Member-only story
Reflections on Identity
Divorce is a Death
What it feels to lose a father to one, then a husband to another
My father died at the age of 35, one month shy of my fifth birthday. His kidneys had failed, having been irrevocably damaged during a childhood illness. He was awaiting a transplant but had surgery for a minor repair in the meantime, developed a blood clot, and perished as he was allegedly recuperating. He had been ill for years. I remember celebrating my sister’s birthday with a fluffy white strawberry shortcake while hearing ambulance sirens in the background. I understand now that it couldn’t have been an ambulance coming for him, as we certainly wouldn’t be sitting around blowing out candles on a cake while he was lying in wait in another room, but the memories have become conflated. In my memory, my sister blew out the candles on her sixth birthday cake to the tune of the sirens and our own dispirited rendition of Happy Birthday, and we then ate slices of cake while my father was wheeled out on a stretcher. It cannot be so, but at the same time, it’s not terribly far from the truth either.
I had a Holly Hobbie metal lunchbox and a best friend named Lizzie who lived across my apartment complex, and a fat, long-haired slate gray cat named Gracie. My greatest hope was that someday public water fountains would emit…
