My father’s last day<\/p>\n
was nothing<\/p>\n
like all the days<\/p>\n
that came before it.<\/p>\n
The ones where<\/p>\n
he held my hand,<\/p>\n
scolded me,<\/p>\n
patiently helped me<\/p>\n
through my math homework,<\/p>\n
disappeared into the cellar<\/p>\n
to whistle while he<\/p>\n
built a shelf and<\/p>\n
escaped from his life<\/p>\n
or had a story to tell.<\/p>\n
My father’s last day<\/p>\n
was nothing<\/p>\n
like all the bad dreams<\/p>\n
I had had<\/p>\n
as a child,<\/p>\n
in which he died suddenly,<\/p>\n
or once went willingly<\/p>\n
and I could not stop him.<\/p>\n
My father’s last day<\/p>\n
was one of<\/p>\n
confusion…<\/p>\n
for him,<\/p>\n
for me.<\/p>\n
Where were his thoughts<\/p>\n
as he lay dying?<\/p>\n
Did he see my face as<\/p>\n
my own or his mother’s?<\/p>\n
Was he remembering<\/p>\n
his childhood friends and their pranks?<\/p>\n
My thoughts<\/p>\n
were remembering<\/p>\n
memories I didn’t<\/p>\n
know or<\/p>\n
remember<\/p>\n
I had…<\/p>\n
the way he whistled<\/p>\n
when he walked,<\/p>\n
his laugh,<\/p>\n
how once he blew breath at me<\/p>\n
in the cold winter air before work<\/p>\n
as I watched him leave the house.<\/p>\n
My father’s last day<\/p>\n
was nothing<\/p>\n
like all the days<\/p>\n
that came before it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Eve Remillard<\/p>\n
8\/13\/2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My father’s last day was nothing like all the days that came before it. The ones where he held my hand, scolded me, patiently helped me through my math homework, disappeared into the cellar to whistle while he built a shelf and escaped from his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[51,879],"class_list":["post-23263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","tag-death","tag-father"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23424,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23263\/revisions\/23424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}