Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Graham
Even though I'd expected an awkward welcome, nothing could have prepared me for spending time with my dad. After storming into the house, it had caught me off guard to find my dad in a room full of nurses, that he politely shooed away to have time alone with me.
He’d maintained most of the things I remembered about him. Pale white hair. Sharp angular bone structure—which I arguably, think I inherited more than my sisters. Last but not least, kind close-set eyes that seemed at peace. Everything else hadn't matched the image of him I’d had in my head.
Up close, I couldn't with confidence say he didn't look sick. The bags under his eyes made him look like he hadn't slept in days, and while I had always known my mom's genetics might result in outgrowing him, I had never seen him so thin.
Awkward pleasantries passed between us as I pulled up a chair to join him at his bedside, and because I couldn't say no, I had spent the past half hour singing to him his favorite Māori lullabies he had learned from my mother's side of the family, just to be able to sing them to us.
“Sorry, my voice is a little tired,” I said, gently placing the ukulele not far from his nightstand, as I joined him back by the bed.
“Tamā roa,” he acknowledged, using the Māori word for firstborn son. “I'm glad that you're here. It is comforting knowing I get to see you finally.”
“Dad, what are you talking about? Whatever this is, you'll pull through,” I spoke with confidence, despite being terrified out of my mind.
“Graham?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“You know I've always been a realist. Your sister, her husband, and kid are close. Half the family's already here, and close. The nurses are close. Right now, they're just making me comfortable.”
But I just didn't want to hear it. Dad was dying, stage four bowel cancer. It was like he was telling me he was going tomorrow. I hadn't seen him physically in eight years, though. I wasn't sure I was ready to be in a world without him.
“Gosh, why didn't anybody tell me sooner? I would have come back years ago,” I pressed, fighting back tears.
“Graham, this close to the end, I don't want to argue.
I just want to spend time with my son. My daughters.
My lovely wife. And maybe, just maybe, meet that woman I've been hearing so much about.” We shared a light laugh, but man, the battle to laugh to combat tears was hard. I mean, about-to-lose-your-dad hard.
“She’s great. Dad, I choose to be hopeful, but I wish you didn't have to meet her in these circumstances.”
“It's okay if you don't want to burden her with this. But to meet the woman who brought my son back home would be an honor,” he admitted.
“I'll ask her. Just be prepared if she's not mentally prepared for that,” hiding my discomfort behind a laugh.
“Have you met your niece yet?”
“Not quite, but I just got here, Dad. There's time.
“When are you gonna start having kids?” my dad joked.
“Dad, come on. That's not funny. Plus, me and Jaq aren't at that stage yet. But I do love her.”
“Think she could be the one?”
I was trying, but failing miserably not to gush when I admitted, “I don't know, maybe.”
“Then I'm glad you're happy. You are the only one of us able to survive on his own. In that regard, you're probably the strongest of us, too,” he said.
“Not strong enough to be without you, though,” I admitted through a teary-eyed smile. “I finally come home, and then I don't even know how much time I have with you. You have to admit that sort of sucks. Like I was pushed out just because I needed to go my own way.”
“You're brave in that way, Graham. It was hard seeing my only son follow a path that wasn't mine or that I didn't lead him to, but that's what being a man is. Guiding your own way. Trusting in yourself to do so. You know, you never really become your own man until your father dies—”
“Come on, Dad, don't say die. I mean it, just be with me in this moment. Without having to think of what comes next,” I pleaded.
My indifference shifting between preparing to mourn…
but like… still feeling joy. I had to remind myself that if I had waited any longer, we wouldn't even have this.
I could choose to be angry. I could reach each emotional stage of grief with resentment, or I could choose to experience joy. In the moment I was choosing joy.
“You know, it's around the time we see the yearly showing of Toiere—”
“Yeah, Dad, I know,” surprised that he remembered. Every year, whenever one of us became of age—which for the most part, had only been me and Winnie—Mum and Dad let us feel like adults by taking us to the Opera House in Auckland.
We'd get dressed up. Go for a classy dinner afterwards. The show would change from year to year until I turned fifteen. But when Toiere started becoming a popular showing, Dad would take us to that specific masterpiece, as it honored both his love for opera and our Māori culture and language.
I always joked about my dad being the whitest man in the world, and he certainly wasn't above criticism, but he was still my dad.
He never discouraged me from getting my Tā moko, or tried to make us feel anything less than pride for being Māori, so the annual viewing, while I hadn't been in close to a decade, it still meant a lot to me.
“I want you guys to go. One last time before I go.
Like you and Winnie used to. I obviously can't come, and your mother doesn't enjoy them as much without me. But if I could share that one last memory of it, especially if you took a lot of pictures, I’d have such beautiful memories for the afterlife.”
“Gosh, it's so hard hearing you talk like that,” I teared up. “Feels like last year you were teaching me how to play rugby, and now you're telling me I have to live without you.”
“I'm just trying to prepare you. I'm not doing it to be cruel or unkind. I just need you to be ready. Can you do that for me, son?”
“I'll try,” not even trying to hold back my sadness.
“You can start by working a day or two at the farm. Help out a little. Your sister's usually got things under control, but I just want you to remember what this family has built. All the privileges it's given you. I don't want you to take those things for granted.”
“I don't.”
“Good”
“Dad?”
“Yeah, Graham?”
“Do you think if I had come home earlier, that things might have been different?”
“Maybe…but I fear you wouldn't have been happy.
So, for as hard as your absence has been, I'm just glad that you're home. Whatever shape, form, or capacity that is. Even if it took an American girl to do it,” he beamed.
“Honestly, Graham, she must be some girl.
I didn't think anything can bring you back to us.”
***
That conversation had to have been the hardest I'd had in my life. Man, I needed to get out of my head, but only a few things really did it these days. Playing music, but after that it’d make me just sit with my grief.
I promised my parents I wouldn't disrespect their house, but given the circumstances, I wasn't sure I could honor that promise.
Luckily, I wasn't tempted, because Jaq was nowhere to be found. All that left me to do was hit up the outdoor gym. Surprisingly, this had been for Winnie's benefit, her being a rugby player in secondary school before giving it up to go to uni.
Working out had always been something I'd embraced more after leaving the church, as I worried less about vanity and more about how it just made me feel. Mostly good. Well, good may not be the right word. Worn out was more like it.
When I tired myself out, I wasn't worried about the future or what it held. All I worried about was when I have a shower and whether I should omit that last set.
So, imagine my surprise when Wilhelmina sat down on one of the bench press stools, waiting for me to acknowledge her. “You gonna sit there all day watching me lift?”
“No, I'm gonna sit here all day, wondering why I got all the sturdy and you got all the booty—”
“Shut up,” I laughed, putting down the barbell in its proper place, sanitizing the stuff I used. “Why didn't you tell me sooner about dad?” I accused.
“Why would I have needed to, to get you home?” she snapped back.
“It's just fucked up. Everyone seems to know but me. Everyone's preparing for it but me. You all had this time to be at peace with it. I'm coming here expected to get where you all are within a day.”
“Graham, be lucky that you're here now. Don't waste his last days picking a fight with us.”
“So, you don't think it'll be long?” I asked with skepticism.
“Graham, we're honestly surprised he held out this long. It could be any day now.”
Pacing back and forth around equipment, a controlled scream escaped, her acknowledging the inevitable making it more real.
“If it makes you feel better, we've got the tangi for him planned. It'll be the flyest way a white man has ever gone out. Figured he’s honorary Māori, might as well go out in style. Hopefully, you'll stay for that.”
“Of course, I'll stay for that. I want to help. I want to be a part of that.”
“Trust me, Graham, if you stay, nobody's going to stop you. We're just glad that you're here.”
“I just wish…if everyone was going to keep it from me, I figured at least you'd tell me the truth. I thought we told each other everything.” Being the only son, I always made do with having my older sister as my best friend.
Leaving home, naturally we grew apart, but she'd always been the one person I could count on to be real with me.
“Do you remember what you said before you left—”
“Winnie, I said a lot of things. To a lot of different people—”
“I'm not asking what you said to other people. I'm asking if you remember what you said to me.”
“Well, I'm sure you're gonna tell me,” I mumbled.
“Graham, you told me that in this family, it felt like you were drowning.”