I see it all so clearly.  The crisp fall day and the morning sunrise as I drove along the FDR knowing that this was the end.  I was oddly calm and my mother and I did not speak much.  We got to the hospital and parked and went into the fluorescently lit ICU, walked silently past the nurse’s station.  They knew us by face and name – we had lived there for the week.  My sister, tall and tired stood right outside my father’s room looking puffy and face streaked with tears. The odd quiet of the ICU with only bells and alarms ringing, no laughter or talking just mechanical sounds of respirators and machines keeping people alive.  My mother and I hugged my sister and all three of us walked into the room number 1206 overlooking the East River.  The sun had now risen. The water was dark and had a strong current rushing to the north, there were white caps, I wondered was it windy?

The doctors were compressing his chest and breathing for him – this was a code blue.  I have seen this many times – I am a surgeon – but never with anyone I was very close to, never with a family member. This was unthinkable.   Surrounded by a ward of people doing various things to save his life.   It was clear to me as he lay there in his yellow hospital gown that he was gone.  Somewhere else,  not here. I thought how obvious it was that he was dead, that his life force was missing.  I watched the nurses and doctors working on him for what seemed like an eternity – bit but perhaps was five minutes,  and then I said  “stop”.  The doctors and nurses turned around and looked at me and I said it again.  Please stop.  And they did.  They turned the monitors off, and  the beeping and the voices stopped and the crowd slowly filed out of the room, defeated and exhausted.  My father’s body lay there – his beautifully sculpted legs, his well shaped hands, by the side of his body , comfortably at his side.  We stood around him and held his hands and touched his body.  His head was still warm when I kissed it.  My mother – tall, stoic, strong looked at me – like a small child.  So lost.  She asked ?   ”That’s it?” And I panicked that maybe somehow she hadn’t understood how grave things were. Maybe she didn’t understand that he was gone, dead.  Forever. That he would never ever be with us again.

I answered her– surprised that I could find my voice and words:   yes that’s its.  His hand grew cold in mine.  I have never seen anyone look so fragile.  Not him. Not anyone ever.

I looked out on the water of the East River.  The pink sky above, the water had so many currents and moved so quickly.  The ripples in the water had such force. How did we lose him?

I had that feeling of, now what?  Could someone please tell me what you are supposed to do when your father dies unexpectedly a week after elective surgery?  Do you clear out his locker at the hospital?  Go home? Make phone calls? Eat?   I was so confused. My mother and sister too. Like gazelles that wander about aimlessly until their male leader herds them into place and guides them.  I don’t remember what we did next.  I only remember confusion.

It was my son’s birthday.  He turned five that day. We were having a party at the Prospect Park Zoo.  I would have to find my game face.  We were lost without our leader.