Athletech

This bag has lived a long full life. Its forest green nylon webbing straps are still as sturdy as the day it was purchased. The black plastic body is discolored and slightly stiff from endless use for the last twenty years, but not a single hole can be found. The zippers all do their job, albeit very loudly, and the mesh of the front pocket is only minimally frayed in the front right corner. This bag has more than done the job it was purchased for. It had been my school bag somewhere around 6th grade. When I abandoned it the next year for something more middle school, my father adopted it, adding two bands of bright red duct tape to the handles for better visibility in airports. It had remained his travel bag until this last October when I took it back in. So here I sit, months after his passing, franticly searching the pockets of this bag for what? I don’t really know. Any extra scrap of the father I lost that may be hiding in a side pocket. Something I missed the last time I went through the same routine. The most unexpected things will knock the breath from your lungs. There are times when the pain is a sadness that sits in your soul, content to keep to its established living quarters. You can go about your business and you know it’s there, but it’s not crippling you. And then something will rip you wide open and nothing can be done but to feel the pain. This 20-year-old Athletech gym bag is that something today.

My father lost his eight-year battle with cancer on October 7th 2020 at 3 am in a hospice house as I slept by his side. I held his hand that whole day and sang him amazing grace when the pain medicine wasn’t enough to ease his way. I hung pictures of our family on the wall next to the bed and talked to him in the hopes that he was still hearing me and somewhere deep inside he knew he wasn’t alone. I prayed for just one single moment with him where he would know who I was so I could tell him one last time how much I love him, how good of a father he was and how proud I was to be his daughter. That moment never happened. I so desperately wanted to be awake and holding his hand when he drew his last breath, wanted to somehow walk that last road with him. It haunts me every day that I had fallen asleep a few short hours before he left this earth. No one is ever really prepared for the death of a parent. I had eight years to come to terms with this moment. I knew it was always looming. Cancer is a fucking bitch like that. She takes slowly, and yes, it is a she, because only a woman will go to these lengths to make your life a living hell the way this disease does. She slowly takes so that you are forced to feel each and every cleaving away of the bits and pieces of what makes a person whole. Every moment is terrifying, you know this bitch is there, hiding in the closet on the good days and brazenly sitting at the dinner table on the bad days. Laughing as your whole family mourns the loss of another freedom, another passion, another comfort, another body part. She took twenty years from us and I would do some unspeakable things to get those years back with him. Silver lining type of people will say that at the very least, cancer gives you a warning. A warning you may not get if a loved one is taken due to a car accident or heart attack. So, with eight years to prepare for goodbye, eight years to soak up every memory, every hug, every “back in my day” story, here I am feeling like one of the structural supports of my soul was torn away. The flaw in the silver lining theory when it comes to loss of something truly cherished, is that true love grows. No matter how much of it you get, you will always want more, need more. I didn’t realize how deeply he was woven into who I am as a person and that space is now empty, cold and raw. Even with eight years to prepare for life without my father I still often find myself lost in grief that knows no end, sitting in front of a box of his things just needing some shred of him here with me on earth. Those simple items that I never really took notice of before he passed are now some of my most prized possessions. This atheltech bag that accompanied him on every family vacation, work trip, road trip and weekend trip to visit me after I moved away from our hometown. The half empty bottle of cologne he wore since I was a little girl literally sends me to my knees. The suit he bought for my graduation from nursing school, it still had the box from my nursing pin in the pocket of the pants. He pinned me on stage with my whole family on one of the best days of my life. I will never forget the pride in his face that day. I knew he was in pain and it was hard for him to make it through all the festivities. I had told him it wasn’t really a suit and tie event but he didn’t care one bit. He got fitted for a suit and I’d never seen him look so handsome. These are the things that shred my heart.

The last thing I can give to him, the only thing I feel would make it across whatever divide now separates us, is the space left empty in my soul after his passing. That space where he once stood is roped off and will forever be his. It will hurt like hell. But I will welcome that pain, rest in that pain. Simply because the intensity of it is the only adequate evidence of the depth of love I felt for the man who shaped me into the woman I am today.