Two years ago I flew back to Virginia on the first Tuesday of the month, to rejoin my family, return to work, and even (perhaps) make it in time to vote in the Presidential election. Perhaps I suspected, but didn't truly know, that that morning when I left Fletcher Allen hospital for the airport, it would be the last time I would get to see Dad alive, with those bright blue eyes staring weakly out.
The last hug that morning, with me stretching across his elevated frame, I remember still. It probably lasted mere seconds, until a spasm like a cough from inside his chest induced me to let go. At the time I remember jumping back, as if I had been holding him too hard and caused him to cough; I also remember thinking it could just have been an involuntary cough from the irritation of the ventilator tube. Only later did I come to wonder if instead of a cough, that the spasm deep inside may have been a sob instead, at his own knowledge that it would be the last hug we shared.
I still remember that hug, the barrel-chested frame I had to stand on tiptoe to get my left arm over in that elevated ICU bed. I remember trying to hold it all, and eventually, having to let go, and return: to voting, to homework, to spend plans, to what everyday activities in Northern Virginia bring us every day.
I'd just like to get another hug from him now. Please.
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