They say that when something big and dramatic happens, the memory will be imprinted in your brain for the rest of your life. This is the case for most adults on September eleventh, 2001. If you are lucky, your climactic moment will be something wonderful. However, if it is something dreadful you are compelled to remember, you would think that life could at least give you a cheerful childhood. You would think that life would provide you time to grasp what death really is. You would think that life would have some decency to give you a chance to get started before your small world comes crashes in on itself. You would think, and you would hope that life, this intangible idea, could do you any one of these small favors. Well in my life, I was forced understand despair at the age of three.

It is not uncommon these days to have divorced parents, a dismal, but true fact. My parents separated when I was three. In the years that followed, I spent every other weekend with my dad and his various girlfriends.

Due to my blissful ignorance, I cannot recall when he first started getting sick. It started small, but escalated to prolonged stays in the hospital. To this day I can’t stand the antiseptic smell that comes with doctor’s rooms. 
In the summer before I went into fourth grade, my father’s loved ones gathered in his hospital room. I don’t remember the exact date, but I do remember sitting on an uncomfortable chair, looking out the window at the endless blue sky. It was a bright, warm afternoon.

“She can’t hear this news! She’s only nine,” my grandmother’s shrill words pierced through the silence that hung in the room like an ominous gray cloud, ready to burst.

My mother, who wasn’t on the best terms with anyone from my dad’s family, argued for my sake, “She has already been through so much, I am not going to leave her out of this.”

My grandma huffed, but stayed silent as the doctor came in.

Next came his grim words. He turned to my dad and said “You are being put in Hospice.” Hospice? What was that and why was everyone on the brink of tears. Why were my grandma and aunt watching Dad through wary eyes?
Dad kept a stoic expression on his face. I think I heard him mutter “I’m fine,” before my mom ushered me out of the room.

Weeks later my mom and I were at the Dennis and Donna Oldorf Hospice House of Mercy in Hiawatha. Adults with cheap perfume that stung my nose and cardboard smiles gave me picture book after picture book about children who were going through a hard time because their grandma or grandpa died. I thought they were all incredibly stupid, it’s not like could relate to them. Besides, my dad would survive, he would graduate Hospice, he had to, he just had to. Even all of the years that he wasn’t there for me, he was never completely gone. The longest I had ever gone without seeing him was nine months. It’s hard to imagine that it has now been exactly five and half years since I last saw him.

Fast forward to Wednesday, October 20th, my aunt, grandparents, mom, and I were all still of the Hospice home in the middle of the night. At this point in time my dad was on pain meds that kept him comatose basically 24/7. In this particular moment no one else was in the room but my dad and I. I slowly walked up to his bed, surrounded by beeping monitors, with shaky legs. I have never been much of a cryer, but in this moment my eyes were like waterfalls. I mumbled out an “I love you,” and got a huge surprise in return. I didn’t know that he could hear me, but hear me he did, and even through all of his pain he weakly lifted his arms and upper body up and hugged me. That was the last time I would hug him, and I wish I would have held on just a little longer. That simple action meant the world to me and I will never, ever forget it.

My mom and I headed home Thursday morning. If only we had stayed we could have been with him till the very end, but as we sped home, we had no idea that the next time we would see him, he would be in a casket.

Friday October 22nd, the day that changed me, the day I will always remember. I hadn’t gone to school, as usual. The time was nearing 8 p.m. and I was about to go to bed. My mom’s phone pierced through the dull sound of the Criminal Minds episode that had been playing on TV. In seconds she was up, telling me to get in the car. I did so without thinking about it. She started making calls as we rode in our blue van to my grandparents house. As we pulled up they ran out, faster than I’ve ever seen them run. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was too scared to ask. So I stayed silent, wrapped myself in my blue blanket with pink cats, and watched the clock. It blinked from 8:11 to 8:12 and I closed my eyes, ready for a nap.

My grandma’s familiar ringtone broke the silence in our racing van. Her next words were wailed, barely spoken  through the tears “Slow down! Slow down!” It did not take a genius to piece together the events of the night. Gone, my dad was gone. The final thought that broke through my barriers and brought on the tears was the realization that I could never be daddy’s little girl.

“Steve had a passion for hunting, horses and Harley Davidson motorcycles but the center of his life was his daughter, Madison,” a line from his obituary. To this day, reading that line still brings tears to my eyes.
Life gave me three years of a perfect life, a dad and a mom that loved me, a happy house in the country, but it was taken away. Maybe that’s why every time I see a dad and his little girl I feel this pang in my chest. I took me a long time to figure what it was, but now I know, that twinge is jealousy.