I have a blue Toyota Yaris. It's a little two door hatchback that looks like a space capsule. Against all my protests it has become known as "The Blueberry," thanks to my boyfriend's persistent efforts. It's the second car I've ever owned, and I'd owned it for less than a month when I put the first dent in it. It's not a big dent, I guess the technical term for this would be, rather, a "ding", and it's certainly not big enough to warrant looking into repair. But it's prominent enough, right in the center of the driver's side door, and I see it every time I drive the car, which for the past year has been nearly every day, as up until last week, I've been commuting to work.
I'm not sure if I've told anyone about the dent, or how I got it. It's not a very interesting story at face value. I was in a bit of a rush, I parked on Pratt Street, right next to a Potbelly Sandwich shop. I wasn't quite used to the car yet, and didn't anticipate how, when opening the door from inside, it swung open so wide and so easily. And so I swung my car door at full force into a parking meter. I didn't have time to dwell on it.
It only took me maybe three or four minutes from the time I got out of my car until the time I made it up the block, and then across- nodded hello to the hospital receptionist, and then signed in (yet another wrist band), mashed some elevator buttons, and DING- fourth floor (or was it the fifth?) and then a security buzz, the slow, mechanical opening of automated double doors, the shift in the air as you pass through the doors- on the outside, anticipation, on the inside, the main event- my boot heels click click click click clicking on the linoleum, stand up straight, fix your face, don't let your body betray how terrified you feel every time you cross this threshold.
It had only taken me maybe three or four minutes to get there from the car, but four or five minutes ago my dad had been officially declared dead. This is the lede I have been burying in this, and every story. When my father had a heart attack I told my friends it was not a big deal - we're not close, he hasn't been a part of my life since I was a child, I grieved the loss of my father long ago - my standard lines.
He stayed sick all summer, flirting with both death and recovery- one, and then the other, back and forth, over twelve weeks that felt like a mobius strip.
And all twelve weeks I'd made light of it, I'd avoided talking about it, I'd stuck my toe into examining my emotions and then quickly taken it out and walked away, deciding those waters were far too cold and deep.
I don't think I wanted to be there at the moment he stopped being alive. My brother was there and it was so upsetting that he got sick afterward, when the initial shock had worn off. I walked in right after my father had been unplugged, so I missed the worst of it. Though his eyes were still open. They stayed open.
I don't think I wanted to be there for the moment he stopped being alive but I still think about it a lot. Every time I get in my car I think about it. The length of a red light could have changed everything. The time it took me to find a pair of socks because I'd been set on wearing those dumb boots- boots in August, in Baltimore, for some reason. (Psychoanalyzing myself a year later: boots with shorts, a dumb, signature look of mine- trying to show my father, a near stranger, who I am? This is me, your adult daughter, (pretending to) confidently stride to your deathbed, this is me, and you missed it all.) The split second I spent looking at my car door after I slammed it into that parking meter, the timing of the elevator. I don't think I even wanted to be there, but I think about it.
It was a year ago on Thursday. I'm just starting to realize it's not not a big deal.
On my last day of work, a rock hit my windshield on my way in. It cracked the glass immediately. Overnight the crack got even bigger. It had started out barely the length of my hand but within 24 hours, the fracture had begun to snake its way across the glass. It was a foot long when I had my windshield replaced yesterday. This is my cheap and contrived metaphor. This is me trying to repair my cracks.
There's really nothing to be done about the dent, but I wouldn't remove it if given the option. It happened. All these things happened. I'm learning how to accept them.