It was the witching hour when I started writing, early morning on April 28th. Something in the air felt familiar, like a chord struck from a song I hadn’t heard in years. I couldn’t stop thinking about that day—April 28th, 2016.
That morning, I sat with a family member and said the words I never imagined I’d say out loud: I was ready to walk away from the whole family. Not in a fit of anger. It was colder than that. A quiet frost had settled in me over time, and that day, it finally crystallized. I had already distanced myself from my older sibling by then. That tie had frayed and snapped long before.
I was trying, back then, to learn what boundaries really meant. Not the kind you scribble in a journal and hope people honor, but the kind you carve out of necessity, with trembling hands and a tired heart. I wanted to find a way to keep myself whole while still staying in the same orbit as my parents. It was my last real attempt to stay connected without falling apart. I didn’t want to leave—but I was standing at the threshold.
Even as I pulled back, I knew the connection wouldn’t be severed completely. Not forever. I could already see the day in the distance, like headlights through fog: the day Mom would die. That would be the moment I’d have to re-enter the story. Say my piece. Play my role. After that, I figured I could fade again, slip back into the shadows of the family line—at least as much as someone who writes for a living can go unseen.
But lately, I keep thinking about another day entirely: the day Dad died. That memory plays like an old home movie, glitching at the edges. It leads, inevitably, to the memory of losing Mom. Grief has a way of jumping tracks like that.
There are moments in life you never forget—where you were when someone says the words, “Your father’s gone.” The room goes quiet in a way that has nothing to do with sound. The world pauses, like it’s waiting for your reaction.
Even his last words to me echo in strange corners of my mind. “I love you,” he said. But coming from him, it didn’t feel like comfort. It felt like a chess move. Something with too many meanings and not enough warmth.
When Mama passed in March of 2023, of course I thought of her, but he came to me as well. I couldn’t help it. My body was moving—checking tasks off lists, making arrangements—but my mind was somewhere else entirely. I thought about how hard her life had been. How much of that hardship had his name on it. And then, just like that, I was thinking about him again.
I’ve been doing that more often lately. Thinking about my father.
Sometimes I scroll through old photos of him, hunting for something—some flicker of who he really was. He taught me things, even if he never meant to. He told stories about Vietnam, about survival, about loyalty that ran deeper than bloodlines. He was a hard man, but he had edges softened by odd places. He was a staunch Republican, but I know, without question, the day a president disrespected Arlington Cemetery would’ve been the day they lost him.
He tried, in his own way, to give back. Before we moved south, he was working on starting a company—Helping Hands, he called it. He wanted to support other veterans. That was always his compass: the veteran community. But his body was already writing checks he couldn’t cash.
Even so, he got involved. He joined local veteran groups, and helped launch a Marine League chapter in our town. The day he received his commandant coin, he held it like it weighed more than metal. Like it was a piece of himself returned.
His service didn’t end with the war. It ended when he couldn’t keep going. The Marine in him had to lay down the sword. The man was already unraveling.
I watched him fade over years, not days. He didn’t go suddenly—he unraveled, thread by thread, over decades. I bore witness. There was no drama to it. No grand finale. Just a slow erosion, like stone worn down by time and weather.
It was never a matter of how he would go. It was always when.
