Yesterday, I returned home from a very busy day. My feet were propped on the coffee table and my laptop in my lap. At 6:30 p.m. my phone pinged with a notification, a reminder to do something.

Call Dad

I stared at the screen for a moment. This was one call I couldn’t make. That knowledge didn’t sit any better with me than if it said ‘make doctor appointment‘.

A year ago, I put that reminder in my phone because I realized there were some weeks I didn’t talk to my dad. Life had gotten busy again and I felt I was neglecting him. Even if the conversation was less than five minutes, at least we would talk. My dad called me more than I called him. I knew that had to change, hence the reminder in my phone.

There were times in the last year where his hearing was an issue and conversations were difficult. At times, his hands couldn’t hold the phone to talk to me.

Since Father’s Day, I hadn’t called my dad. He was either in the nursing home or the hospital. He couldn’t hold the phone, so I didn’t call his hospital room. Most of the time, his room phone was behind his head and he’d never reach it. He hadn’t gotten a new cell phone yet, so you had to wait for a sibling to call you on their phone to talk to him. But I did drive up to see him often.

Ten days ago, we brought him home to die. Four days later, he took his last breath, peaceful with his left hand raised, the fingers curled like he was clutching a steering wheel. Perhaps his last visual was him driving in his beloved 1948 MG-TC; the open road in front of them winding along the back roads on a cloudless day.

Yesterday, we had his funeral, today we laid him to rest and every time I looked at my phone today, there was that reminder – Call Dad.

I can’t make this call, he won’t answer on the usual cellular or landline line. But he’ll probably be sitting with me on the patio, sipping an adult beverage, or he’ll be leaning over my shoulder while I’m driving, making sure I’m driving the speed limit.

But I’m pretty sure he’ll be beside me when I take to the road on a journey – he never could resist a ribbon of asphalt and neither can I.