The last day of our father’s life was a quiet one. I remember sitting in the yard, watching my sister sweep the leaves he would normally be sweeping. I remember picking this blush pink shirt and blue raincoat because I would not be wearing those colors for a while. Packing snacks and water in our bag because we knew that withdrawing extraordinary measures, but keeping him on pain meds as the (8!) doctors had recommended, that it was only a matter of time. For the first time, not having to sneak around the guards at the hospital, because we had gotten special permission because it was the end, and everyone knew it.

It’s a strange sort of calm. Because we knew he wasn’t in there anymore. Couldn’t hear, couldn’t speak, couldn’t see us really. A Glasgow coma scale of 3. He couldn’t breathe on his own. His liver wasn’t functioning. The rest of his organs were shutting down. He was in the hospital for four weeks, three in ICU, and he had not seen the sun except for the time they moved him from surgical ICU to medical ICU.

I remember people coming in to say goodbye, and waiting on the outside benches with my siblings as our mom had stayed in with him. Even with special permission, we couldn’t all stay in the ICU at the same time because of the risk of infection for the other patients that still had a chance to live.

Our cousin, who lived with us for years from college to a little after had time with him. A couple of friends who had taken him in as their own dad, who had their own relationship with him because of how much we shared through the years. My godfather, his brother’s best friend, who took one class with him one semester, but we see every year, and his wife. I remember his cousin texting us saying they were stuck in traffic and telling me they hoped he could hold on so they could say goodbye.

In that last hour, it was all five of us in that ICU, holding on to each other as we said goodbye. His blood pressure dropping every five to ten minutes. The alarms going off, but the remarkably kind nurse turning off the noise. The rosary we prayed, because what actually do you say when a person you’ve loved your whole life is dying?

He left at 3:09 pm of August 29, 2025. And I know he would’ve stayed if he could. He fought the hardest he could but his physical being could not take it anymore. And because I knew he was a worrier, an overthinker like me, he would not have been able to bear knowing the pain leaving us would mean. So we whispered we would be okay, that we had each other. Thanked him for everything he did for us, and the strength he provided, even during times it was in spite of him rather than because of him. That we had all the tools for this life because of how we were raised, and the opportunities he provided. That we would take care of each other, and do our best to make sure those he cared for, we care for as well. Even if his body wasn’t responsive, the spirit it held, we hoped would be free from the pain it had gone through, and was free of the burdens this life still hold for the rest of us.

We are not okay. And we have forever been changed. But we continue, as what other choice is left but to live on?

I have a picture of my father’s burnt bones on a slab. And not one of just the two of us together in the past 15 years.

I’m going to tell you a specifically Filipino thing they do after they do the first firing of a cremation and before they grind down the bones to put in the urn. They offer to have you go look through and check for green bones as a symbol of luck, and I’ve seen an uncle keep some of his mom’s green bones for a while before they buried it with the rest of the urn. So after they put him in the oven and before the final processing, our family went to see what was left of him on a slab and the adults (mom and the aunts and uncles) checked for the green. My aunt told me to snap a photo, and now it’s in the group chat.

How absurd is that. What am I supposed to do with that photo, and not a single fucking one of the two of us together?

I don’t know how to deal with this.