7:00 a.m.          I wake for school slowly, allowing myself time to take in the warmth from the sunlight perched midway on my bed. Early September, though at this very moment I am unconcerned with what exact day it might be. "No matter", I think, "it is after all, just another day." I roll over to avoid the sun's slow creep as if it's sneaking up on my face. I have slept in this bed for two years now and know precisely when it will shout peek-a-boo in my eyes and a lazy smile forms as I evade the attack. School. I groan out loud. Pulling the covers over my head, I peer into the safe haven of softness and light as it beams through the blanket. Hide and seek now is it? I snuggle further under the covers but the sun already knows I'm under here and won't go away. Through a cloud of sleep I struggle to recall what day it is, wondering what interesting tidbit of entertainment at school today might entice me further to relinquish my cozy, corner-to-corner position on the bed. Twelve year olds need to know these kinds of things. I come up with nothing and attempt to find today by recounting yesterday's events. My mind stops abruptly on the memory of after lunch conversation with my mother. Her words come back to me like shots ringing out from a gun. "He is weak," she had said slowly "and it won't be long". Instantly, I remember in vivid detail my prayer from the night before, asking God to end his pain. Today my prayer will be answered. I whisper "Daddy" to myself right there under the covers. Shaking the last bit of sleep from my brain, I try again to recall what day it is and feel the trudging creep of reality. Today, in early September, on some unknown day of the week, and some unknown date of the month, my father will give in quickly and close his eyes to death. I push the covers back and let the sunlight hit me full in the face. I close my eyes and see nothing.

7:30 a.m.          Ready for school now, my belly rumbles with a half-hungry, half-sick growl. I quickly debate the benefits of breakfast and decide to forego the expense of it. I fiddle with my books, gathering and rearranging them on the kitchen table until I produce a perfectly organized stack with all the book edges straight and even. With three sisters making the kid count at home a total of four, our house is usually buzzing with activity at this hour on a school day, but today I sit in silence with sunlight for company. The heavy weight of change presses on my heart when I think of how different things will be when I come back to this very same table, on this very same day. I pick at the corners of the oval placemat beneath my books and think about soup. A huge silver pot is steaming on the stove, the water is running in the kitchen sink, and the refrigerator door is standing wide open, held back by a wooden kitchen chair. Daddy is cooking supper with a dishtowel thrown across his right shoulder as he dips his head into the refrigerator light, coming back each time with leftovers from a meal gone by. He doesn't talk much when he cooks; he simply does what he's doing and nothing more, though he did take the time to teach me something when he thought I might be in the mood to learn. I watch him methodically take each container, some with vegetables, one with beans, a three-day-old ham, and some other foreign substance that looks completely non-edible, dumping them into the billowing smoke one by one. He rinses each bowl and makes a towering stack that leans uncomfortably. Daddy always washes dishes as he goes; he's just not a messy person. I recall the dread of waiting for that soup to get finished and remember a lot of complaints at supper that night. I realize the importance of the time I waste on the memory at this point, wishing I had done more to let him know how precious it would be to me on a day like today.

8:00 a.m.          My sisters emerge from wherever it is they've been, because suddenly the room is full of the four of us. I wonder briefly if they were hiding from goodbye too. I break into the near silence and ask, "Where's mom?" All three sisters turn to look as if noticing me for the first time. We favor in looks in a mute fashion and there is precisely two years time between each of our birthdays, mine being last. I have an intense desire to read their faces but can't look them in the eye, so I stare instead at the ravel of thread I started in the placemat with the endless picking. I remember the day mom told us that daddy had been diagnosed with cancer. It was by far the hardest message she ever had to deliver. She said his only words when he found out were "What about my girls?" The memory brings a painful lump to my throat that is hard to swallow and I look up into the face of my next oldest sister, still waiting for an answer to my question. "She's in the bedroom," came the answer in delayed reaction. Without giving myself time to think, I push away from the table and walk a straight path to my parents' bedroom door. My vision shifts instantly to the left where my father lies on his bed of mattresses stacked on the floor. A table nearby holds a lamp that shines soft light in his corner of the room, accompanied by bottles of medication, tissues, and a half-empty cup with a straw. His eyes are open and have taken on a milky appearance seemingly overnight, his gaze fixed heavy on the wall. Old folks would say his eyes are set for death and I understand now what that adage means. The blankets that cover him barely move as he breathes but he doesn't seem to struggle from the slowness of it. There is no smell in the room, no scents, no odor, just air. I allow my scan to continue in search of my mother and find her to the right in the bathroom applying her makeup, fixing her hair, going through the routines as we all have on this morning that is so different. "How is he?" I ask because it seems like a good, grown-up thing to say. "He isn't in any pain. You can talk to him, he'll understand", she said. She tells me this because the sickness has played many tricks on his mind this past month. Sometimes his episodes made us roar with laughter though I'm not sure he knew that. Mother continues curling the same section of hair over and over again, and I nod my head but remain standing there, waiting for some inner sense of good to tell me when a good time to turn and go might be. For right now I just stand here and watch her for a few minutes more.

8:15 a.m.          I walk toward my father's bed so full of emotion and showing none, trying to be what I know he needs. Daddy is a proud man and I have this sense that his soul is still strong. I kneel down and cross my arms on the blanket beside him. Looking directly into his beautiful blue eyes I speak to him softly, telling him I am leaving for school and continue talking as if this were any number of mornings past. There is something there in that milky blueness that makes me wonder for a moment what he might be thinking. He blinks and the moment is gone. I reach out to touch his hand and lean forward to kiss the top of his head as I whisper, "see you after while."

            What happens next, or later, tomorrow, or the day after is unimportant to me just now. I walk out of my house on this early September morning with a childlike hope that he will still be here when I come back, and a grown up knowledge that things will not turn out the way I need them to. I am stuck here at 8:30 in the morning, on the seventh day of the ninth month in the twelfth year of my life, somewhere between childhood and being an adult. I am happy he will not suffer pain tomorrow, but I feel sad because he has to leave to escape it. It really is as simple as that, and at this moment I am strong, yet I am weak. So clear to me now is the thought I saw reflected in his eyes the last time I searched them. He told me exactly what I needed to know without saying a word. He was teaching me even then and I love him for it. That is exactly who he was.