Disclaimer: GI Joe, et al, belong to Hasbro, Marvel, and Devil's Due.
A/N: This is dedicated to The Bard. Her Flint is so like the one in my head that I'm not sure where mine ends and hers begins..
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You won't believe it. You'll never believe it could actually happen, despite all the warnings. He's your father, after all, immortal and untouchable. He'll beat this, you will say with the confidence that is your trademark. Your mother will smile, your brothers and sisters-in-law will nod. In the beginning, you will all be delusional together.
Their confidence will fade. Yours will not, even as the pounds melt away and any day that actually involves solid food is cause for long-distance triumph.
Your confidence won't be shaken, because you won't be there. You have your own life to lead.
It will happen while you are there, which will make it harder and easier at the same time. Harder, because the night before, he will laugh while he watches you play Scrabble with your wife. You win, because you know that if you don't he'll mock you for weeks. What good is all that poetry, he will ask, if you can't even win at Scrabble? He won't care that your wife is the best Scrabble player you've ever met, and she routinely slaughters everyone she plays. He's never been interested in Scrabble.
You will ignore how quickly he tires. He is fighting, you will think. You will remember knowing that, playground boasts aside, your father could beat up any dad on the block. He is getting better, you will think.
Everyone will tell you that they're glad you're there.
He will not.
Your wife will encourage you to talk to him, but you won't, because you've never been able to talk to one another. When you are left alone together, there will be awkward silences. Sometimes you will be aching with the need to tell him something, but you won't know how.
You will deny that he is dying.
The idea will remain impossible.
You will be at his bedside at the end, talking to your brother Mickey about the possibility of war in the Middle East. You will be surprised at how politically aware he's become in recent years. Your father will be watching, not saying anything.
You will notice that his breathing is getting slower. You will not want to call attention to it, but Mickey will notice anyway and call the nurse.
The nurse will concern herself with making him "comfortable." This will bother you. In truth, it will enrage you. You will be tempted to go outside and hit something. You don't know how to be helpless any more than you know how to talk with a full heart.
Before the breathing - which becomes the only sound in your head - before the breathing stops, you will tell your father that you love him. The words will come out without your thinking about them first. Later it will make you feel better. You will be glad - though you do not say so- glad that he saw you happily married at last. You will remember fishing with him after the divorce was final and him saying, "I never trusted that girl." You know that he trusts Allie.
You will be unable to talk about the last breath. You will see the moment when a human being becomes a corpse. You are a soldier; you have seen it before. It won't matter.
It has never been your father before.
You will find yourself unable to move, while the nurse alerts the family. The entire world becomes the still figure on the bed.
You will not hear your wife crying.
You will not hear your mother crying, or your brothers, or their wives and children.
You will feel ashamed, later, that you could not be strong for them. You will not be aware of your own tears. Later you will think that you didn't cry at all, though your wife will tell you that you scared her.
Apparently you were shaking.
They will come and take the body away. There will be things to do, decisions to be made. "Arrangements," they call them in the soft-spoken world of the grieving. Everyone will speak to you in a slow quiet voice. Everyone will be solemn, even the children, who won't understand what's happening.
You will take charge, making the right decisions when called to. You are good at making decisions. It is easier than being helpless.
You won't remember what most of the decisions were, later.
Your wife will. She will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. You will be grateful for her presence.
At the funeral, people will tell stories about how he touched their lives. You will be surprised at the sheer number of them. The minister will speak about Heaven in a voice that suggests he's never seen it. You consider your father walking streets of gold, and it doesn't fit with your memories of him. He was a working man, you will think, and won't be happy in a mansion. When you think about Heaven, you picture it as a pine forest at dawn, during hunting season. Crouched in a blind with your father, cold to your very bones, listening to the loons crying, waiting for daylight. Sometimes you think it's on the lake itself, with the spring sun giving everything a warm flush, learning to fly fish. You imagine your father there, chuckling as he shows a curious angel the exact flick of the wrist used to cast.
The eulogy will come from your heart. You won't cry while you talk, though the tears will stand in your eyes and your hands will shake so badly you can't read what you've written. You won't have to; you will, this once, know exactly what to say.
Everyone will be moved, or at least that's what they will tell you as they shake your hand after the service. People will say that you look like him, though it was always the family consensus that you looked like his brother. Raymond looked like him, before he lost most of his hair.
The children, still uncertain about the magnitude of death, will chase each other around the parking lot, shouting, until someone yells at them. You wish you could be that young again, not-understanding, and not feeling your own mortality this morning.
Your wife will put her arm around your waist and rest her head on your shoulder. Her presence will make you feel better. You will worry, briefly, about what she will do should something happen to you. You are a soldier, and your life is far from peaceful or safe.
After the service, people will come over. They will all bring food. There will be more mysterious casseroles, more dishes involving macaroni but no cheese, more exotic Jell-o constructions, and more peculiar uses for cream of mushroom soup than you've ever seen in your life. The church ladies will surround your mother, sounding like a covey of agitated doves.
Once everyone has gone, you and your brothers will play penny-ante poker. It will feel strange. Everything will feel strange, disconnected.
You will win.
Mickey, who's normally good at cards, will make a vague excuse. You will refrain from making a snide comment. You understand, even if you don't want to. You will wonder if you should go home as planned, or call and ask for more time. There is a part of you that wants to return to duty, to normalcy.
Ray will wonder aloud about going back to work. Neither you nor Mickey will say anything.
Everyone will drift around the house the next day, looking at one another. No one will know what to do. There will be a lot of eating, because when you eat, you don't have to talk. Mickey will talk about going back to work.
You will mention going back home, and Ray will offer to drop you at the airport. You and your wife will decide to go home tomorrow, as originally planned.
In the afternoon, you will be driven out of the house by restlessness. You will walk around the block, but it won't help.
You will decide to go to the graveyard. You'll bring a rock, a tradition of your mother's people, but it seems so much more reasonable than flowers. He never had any use for flowers when he was alive; you don't see him changing his mind now.
Standing in front of the tombstone with your father's name on it, you will cry. Your wife will walk away, leaving you alone with the grave, and you will find yourself talking. You will tell him all the things you couldn't say when he was looking back at you. When you finally stop, you'll be hoarse.
On the way back to the car, your wife will offer to drive. You will let her, because you're worn out from talking and crying. You won't have slept well, because the house will seem foreign and cold without your father snoring in the next room. You won't realize how much that sound contributed to feeling home and safe until it's gone.
The girls will send your brothers back to work the next morning. Your mother will take you to the airport. You will hug her and tell her that you love her, and that you'll call. She will tell you not to worry. You will worry anyway. She has been married to your father for nearly her entire adult life.
Boarding the plane will seem more final than anything else. You know that you will never come back and find your father sitting in the living room or working on the car in the driveway or waxing the boat behind the house. It hits hard. You will be very glad your wife is there for the return trip. She will keep everyone away from you when you walk back onto the base.
Hawk will shake your hand and tell you to take all the time you need. You will remember that it hasn't been that long since he had to bury his own father. You have entered a club of sorts, you will discover. A handful of people will speak to you over the course of a few days. They will speak of their own parents in the past tense. You must learn to do this, as well. It won't be as easy as you expect it to be.
It will hit you at odd times, even years later. At strange times - the anniversary of his death, of course; when you hold your infant son for the first time; but also when you eat hot dogs or think about fishing. Locking up the house at night will often remind you of him.
There will come a time when you can think about him in certain contexts entirely without pain. You will miss him - you will never stop missing him - but it will gradually become easier. When you reach this point, you'll be able to talk about him with your son. Remember to tell him that you loved your dad.
Remember to tell him that you're proud of him.
A/N: This is dedicated to The Bard. Her Flint is so like the one in my head that I'm not sure where mine ends and hers begins..
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You won't believe it. You'll never believe it could actually happen, despite all the warnings. He's your father, after all, immortal and untouchable. He'll beat this, you will say with the confidence that is your trademark. Your mother will smile, your brothers and sisters-in-law will nod. In the beginning, you will all be delusional together.
Their confidence will fade. Yours will not, even as the pounds melt away and any day that actually involves solid food is cause for long-distance triumph.
Your confidence won't be shaken, because you won't be there. You have your own life to lead.
It will happen while you are there, which will make it harder and easier at the same time. Harder, because the night before, he will laugh while he watches you play Scrabble with your wife. You win, because you know that if you don't he'll mock you for weeks. What good is all that poetry, he will ask, if you can't even win at Scrabble? He won't care that your wife is the best Scrabble player you've ever met, and she routinely slaughters everyone she plays. He's never been interested in Scrabble.
You will ignore how quickly he tires. He is fighting, you will think. You will remember knowing that, playground boasts aside, your father could beat up any dad on the block. He is getting better, you will think.
Everyone will tell you that they're glad you're there.
He will not.
Your wife will encourage you to talk to him, but you won't, because you've never been able to talk to one another. When you are left alone together, there will be awkward silences. Sometimes you will be aching with the need to tell him something, but you won't know how.
You will deny that he is dying.
The idea will remain impossible.
You will be at his bedside at the end, talking to your brother Mickey about the possibility of war in the Middle East. You will be surprised at how politically aware he's become in recent years. Your father will be watching, not saying anything.
You will notice that his breathing is getting slower. You will not want to call attention to it, but Mickey will notice anyway and call the nurse.
The nurse will concern herself with making him "comfortable." This will bother you. In truth, it will enrage you. You will be tempted to go outside and hit something. You don't know how to be helpless any more than you know how to talk with a full heart.
Before the breathing - which becomes the only sound in your head - before the breathing stops, you will tell your father that you love him. The words will come out without your thinking about them first. Later it will make you feel better. You will be glad - though you do not say so- glad that he saw you happily married at last. You will remember fishing with him after the divorce was final and him saying, "I never trusted that girl." You know that he trusts Allie.
You will be unable to talk about the last breath. You will see the moment when a human being becomes a corpse. You are a soldier; you have seen it before. It won't matter.
It has never been your father before.
You will find yourself unable to move, while the nurse alerts the family. The entire world becomes the still figure on the bed.
You will not hear your wife crying.
You will not hear your mother crying, or your brothers, or their wives and children.
You will feel ashamed, later, that you could not be strong for them. You will not be aware of your own tears. Later you will think that you didn't cry at all, though your wife will tell you that you scared her.
Apparently you were shaking.
They will come and take the body away. There will be things to do, decisions to be made. "Arrangements," they call them in the soft-spoken world of the grieving. Everyone will speak to you in a slow quiet voice. Everyone will be solemn, even the children, who won't understand what's happening.
You will take charge, making the right decisions when called to. You are good at making decisions. It is easier than being helpless.
You won't remember what most of the decisions were, later.
Your wife will. She will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. You will be grateful for her presence.
At the funeral, people will tell stories about how he touched their lives. You will be surprised at the sheer number of them. The minister will speak about Heaven in a voice that suggests he's never seen it. You consider your father walking streets of gold, and it doesn't fit with your memories of him. He was a working man, you will think, and won't be happy in a mansion. When you think about Heaven, you picture it as a pine forest at dawn, during hunting season. Crouched in a blind with your father, cold to your very bones, listening to the loons crying, waiting for daylight. Sometimes you think it's on the lake itself, with the spring sun giving everything a warm flush, learning to fly fish. You imagine your father there, chuckling as he shows a curious angel the exact flick of the wrist used to cast.
The eulogy will come from your heart. You won't cry while you talk, though the tears will stand in your eyes and your hands will shake so badly you can't read what you've written. You won't have to; you will, this once, know exactly what to say.
Everyone will be moved, or at least that's what they will tell you as they shake your hand after the service. People will say that you look like him, though it was always the family consensus that you looked like his brother. Raymond looked like him, before he lost most of his hair.
The children, still uncertain about the magnitude of death, will chase each other around the parking lot, shouting, until someone yells at them. You wish you could be that young again, not-understanding, and not feeling your own mortality this morning.
Your wife will put her arm around your waist and rest her head on your shoulder. Her presence will make you feel better. You will worry, briefly, about what she will do should something happen to you. You are a soldier, and your life is far from peaceful or safe.
After the service, people will come over. They will all bring food. There will be more mysterious casseroles, more dishes involving macaroni but no cheese, more exotic Jell-o constructions, and more peculiar uses for cream of mushroom soup than you've ever seen in your life. The church ladies will surround your mother, sounding like a covey of agitated doves.
Once everyone has gone, you and your brothers will play penny-ante poker. It will feel strange. Everything will feel strange, disconnected.
You will win.
Mickey, who's normally good at cards, will make a vague excuse. You will refrain from making a snide comment. You understand, even if you don't want to. You will wonder if you should go home as planned, or call and ask for more time. There is a part of you that wants to return to duty, to normalcy.
Ray will wonder aloud about going back to work. Neither you nor Mickey will say anything.
Everyone will drift around the house the next day, looking at one another. No one will know what to do. There will be a lot of eating, because when you eat, you don't have to talk. Mickey will talk about going back to work.
You will mention going back home, and Ray will offer to drop you at the airport. You and your wife will decide to go home tomorrow, as originally planned.
In the afternoon, you will be driven out of the house by restlessness. You will walk around the block, but it won't help.
You will decide to go to the graveyard. You'll bring a rock, a tradition of your mother's people, but it seems so much more reasonable than flowers. He never had any use for flowers when he was alive; you don't see him changing his mind now.
Standing in front of the tombstone with your father's name on it, you will cry. Your wife will walk away, leaving you alone with the grave, and you will find yourself talking. You will tell him all the things you couldn't say when he was looking back at you. When you finally stop, you'll be hoarse.
On the way back to the car, your wife will offer to drive. You will let her, because you're worn out from talking and crying. You won't have slept well, because the house will seem foreign and cold without your father snoring in the next room. You won't realize how much that sound contributed to feeling home and safe until it's gone.
The girls will send your brothers back to work the next morning. Your mother will take you to the airport. You will hug her and tell her that you love her, and that you'll call. She will tell you not to worry. You will worry anyway. She has been married to your father for nearly her entire adult life.
Boarding the plane will seem more final than anything else. You know that you will never come back and find your father sitting in the living room or working on the car in the driveway or waxing the boat behind the house. It hits hard. You will be very glad your wife is there for the return trip. She will keep everyone away from you when you walk back onto the base.
Hawk will shake your hand and tell you to take all the time you need. You will remember that it hasn't been that long since he had to bury his own father. You have entered a club of sorts, you will discover. A handful of people will speak to you over the course of a few days. They will speak of their own parents in the past tense. You must learn to do this, as well. It won't be as easy as you expect it to be.
It will hit you at odd times, even years later. At strange times - the anniversary of his death, of course; when you hold your infant son for the first time; but also when you eat hot dogs or think about fishing. Locking up the house at night will often remind you of him.
There will come a time when you can think about him in certain contexts entirely without pain. You will miss him - you will never stop missing him - but it will gradually become easier. When you reach this point, you'll be able to talk about him with your son. Remember to tell him that you loved your dad.
Remember to tell him that you're proud of him.