“Hey, baby,” I said quietly. “You don’t need to get up. I just wanted to tell you I’m going to head home to get ready for work.”
Mason took my hand and kissed the back of it. “Ava, you have no idea how thankful I am for you and for our little one. There’s no way I could possibly get through this without the two of you.”
“You don’t even have to think about that,” I said. “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. I love you. I’m going to pack a bag and bring it with me when I come back tonight to check on you, if that’s alright.”
“Of course it is,” he said. “I like the idea of you having things here. But hold on. Wait. I’m going to come with you.”
“To my place?” I asked.
“No, I’m going to come into the bar with you,” Mason said.
I shook my head. “No. You need to take more time off. After what you just went through, the last thing you need to be thinking about right now is going into work.”
“I need to keep my mind busy,” he said. “I don’t want to have to think about it all the time right now. Besides, I don’t want you to be doing so much work anymore. You need to take care of yourself, and our baby.”
There was no point in arguing with him. He had that look in his eyes that said he had made a decision, and that decision was final. He was the one who was grieving. If going into work would make him feel better, then that was what he should do. If it started to get too difficult for him, I would just bring him home.
He got ready, and then I drove us both over to my house so I could get ready as well. Miranda looked surprised when we walked into the bar, and she looked at Mason, but she didn’t say anything. I gave her a reassuring look as we walked by, hoping she could see the promise in my eyes that I would explain it all to her later.
Throughout the night, Mason focused hard on his work, jumping from task to task as fast as he could so he didn’t have to think about anything else. I watched him as he did, trying to see any sign that he might be getting overwhelmed. I felt horrible for him. I wanted to take his pain away but knew I couldn’t. The only thing I could do was love him.38MasonAs much of a blur as it was when the doctor told us that my father only had a few days to live, the funeral was just as intangible. It was like living through a nightmare I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around. This wasn’t one of those horrible dreams that seemed real with everything exaggerated and excessive.
Instead, it was all hazy and distant, almost like it was happening in slow motion. Ava was there with me every single second. She stayed by my side, holding my hand and giving me strength to get through every step of it.
My father had never gone to the effort of recording his last wishes. It was something every doctor talked to him about as soon as he was diagnosed with cancer. And then when my mother was also diagnosed, workers from the hospital came and spoke to both of them together, emphasizing how important it was to make sure their opinions and desires for the end of their lives were known.
It didn’t occur to me then why they would put so much more emphasis on it once my mother was diagnosed. They realized how entwined with each other my parents were and could see that if one of them didn’t make it through their fight, the chances were very high the other one would go along very soon after.
But my father wouldn’t do it. My mother was more open to the idea, and even started writing a few things down in the little notebook the hospital gave to them. But when it got to the painful, challenging day to plan my father’s funeral, we looked at his notebook and found it blank.
My mother cried and held the notebook in her hands. She explained Dad didn’t want to even look at the questions or planning sheets in that notebook because he felt like that was somehow giving up. He didn’t want to give in to what he thought of as being resigned to his death.
What he didn’t understand was that those decisions weren’t for him. They were for us. As I sat with my brothers and my mother trying to come up with the right way to honor my father’s life and usher him respectfully and lovingly into the next, we realized just how hard every single one of those choices was.