5:24am
I wake up at 5:24am to a room of dimly lit candles
And confusion.
A day doesn’t pass that I don’t hope he will appear to me in the night.
Wish for it.
Hope for it.
Dread it.
To sit at my bed and tell me he is proud,
That he sees me,
Still sees me,
And always will.
I dreamt of him today,
We were in the hollows of my old house,
Me in pajamas lying on the floor,
Him in white,
A glow following his every step.
A moment I’ve imagined
Over,
And over,
And over again.
Plays out exactly how I imagined.
I hyperventilate.
Panic,
Tear up
And stutter towards him.
He places an orange ball in my hand
And the shock melts away
As I walk with him
Simple words are passed back and forth
Before my mother makes her way downstairs,
Awoken by my loud attack.
He tells me to sit at the table,
But I deny,
I give him the orange ball and tell him I’ll
Hide
Underneath our dining room table,
In hopes that she won’t see me
And make her way back upstairs.
She sees me
And I know it is over:
The moment I’ve dreamt about for so long.
I plead with her to ignore my tears and go back upstairs,
But she refuses,
She wonders what is wrong,
“Is Marvin okay?”
“What’s going on?”
I plead,
And plead
Over again,
Until tears sting my eyes, and
My skin trembles with my heart.
Then I wake up.
And here I am at 5:33am
Resenting my mother for taking more of these last moments
With my father
Away from me.
Here I am
Wishing I’d sat at the table like Daddy had asked,
Instead of hiding as if something was wrong.
As the night fades away,
I cannot push the thought from me
That although the years have passed
I am not the girl Daddy had hoped I’d be.
– Porridge: A Memoir
A memoir about life after death, and a little girl who nearly lost her life after her father lost his.
Here’s a list of the other excerpts if you’ve missed them: Railings, Dominoes, Destiny, Magnolia, Porridge and Hair
Famous Last Words 