Tattoo

Early Thursday morning I entered through the hospital's automatic sliding doors, feeling a rush of air, and smelling the whelming stench of fading hope as I did. With false determination I propelled myself foreward, sure that everyone could see my crumbling resolve. I felt pretty much like everyone does when confronted with something potentially painful...chin up, forehead relaxed, grit your teeth, and for God's sake, don't think!

Having been told he didn't look well, I prepared myself for the worst. What is the worst? Being pretty sure that dead is the worst one can look, I kept walking and conjured up a picture in my mind. Sallow skin with hints of milky white. A dead right arm hanging listlessly, and a left leg that didn't exist at all. The inability to see out of his left eye, and a voice so far removed from life that it left me grasping for syllables. There would be a familiar longing for death in the eye that could still betray him. A look he thought he was hiding in order to fulfill his fatherly obligation to protect. All these things I remembered from hospital visits past.

What is the best I could have achieved from this visit? I could have told him his family was successful, making it easier for him to let go. I could have smiled and told him he was loved.

I made jokes. I told him instead that all of his children had made failures of themselves just to keep him around. I reminded him that I was the most well-off of the siblings having made a whopping 17 grand last year. With a tear gliding down my cheek, I told him that he would be with us for at least fifteen more years. He had to. How could mom get on without him.

Trying to hold my hand, he told me he loved me very much. He said my body is a temple of God, and that it should never be marked. How else would he be able to find me in the next life? With a mischevious smile I said, "Too late!" He smirked and then faltered, "You better not, boy! I raised you better'n that!" We both laughed until he closed his eyes.

Is it better to disappoint, or lie? I really do have a tattoo. I hope he finds me.