I was up early this morning, checked my calendar, and realized it is the second anniversary of my dad’s death.

I took a few minutes to look back at what I wrote at the time. Two entries strike me as capturing the feelings I had at the time.

I wrote about what happened after getting the call from the nursing home that I should get there ASAP, and I was stuck in Kaaawa without the car and, worse, I missed the bus.

On Friday morning, when my father’s nursing home called and advised that we come as soon as possible, I was at home in Kaaawa without a car. After dressing and walking quickly down to the bus stop on Kamehameha Highway near the post office, I was a minute too late. The 11:01 a.m. bus slid through Kaaawa and headed off towards Kaneohe while I was still a block away. It was a short block, but at that moment it seemed like the longest block in the world.

I was frantic. For nearly two years, we’ve known he could die at any time, but he didn’t. Then, when the day actually arrives, I wasn’t ready, and I wanted to kick myself for being caught unprepared.

Then, after he passed away, there was a return to pick up the things he had at the end.

My sister and I returned to my father’s nursing home later in the day of his death. Their staff had already taken down the photos of each of our cats that had been on the bulletin board, and put magazines and books, stacked up over the past two years, into a box on the floor under the window. We stuffed most of his clothes into clean garbage bags, and decided to donate them to the facility, where they will be reused by other men. His shoes, some with lots more wear in them, would go to Goodwill.

We carried out a small chest of drawers Bonnie had put together for him, and his walker, two photographs taken on May Day 2009, and just a few odds and ends. The rest stayed behind as we walked, for the last time, back down the hall to the nursing station, past the common room that his mind often transformed into the 1940’s Commercial Club on Bethel Street, and to the elevator, down to the small lobby, and into the cramped parking lot.

There just wasn’t much left.

In any case, that was then.

For the record, in the two years that have passed, I think my dad only appeared in two of my dreams. Both times he was angry. I’m not sure why my dream would construct him that way. Someday, perhaps, it will become clear to me.