End of an Era

I just came back from an extended stay in Italy. My dad was in hospital, but while I initially underestimated the problem, this time it turned serious. As his health was quickly deteriorating, I got on the first flight and rushed to see him. For the last four decades, I have been convinced he would go with a heart attack, because that is our weakness: it runs in the family line. Fate had it differently. While everybody scrambled to hear a different explanation every day from doctors, I remained uninterested. Just being there with him, holding his hand, having a bit of a laugh together while freshening up his face with some cold wipes. At a certain point, I even told someone in the family: any explanation of what was going wrong with his body was irrelevant. To me, it was clear how he lost his tether on Christmas Day, when his wife — my mother — quietly and quickly passed away in her sleep, on the couch. We took shifts, staying day and night, without ever interrupting our presence in…