When I was a little girl, my parents would let me sleep on our sitting room sofa while a movie ran its course on our box television. My memory recollects those faint footsteps tiptoeing around the couch, and the dialogues streaming seemed like gibberish to my toddler senses. I remember the feeling of receding into a vast ocean of nothingness and the ghostly sweep that gently levitated me and placed me on my bed. My being was made with the lightness of a feather, or so it seemed in the hands of my guardian. It was my father who always carried me.
I wonder if the last moments of life felt the same to him—being held comfortably and carried gently into rest as his body released its earthly limitations, his senses levitating. I prefer not to talk about it often, but I was present in his last moments. He died right in my arms. I did not let him go. And after all this time, I still cannot. It is a childhood debt, ye…
