I Will Never Leave You

As a kid I had an uncanny knack for getting lost while shopping with my mom.  A department store or the mall was usually my downfall. My sister and I would keep ourselves occupied playing hide and seek in the clothing racks, giving my mom a few moments of undistracted shopping, but then suddenly we’d realize she was out of sight. We’d start looking for her, but if we couldn’t find her after a brief search, inevitably we’d panic. It happened often enough that eventually it didn’t phase us: we’d find a store employee, tell them we were lost, they’d page her, and we’d be reunited.

But before we mastered that routine, these moments of being lost were filled with sheer panic. On one particularly traumatic occasion at Waldbaum’s (yes, it took a special kind of child to get “lost” at the Baldwin Harbor Waldbaum’s ), my mother found me practically dissolved in tears—I was sure she had left the store and gone home. “I will never leave you,” she assured me. Those words stayed with me and kept me reasonably calm through all the “missing child” moments that followed. Even when I felt thoroughly lost, I knew she would keep her promise.

Many years later, I heard her make the same promise to my father. After successfully battling cancer for more than a year, the disease began to fight back in the summer of 2002, and his treatment was demanding that he spend more time in the hospital. He hated it—the uncomfortable beds, the constant visits from nurses and aides throughout the night and early morning, and the occasional crazy roommate who would disturb what little rest he was able to get. Probably worse than any of those complaints was the simple fact that he just wanted to be at home—with his comfortable recliner, his familiar books, his beloved kitchen, and all the other familiar items that defined “home” for him.

As his health declined, he fought harder to be able to remain at home, even as his doctors recommended that he stay in their care for treatment.  As I recall, my family and I were anxious that he comply with their advice, believing that inpatient treatment and, in particular, intravenous feeding, would give him more strength for his battle. One evening, trying to compel him to return to the hospital for the treatment, my mom sat at his feet and tearfully begged him. “I’ll be with you, I will stay by your side, I will never leave you,” she said.

Though he did pursue further treatment, in the end it was in vain, and he and my mom chose to cease treatment and rely on the hospice angels to allow him to live out his last days in the comfort of their home. With all of us gathered around him, among the last words he uttered was a familiar promise: “I will never leave you.”

We lost him 10 years ago, on September 22, 2002. So much has changed for all of us in those 10 years. For my part, I met my husband, married him, and had a son. I think often of my dad’s promise not to leave us. It’s a challenge for me that this person who was such a constant and formative force in my life is not actively with me every day, and that my husband and son never knew him. I talk about him constantly, and I hope that through these stories and memories my husband and son will come to know him. Most importantly, I hope that I will feel his presence more vividly if I keep those memories alive. Ten years after his death, it is up to me to help my dad keep his promise.