a centimeter in length, red and white in color, can bring it down. A pill, supposedly making you better, instead results in pain, heartache, and death. Death of the mind, but not death of the body.

“He’s in the hospital, Emily.”

The phone hits the crib hard, and ricochets underneath the dresser. I stand there for a moment, swaying in the wake of reality. For a moment, the baby stops crying. Everything freezes. I’m trapped in one of those movie moments where the tear falls right on cue, except I can’t cry on command. So instead, I just sway uneasily on my feet, teetering considerably either way. When I look up, Maddi has the phone in one hand and the baby in the other. She is nodding slowly and pacing back and forth, trying to stop the crying. It isn’t working.
I falter down the downstairs, distract the child with a show, and sit with Maddi at the kitchen table, my mother on speakerphone.

“He’s fine physically, but the anti-depressants messed with his mind and he’s having severe hallucinations.” Severe, hah. My definition of “severe” is not crying in the middle of the street, being in a hospital for months.

“I don’t know when he’s gonna to be home. We’ll go see him tomorrow.” My mother’s voice breaks vulnerably. “They aren’t allowing any visitors for 24 hours while he is under observation.” There goes another shard of my being.

“Is he okay Mom? Not okay, but okay?” I attach false hope to something that I already know the answer to. He isn’t okay. He’ll never be.

“We’ll talk about it later. I’m driving to the hospital right now to fill out paperwork.”
Just over 24 hours later, I sat. Side by side with my sister. In a hospital room that I didn’t want to be in. The white walls brainwashed me into numbness. A nature program showing bears in their natural habitat played silently in the upper right corner of the white walls. Rotten urine odors hung in the air, mixed with Lysol and hand sanitizer. It smelled of pain and sanitation, and there was this heavy feeling in the air of tears and last words. It made me morose to be in this place. The doctor took a deep breath in, as though trying to make sense of our messed-up world.

“Thomas came in yesterday and he spoke to the nurses about bears, dragons, and monsters, and his best friend in his backyard. I assume that none of this is true, considering the amount of medications that he is under. Am I correct?”

“You are.” My mother repositions herself in the cracked leather seat, seemingly uncomfortable.

“To ensure his safety and the safety of others around him, we are advising that Thomas be kept in this hospital until further action can be taken.” My father was an animal in a sterilized zoo. His own zoo that contained warped perceptions of bears, dragons, and monsters. He was a danger to the world around him; a danger to himself. My father had seen his last day of freedom.

A few months later, June 3, 2010, my father was once again carted to another place that made him count his days left. 1805 Kensington Drive, Waukesha, WI.

Hell.

This is where my father would sit everyday of his life until the summer of 2013.

Leaving is always the hardest part about going. It’s a fact of life. You may hate having to go, and there may be bumpy roads along the way, but once you get there, leaving is always that hardest part. My father’s and my relationship was in no way perfect; no relationship is. But the largest part of me was lost on that day when my mother, my sister, and I drove away. We left him there. I sat in the back seat, my body turned completely the wrong way, trying to catch a lasting glimpse of the man that I loved. He just stood. The glare from the sun hit the glass in such a way that made his body disappear, but his head stay perfect. His face had aged 10 years that day. It now sagged in all the wrong places for a 57 year old man. The bags under his eyes drooped lower and lower down his face and the lines connecting his nose and mouth became valleys. This aged man was no longer my father; this man had lost his sparkle in his eye, and all that was gray ashes. Tears gathered in my lower lid and silently slid down my face, and I took a gulping breath of air. He just stood. His face emotionless just watching me leave. I was his girl, his Emmy Jo, his life, his reason to live, but now since I was gone, he didn’t have one. I felt a hand on my bare knee as another breath forced its way into my lungs.

“Aw, Em. don’t cry honey. It’s better this way.” Better for who, Mom? My heart was scattered all over the bottom of my chest cavity. This surely wasn’t to my benefit, and from what I believed, it wasn’t to his either.

It was not to his benefit. When Thomas Giombi, now age 60, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2002, the doctors said that he still would have 20 good years left in him. He didn’t have half of that. He had eight good years. He could have made it 20, but he didn’t. That day when he found out was his last day of freedom. His last day of mental stability. The last day of his life. In his mind, this is how it was. That was his last perfectly good day. From there, he fell, and fell hard. The steep decline was one of those that the emergency brake was needed. Every month, I could see his steady trudge become slower and slower and the well-oiled gears in his mind rust with medication. I saw him dying.

May 20th, 2010. The day my father died.

What is even worse is that every time I go to visit him, a piece of me dies too. Even after all of the death, every moment is worth it. Every step: a success, a word: a victory. He hasn’t taken his last breath, and I don’t think he will: as least for a little while. Life is a thing of beauty, no matter the form or condition. With this beauty comes pain and loss and everything else life entails. Even though we are tortured everyday by this thing we call life, we still choose to love it.
And I think that is beautiful.