My father passed away a few years ago. I have never felt such grief as I did when I received the phone call. It was early in the morning and I was still sleeping. I awoke to the vibrating phone and saw that it was my Mom. I thought to myself, “she never calls this early. something must be wrong.” I could hear her sorrow through the receiver. I immediately knew what had happened, and my heart split into pieces. I had been dreading this day. In March of 2013, my father fell down the stairs and hit his head on a stud in the wall. I remember having to leave work early to clean up the blood, and bits of his spaghetti dinner that was scattered around the stairwell, while my mother and brother went with him to the hospital. I remember everything as if it had happened just yesterday. My father was in a coma for a little over a month. I would visit him often, talk to him, pray for him. Little did I know that the man that came out of a coma would not quite be the same man.
My father experienced massive brain damage. He was in a rehab facility for months. However, rehab could only do so much. My strong, powerful, funny, energetic, and smart father was now condemned to a nursing home. He had to be carted around in a wheel chair. He had to be fed his meals. He needed assistance in every way, and it broke him. I could see it in his eyes how sad and alone he was. I could see his fear, and it broke me. One day when I visited him he screamed my name and said, “Liz! Get me out of here. Get me the fuck out of here. Take me home.” I started bawling. I wanted to bring him home more than anything in the world, but my mother could not afford in-home care. I could hear the desperation in his voice. Most times he slurred words and his sentences often did not make sense. But this time I heard him loud and clear. He was so visibly unhappy, and he looked to me for a way out. A way out that I was unable to offer. My heart was broken. I pleaded with my mom to bring him home; that I would help in any way I could. I could see my father giving up; losing the desire and the will to live. He had no control over his life anymore. He had no control over his body, and was often unable to express his wants and desires. He passed away not even two weeks after telling me to take him home; something I will regret every single day.
When I read the essay on the body’s problem with illness my father and his struggle immediately came to mind, and I cried for a little while. I read about how words cannot always express pain, and began to understand my father’s lack of control over his body. He became a monadic body, sitting in the nursing home day and night having little interaction with others. He began losing interest in things he used to love such as sports, cards, and puzzles. Eventually, he no longer seemed happy to see family. We couldn’t understand what he was feeling, or thinking, because he was unable to communicate with us. I don’t think the loss of him will ever stop hurting. I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for not trying harder to grant him his wish to come home when he was already giving up. I will always carry with me a bit of grief, a bit of loneliness, and a bit of regret. I try to remind myself that he is at peace now; that he is happier. But, oh how he is missed.
Unruly Bodies 
I also understand that pain, that understanding that someone you loved and trusted can never fit the same role in relation to you. I also had a father who had extensive brain damage, so much that “my father, someone who could take care of his family” became “our father(?), someone who needed to be cared for by his family.” It’s interesting (and sad) that physical shocks to our brains could drastically alter our “Cartesian mind” in such a manner.
To this day, I still have dreams about grieving for my father, or dreaming he comes back. I still remember how his body felt, and how rough and scarred it was as opposed to how smooth it usually was, and how his hands had to be wrapped so they wouldn’t hurt himself. Yet that emotional trauma is something I try to “pass” as not there, since it’s something disruptive to polite society.