text: A small tear rolled down Gabe’s pale face as he looked on his father in a hospital bed. After five years fighting illness the man he thought of as a hero had been reduced to sunken skin and foul odors. The man’s dark brown hair stuck to a sweaty forehead. Tubes ran through him like an alien being examined in a science fiction movie. The machine next to him chirped with each heart beat but the sound was far from reassuring. The time between beeps had slowed since their arrival a week before. Now, in the sterile room, every sound seemed louder. At first the machine signaled the fight left in the man who lay on the bed, but now it was the drum beat of time running out. Gabe looked at his father trying not weep. The doctors and nurses had been buzzing in and out all day in an effort to make his father comfortable in what little time he had left. The kind gesture only seemed to make things worse. Their severe expressions made everything feel harder. His father was all he had left. His family was scattered across the country and his mother had passed when he was three years old. His earliest memories were of his father picking him up from school where they would walk in the park and talk about life. They would get dinner at a food cart and watch the people in the park and talk about the day. Gabe would tell tall tales about great oceans and far-away lands as his father would laugh. He would tell him stories about the people he worked with who did boring things because that’s what adults did when kids weren’t looking. He would hold his son’s hand when it rained because thunderstorms scared the boy. The laughed together and played together. When Gabe missed his mother, they would cry together. Gabe’s father was everything to him and to see him as he was now brought nothing but pain and fear. He wanted to be brave but it was hard. The only one he could talk to was his uncle Vincent who had come to look after him while his father was in the hospital. Unfortunately, he was always too busy dealing with the doctors and his family back home to spend any time with the boy leaving him alone most of the time in that stark hospital room. The chirps on the heart monitor were slower still as Gabe looked at what was left of his father. The doctors told him there wasn’t much time. Vincent had brought him to the hospital and waited just outside the room. He was meant to be saying goodbye but he couldn’t find the words. How do you let go of someone so important? He looked down at his feet and began to sob. The tears flowed freely from his eyes and his shoulders shook with the force of his emotions. He tried to console himself to no avail. With tears in his eyes Gabe stood and took his father’s hand in his. “Dad, I can’t tell you goodbye. I’m not ready for you to go. I want to be strong, I want you to be proud of me but I can’t do it.” Gabe spoke quietly to his father. “Uncle Vincent doesn’t know how to talk to me. He acts like I’m a little kid. You were always honest with me and knew how to make me feel better. Remember that time we sat in the living room looking at the old pictures of Mom? Do You Dad? You told me she was somewhere better and that just because her life was over didn’t mean ours was. We promised to live a really long time for her. We were going to make up for the time she lost. Do you remember Dad? I knew we were going to make it. And I told you when were really old we would die in our sleep and the people we loved would be happy that we had a lot of adventures. I thought we would be the same age at that point; that I would have caught up to you and neither of us would ever be alone. I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand why good people die. I’m not ready to be alone. I still need you. And I haven’t done anything to make you proud yet. We haven’t discovered a new animal, or buried treasure. I haven’t even finished school yet. Don’t go now. Dad, please. I can’t lose you yet. I can’t.” His father’s head tilted and a tear ran down his cheek as he spoke. “Gabriel, you make me proud every day. You will find your way without me. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there like we promised.” The machine next to the bed hummed loudly and the beeps were no more. Gabe called to his father. He shook the bed with his free hand refusing to let go of his father hand. After a moment he fell on to his knees next to the bed, still holding his father’s hand and wept. It had been a long five years but he wasn’t ready to say goodbye. He wasn’t ready for his father to die. Vincent ran in the room and lifted the boy from the ground never taking his eyes off of his brother in the bed. “He’s gone Gabriel. I’m so sorry.” Vincent spoke softly. Not knowing what to say he held the boy and rocked him. Gabe shuddered under the pressure of his sobbing. He refused to let go of his father’s hand. He had never been away from his dad. He wasn’t ready to let go. He hoped if he held on long enough his father would be ok. That he could do the fighting now that his hero had fallen and together they would recover.