On September 10th, 2020, my dad died from COVID-19. He was alone in the Durham County, North Carolina ICU when he died, isolated from his family and loved ones. Four days before my dad died, I tried calling his room number in the hospital, hoping that by luck a member of the medical team caring for him would be in the room at the same time, to hand my dad the telephone. He had been suffering from dementia and isolation the last ten months of his life, and he often hadn’t recognized me when I had spoken with him. I remember being very peaceful within myself while dialing the number to the hospital. I was sitting in my car on my lunch break and the impulse to connect with my dad was overwhelming. “Hello, Dad? It’s Katie, how are you?” I don’t know how, but my dad answered the telephone and could hear my voice. “Dad? It’s me, Katie.” I tried to be strong for him. “Kate!”, he said. The rest of his sentence was undecipherable but piecing together the words I could tell he was experiencing the past as he often had during the last few months of his life, when I was just a little kid. “Dad, we’re all rooting for you!” I said, as encouraging as I could be. In that moment I was thankful he couldn’t see the tears that were flowing freely down my cheeks. “Who is?” “Dad, your kids, Tom, Jen and Katie. We’re all rooting for you!” “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I’ll see you at home.” Those were the last words my dad ever said to me. Four days later, as I drove home from work, my sister phoned to let me know that my stepmom was on her way to the hospital. They had called to let her know his passing was imminent. It was a beautiful autumn day in the mountains, and I took my time driving home. As I turned onto my mountain road, I felt peaceful inside and the beauty of nature around me reflected the peace I felt within. It had rained like it so often does with the microcosm weather of the mountains. A thunderstorm passed through, and the sunlight was sparkling off leaves of the trees and little puddles in ruts on the dirt road. I took extra time driving the two miles to the top of the mountain where my home is, knowing that my dad was transitioning to his “next big adventure”. I wanted to be alone, and with him somehow at the same time. Every detail of the mountain came into being effortlessly, the rhododendron still had some blooms from late May, even while the trees were beginning to turn. The air was mild and warm, refreshed after the charge of the storm. Crows cawed in the distance. Squirrels ran through already fallen leaves in the woods. Slowly I drove up my mountain road as I had a thousand times before. Turning up the last incline to the end where my little cabin sits, I looked to my left at the distant landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountain chain, a view that is imprinted in the fabric of my being. There are no words to describe its beauty. Dark clouds of the storm were drifting to the east. There, as I reached the top of the road and my home on the mountain, a beautiful rainbow lit up the sky. Tears, and more tears came, as I knew my dad had kept his promise. “I’ll see you at home.”
My sister and I got the call from my stepmom thirty minutes later saying my dad had passed about a half of an hour ago.
The past two years have been difficult for many of us. Struggling with a pandemic and its effects has slowed us down, forced us to pause, and reflect on what is truly important. This January I wrote a story about a little bear named Ananda who is on a search to find happiness. “Where is happiness?”, she asks her mom. “I think I’ll go find it!” And she does.
May her sweet story warm your heart and bring you closer somehow to your own happiness. That is my wish for you.
Katie