Open Heart Surgery

I had heard that family members often seem to die over the holidays. My father chose to leave us days before Thanksgiving. The day before my sister's birthday.

But after caring for my dad through a cruel decade of Parkinson's, I thought I was ready to say goodbye. I had been losing him by words and inches every day for so long. This last year he was a bed-ridden six feet of skin and bones. Barely able to whisper an audible word or two. But every time he saw me, his eyes lit up and his lips curled into a brief smile that made my heart hurt with inexplicable tenderness. And love.

He was dying for so long, deep down I had stopped believing that he would actually stop breathing. Until he did. And I wasn't ready.

This is my last photo from Dad's apartment. My childhood home on the last night I was there. Taken from what was my bedroom window. Born and raised in "The Jefferson's Building" on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Moving on out.

Now I did a final walk-through of the empty apartment. Numb. Floating.

Everything had happened so fast. I had hardly cried since the actual day my dad died months earlier. Too much to do. Funeral, red tape and the physical and emotional upheaval of clearing out 53 years of a person's life in two months time as we couldn't afford to pay two rents. And so I let go of just about everything. Take it. Take it away, I said over and over. I have no room for anything in my own NYC apartment.

And if I allowed myself to notice, it felt like my soul was being scraped out with a plastic fork. So I shut down my heart. Became the terminator. Unfeeling. Ransacking. Eviscerating. Getting the job done. Until everything was gone.

This last night, all that remained was a chipped floor lamp and the old boom box my mom bought me in college. I had it tuned in to Z100, just for company. I left the music on and turned off the lights to admire the view from the 35th floor one last time. Almost on cue, those first simple piano chords of "Lose You to Love Me" played over the radio.

Chills ran up and down my arms and the back of my neck. I turned the volume up. All the way.

The song went through me like a surgeon's blade. And I bled. Tears. Tears. Tears. Oceans of sadness, streaming down my cheeks and neck. Sobs exploding through me from head to toe. To love, love.

Oh, god. Here came the pizzicato violins. I wilted against the window and let all the sadness. The pain. The loss. The anger. The heartbreak. The love. Flow through me with Selena's voice. I wasn't sure what she was saying, but I knew exactly how she felt.

To love, love.

I picked up my phone and held in my sobs, silent tears still rolling down my arm to my hand. I never wanted to forget that swelling moment. I caught the last verse and chorus.

When the song ended I felt like the survivor of a shipwreck, heaving my battered body ashore. Drenched in salty tears, and bone-tired. Yet still very much alive. Breathing. Broken-hearted. And hopeful.

Selena had given me permission to let go. To leave. To love. love.