The Convocation … An Intro on stories on my father

I’m sorry I let you down.

I’m sorry I failed you.

These were the words that I spoke to my dad as he laid in the hospital bed with his mouth open, his eyes closed.

He had passed away. I got there late.

I was told to quickly come over from my job to the VA hospital.

He was already gone when I was told, but I wanted to go see him. I held his hand. My nephew was not that far away, he brought me over. I didn’t want him to hear me either. I didn’t want to speak aloud all the thoughts that were in my mind, all the things I wanted to say. I couldn’t. Because other people would hear, so I had to be discreet and guarded, I felt in this time… How I say things, what I wanted to say.

My dad was 80 years old, and he had a stroke, and he passed away about 45 days from when it happened. He didn’t die from the stroke, per se, but he succumbed to the pneumonia, the fever just wouldn’t go down. I, about a week or so earlier, was in deep thought, thinking of my dad in a shower at the YMCA in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

I kept thinking to myself, don’t let him go yet. Just don’t let him go yet. And saying it aloud, I was alone in the showers.