My father passed away on February 11th of 2009.

It was a Wednesday.

That previous night, my two brothers and my wife had visited him in the hospital.  I made a wrong assumption — that my father would be alive the next day.

I can clearly hear my wife whispering to me that night, before we left: “kiss your father.”

Like the bastard I am, I didn’t.

I thought he would, like the survivor he was, be around the next day.

I was wrong.

He passed away at 0330 hrs., early Wednesday morning, February 11th of 2009.

My brother received the call.  Then he called me.  Luckily, our eldest brother was already in town.

My wife wisely told me to kiss my Dad goodbye, and I didn’t.  And I will regret that small, seemingly insignificant act, for the rest of my damnable life.

It kills me, even now, four years later.  I still have my father’s things scattered in my office on the second floor of my cabin.  I haven’t moved them in four years.

There must be something wrong with me.

It still hurts.

BZ