The Right Things
:: Apr 8, 11:13 PM

The morning my dad passed away I was sleeping in my cramped studio apartment with my semi-new-less-than-six-months boy friend. I think we both knew what had happened when I got the call a quarter to six in the morning. Most people die in the morning and my dad was lucky enough to pass away on a beautiful morning. It’s actually really rare that there is a beautiful morning in Tokyo. It was so beautiful, it was like California was calling, grieving my dad along with me.

Just a day before, thunder was striking in the distance and big violent raindrops were skimming along the hospital window. I remember watching the forecast with my dad. We just sat there while high-pitched television news anchors were filling the silence. I don’t know why the TV was on. I hate Japanese TV, it drives me insane, especially when I am in bed. The chirpy ten-second jingles and short attention span news programs make me want to poke holes in the bed with a fruit knife. Anyway, we were watching annoying Japanese TV, and I can’t even remember if they forecasted right, they probably did. They usually do.

Between the time that the weatherman touched his magic wand over Tokyo to reveal a big rainy icon and 10pm when I went home from the hospital, my father and I had our last exchange of words.

When I got the call in the morning, my aunt didn’t tell me that he died, but she told me to come to the hospital right away. She didn’t have to tell me that he was dead. What she did and said was obvious and I knew this would be the last last-minute taxi ride to the hospital. I kissed my boy goodbye and left him in the doorway. My grandma, my dad’s wife #3 and I piled into the car. I watched the car door slam automatically as soon as all of our limbs were inside the vehicle. Once we were moving, I inched my face closer to the window to look at early morning Tokyo. Blinded by the sun, the air was unbelievably crisp. I hoped that my dad was breathing some of that same air. It was in such contrast to the stale, dead-smell air in the hospital. I rolled down the windows to see the sun and to see the blue sky. It felt just like the car rides I took in my dad’s Toyota Corona station wagon on Blaney Avenue in Cupertino. At least the weather did.

The ride was over and I was sorry it was over.

We went up the drab, grey, cramped elavator one last time and I walked towards the end of the hallway to my dad’s room. And suddenly I was there and my dad was not there. I saw his body but he was not there. It was unreal. One of the most memorable times I felt human was at this moment. There was no way or mistaking his mortality. He was not sleeping or passed out, he just wasn’t there.

I saw the heart rate monitor print out hanging out of the machine like I imagine taffy would hang out of a taffy maker. I asked the nurse for it. Just to see his last moments. He died over an hour ago and there didn’t seem to be much of a struggle, at least on the print out. Of course, I am not a doctor, and I wanted to believe that there wasn’t much of a struggle.

My aunt waved me over to the body which was dressed in a yukata for this special occasion, a death robe. The body looked like a tent because they clasped and tied his hands in a praying position above his stomach. This was odd to me. I wondered if this is a Buddhist thing. His body was all stiff and he looked like putty. Silly putty.

Beside the body was a nightstand with a Q-tip and some Japanese sake. My aunt dipped the Q-tip in the sake and lined his lips lightly with it. I was next. He had enough to drink in life and I didn’t want to give him more. But this was not him so I decided not to make a fuss and did the same.

There was sobbing and silence, I don’t know which came first or which lasted longer. My face was probably all smushed from the fact that I didn’t know why they were showing me this body.

At some point, I called by boyfriend, whom I still imagined to be frozen in the position I left him in – standing in the hallway like the kids in the Pearl Jam “Jeremy” video. That was my image of him as he answered my phone call and said all the right things that I can’t remember. He may have rehearsed it, but it didn’t sound like it. I would have rehearsed it and sounded like I did if I were in his position.

Then I called my sister in Berkeley. I also don’t remember what we talked about.

After we got out of that room we were escorted down to the basement. I saw a maintenance worker and said hello to him as we passed by each other in the hallway. He knew why we were there and he said all the right things as well. The right things being “hello.” So I guess it was just the right thing.

We entered a makeshift funeral home-ish room and my dad’s body was there again. In the makeshift funeral home-ish room was a makeshift minister-ish guy who said a few words about death and love. Some of the flowers were fake, some of them were real. We lit candles and stood in front of a framed piece of paper with my dad’s name on it that was probably written by an intern, whose job it is to write all the names of the deceased for the day in his best handwriting—then frame it, and reuse the frame over and over again. My dad’s name fell into the trash like all the others. That trashcan must hold a perfect record. I wanted to just call that the funeral because it was much more true than the “real” funeral we were to stage the next day. The makeshift condolence room had fake flowers, but its right-then-and-now quality had made it more real than anything that followed.

We were ushered out the room after each of us said a word or two to the dearly departed. Grievance was a new form of communication for me and my natural instinct was to think to myself “Hey Dad, I can’t believe you are dead. Did you feel pain? I am sorry I wasn’t there when you took your last breath. I love you.”

Lining the hallway waiting for us where all his doctors and nurses. They knew him as the grumpy stubborn smart-ass guy that was way too young to die. I am sure they weren’t glad to see him go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were a little relieved. It’s as if that forever unsatisfied blue Muppet diner on Sesame Street just stopped coming to the restaurant. You’d loose some color, but you’d also loose some stress. I wanted to hug all of them but that would have been too much color. But I should have, in memory of my dad, who was totally colorful.

At the end of the hallway was a bright light, just like the one they talk about in death and dying books. The bright light at the end of the hallway was an exit to a driveway outside. I think the hospital had called a taxi or something because there was one just waiting there. There was also a van which was made for transporting dead bodies waiting in the driveway. Wife #3 rode with him in the van while the others and I piled into the taxi.

The ride back home was something I recreated in my memory as the ride to the hospital that morning, the same ride in reverse. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular except for the empty roads and beautiful blinding sun. My brain was floating somewhere in la-la land, thinking about how if Tokyo didn’t have anyone living here, it would be ideal. A desolate and sunny Tokyo was my ideal. Just like a desolate and sunny Disneyland is Jacko’s (RIP) ideal. I didn’t want the car ride to end just like I didn’t when I arrived to the hospital in the morning.

But it did end and as we stepped out of the car, #3 and two or three “movers” were moving my dad’s body up the steep steps into his home. Bodies are taken back to their homes to “rest.” They rest in packs of dry-ice making it totally David Copperfield-esque in theory. I had secretly hoped that my dad’s body would have steaming vapors of dry ice emanating from all side, preferably from the bottom, but sadly there was nothing magical or Vegasy about this. It was totally the opposite of Vegasy.

As they were moving his body up the steep steps, I was afraid that his body was too rigor mortised. I feared that his body would slide off the tray-like thing they had him on. The covered it with something, of course, so the neighbors wouldn’t see.

written in Copenhagen on April 8, 2009