October 23, 2002

Today marks the 10th year of my father's death.

Ten years ago I was a junior in college, smack in the middle of my undergrad experience in a foreign country, busy doing the things that college students do, suffering the anxieties that college students suffer. October 23, 1992 was a Friday, just like any other. I remember being in a particularly foul mood that morning having woken up late and running off to practice. I was tired and cold, and my hunger had gotten the better of me, and I was in no mood to be running around and sweating.

I returned to the dorms mid-morning, exhausted and irritable. My two roommates weren't in, and I dumped my bags onto the floor, thankful for the rare spell of peace and quiet. It was when I walked into my bedroom that I first felt an uneasiness that something wasn't quite right. At first, I tried to ignore it, but it persisted: the blinking red light of the answering machine and the red single digit on the display. One message. I was a bit taken aback: it was rare that I got messages so early in the morning. I pressed the play button.

"Hello, Patrick?" It was Maggie. Dear, dear Maggie, how long I haven't heard from her. Her voice wavered. "Patrick, please, please call home when you get this message."

Click.

I froze. Something was wrong; I felt it in her voice. But I couldn't tell what it was. I played the message again and paced back and forth, suddenly terrified and feeling very alone. I walked to the darkened kitchen and looked around. No one was there. I walked back to my bedroom and closed the door. Granny, something must have happened to Granny. Oh no. I looked out the window to the overcast skies and tried to quell the rising panic. I took a deep breath and slowly picked up the receiver. I steeled myself and dialed.

"Hello?" It was Maggie.

"Maggie?"

"Patrick? Oh Patrick." Maggie's voice softened, trembling to a weak whisper.

"Maggie, is everything okay?" I knew what the answer would be, but I didn't know what else to say.

"No, Patrick, no. Something's happened."

I swallowed hard, and hesitated a moment. "It's Granny, isn't it?" I said. "Something's happened to Granny, hasn't it?" I gritted my teeth, waiting for the answer.

"No, no, no, Patrick." Maggie paused. "It's your dad." She paused again. "It's Daddy."

***

I flew back to Trinidad the following morning, suit and tie packed for the funeral. The previous day was a blur, and I had found myself unable to cry. "It's okay," I told everyone. "Thanks for your sympathy, but I'm okay." My mind played tricks with me on my way back home, and I kept imagining my father in passers-by as they walked past, stealing furtive glances at the boy with eyes red from a night of fitful sleep.

***

"So how did it happen?" I asked Maggie on the way home from the airport.

Maggie squeezed my hand, and I felt her tremble ever so lightly. "He was shot," she said.

"What?"

"He was shot." She looked at me. "There was a break-in at the shop and they shot him."

I stared back at her, unbelieving, trying to digest this piece of news. "He was shot?"

"Yes," she said, "they shot him." Maggie turned away and began to sob.

***

Up until that point, I thought that my father had died because of a heart attack or something. A stroke, a car accident, a heart attack. Of course, what else could it be? Never did I imagine it was because he was shot. I felt a surprising sense of relief as the news sank in, uncomfortably aware of the guilt that was garishly juxtaposed upon it. Months later, as I sat trying to understand my strange reaction to the news, I came up with the only reason I had allowed myself: I was proud of him. I was proud that my father had not succumbed to a normal death, that he had died not because his body failed him but because of something beyond his control. That made him superhuman to me. I felt proud that he had died defending his home.

***

The days leading up to the funeral were extraordinarily demanding. They were demanding not so much because of the emotional shock of the death, but rather because of the lack of space I was given to grieve. Countless people flowed into and out of the house, bringing food and drink, calling on the phone and offering their condolences. And these countless people had to be entertained. True, we weren't expected to be on best behaviour, nor were we required to offer food or drink, but we had to avail ourselves to be consoled, to be hugged and be told a thousand times that everything was going to be okay. I wanted to scream and tell these countless people to get out. That we had a lot to do. That we were in the business of arranging a funeral here, goddammit, not of making polite conversation and talking in hushed tones. Get the fuck out now.

We had still to arrange for the burial, order the flowers, write the program, see about the gravesite, and find pallbearers and a priest--all on a weekend. And to make matters worse, no one could get a hold of my brother, Peter, who was inaccessible in the South Pacific doing research for the summer. Luckily he called after I arrived home, and he managed to get a flight out the next day.

It was interesting to watch all of this going on, and I felt the surreal detachment that you read about in books but never quite experience. I watched the people go in and out of the house, morbidly fascinated by the attention death had brought us and allowing myself only an academic study of the goings-on. No, I could not become emotionally constrained. I had a lot of things to do before the funeral and I was on a tight schedule. I had never buried a father.

And then I had to be strong. I had to be strong for my mother, whom I had never before seen cry. My mother never allowed herself to be weak in front of her children, and it was a tremendous shock for me to see the tears streaming down her face, her eyes red and swollen with grief. My mother was utterly dependent on my father; what was she going to do now? How would she survive the next few years much less the next few days? No dammit, I could not afford to cry.

***

The night before the funeral I stayed up unable to sleep. Over in the dining room, five moths stood on the window screen. The large moth was in the middle, surrounded in a circle made by the others. They all stood still in the circle, all except the smallest moth, which fluttered nervously back and forth in its spot. They were drawn to the soft light of the candles.

***

The funeral day itself was easier than I thought it was going to be. The church was packed beyond standing-room capacity with friends, relatives, and villagers, and people overflowed into the surrounding courtyard. Scores and scores of people showed up at the gravesite to say goodbye to my father, and I felt emotionally torn. Torn between the grief I could not express and the anger at all the people invading into my private goodbye. Torn between the relief that everything went on schedule and the pride that even in his death my father could draw such a crowd.

We said our goodbyes and left the cemetery, the villagers singing "Amazing Grace" into the Caribbean evening sky.

***

It's hard to believe that ten years have gone by since his death. Time heals all wounds, they say, but even as I write this I feel the lump in my throat forming, and I find myself suffocating the tear threatening to emerge. Grieving is a long and difficult process, and this experience of burying my father has prepared me a lot for accepting death as part of life.

Thank you, Daddy, for being such a beautiful part of my life. I love you. I miss you terribly.