There are some dates that will always leave an indelible mark in society’s collective conscience. Sept. 11, 2001, is one of them, Nov. 22, 1963, is another, and Dec. 7, 1941, will “live in infamy,” as President Roosevelt put it. When people die, we don’t forget.
June 8, 2001, is a day with a personal meaning for me.
It was a Friday, and after school I flew to San Jose. My parents divorced when I was young and my dad moved to Silicon Valley because there were better job prospects for a programmer. Every month I would spend a weekend or two with him.
He picked me up from the airport. We went to karate class, and on the drive home talked about the ridiculousness of Australian Rules football. Back home we had pasta, turkey, peas and some cantaloupe for dinner. None of this is particularly noteworthy, so why do I remember it?
That uneventful Friday turned out to be the last time I would see my father alive.
I woke up Saturday morning to see him lying on the floor by his desk. Completely irrationally, I just lied to myself about what I knew immediately to be the truth. I told myself he had gotten tired and decided that it wasn’t worth the effort of going to bed.
I promptly realized this was wishful thinking and that something was seriously wrong.
Timidly, I walked over to him and before even touching his cold flesh I knew he was dead. Maybe it was the pallor of his skin, maybe it was the unnatural stillness, but something made it obvious. The ineffable spark of life was gone.
I, being raised like any good middle-class kid, was taught to believe that going to the police would make any bad situation better. So I called 911.
When the first officer arrived a few minutes later, I had a flash of hope that he would, by his mere presence, put everything right again. As soon as I heard him radio in to cancel the EMTs, the reality of the situation hit me.
I was now hundreds of miles from anyone I knew, with no way to go anywhere and certainly no desire to stay in the house with the police and the body of a man I loved.
I was able to contact my mom. She called her college roommate, who came to pick me up.
I spent the next day in a daze, reading any lighthearted books I could get my hands on, swimming laps until I was too tired to continue, eating only because I knew I needed to.
Once I got back to Santa Barbara, life was a blur. Trying to wrap up the last week of school while coping with my dad’s death and helping my mom plan his funeral was the most challenging thing I’d ever faced. Luckily, my teachers were understanding and my friends and their families were incredibly supportive.
In the years since, I’ve come to accept that dying is something we’re all going to experience. I try to embrace everyday of life to its fullest, but that uneventful June day will stay with me forever.
