My feet hid in the warmth of the Carolina sand when the call came. I fumbled through the bag for my phone, as one side of my chair sank deeper. I rushed to answer, but I already knew you were gone. I knew as I sat on this coast and watched the flurry of grey and white gulls in their early morning quest for food. Some searched the tide from the early October skies. Birds dipped and dived while the waves rolled into a carpet of foam. Others studied the soft, wet sand on legs that looked like sticks as they were beaten by the salty smelling breezes of the ocean. The water coaxed me to come closer and I left my unsteady chair. Standing on insufficient legs I planted my feet at the edge where puddles of the surf kissed the shore. As the waves retreated, tiny pieces of shells were revealed, and my feet sank deeper into the soggy sand. You were gone before the last time I saw you.

You smiled at me as you raised the bed while I slid the chair closer and struggled with the typical convalescent home smell. Nurses and orderlies marched in and out, bringing water you did not drink and trays of food you pushed away, except for the lime Jell-O. Your hands shook as you tried to open the container and fumbled with the spoon. Leaning in, I rescued both.

“Here, Dad, let me help,” I said.

I peeled back the lid and scooped the first bite into your mouth and then another. You took to the process quickly, pausing for an occasional raspy breath of air.  After the last mouthful I dabbed a napkin to your chin to recover the speck that missed its target. I slid the comb from the side table through your thinning gray brown hair and smoothed it with my free hand.

“Are you an RN?” you said with your once baritone voice. Now barely a whisper.

 A question I found strange since we wrestled over your paying my tuition so many years ago.

“No, Dad,” I said. “I’m a school-teacher, remember?”

I left out my recent retirement from full-time teaching and the upcoming beach trip we’d planned but I felt my forehead wrinkle and my eyes squint.

“Oh,” you said. “I forgot.”

I searched my mind for clarity while we both stared with determined eyes at the screen in your room. You reached for my hand, and I squeezed it like you did with mine when it was little. And then I knew it wasn’t my vocation you could not locate in your mind, it was me. You forgot me. Perhaps your ailing body was so consumed with determining the thought files to keep and which to toss, you lost mine. Medical monitors beeped, chimed, and on occasion ticked, and I held your hand as you stared at the screen in your room. But you were gone before then.

You were gone when we were young and dressing up for Halloween. Birthday candles glowed and cake was served, and you were gone. I saved the trinkets you brought me from your travels. They line my shelves like works of art. You were far from us driving a glass company truck, moving sand and glassware from one end of the country and back. Strangers sat alongside us during your service.

We watched as they strolled in at the final moments in their tired T-shirts and dusty shoes. The years you had left you gave to those we didn’t know; we told you we didn’t want a new family. You watched as they made birthday wishes and ate cake. You attended her grandchildren’s school plays. And opened your home to them for the holidays. The moments that should have been ours slipped away like sand.

The person you were now lay still, your eyes closed, hands quiet as we passed by after them. Paused at your side, I touched your chest, but it didn’t feel like you. I knew it wasn’t you and yet, salty tears burned my eyes as I whispered in your ear. The message we only spoke to each other. The words I know you never shared with anyone, not even the strangers. It was ours and I repeated it to you before I left you. The chapel doors closed behind us. But you were gone before then.

Joyce Matthews Hampton is a writer based in Ranson, WV. She has previously been published in Gravel Magazine and Last Writes: Haunting Tales from The Mountain Scribes.