All day I felt unease. Nothing in particular had happened, and yet malaise blanketed me. I didn’t feel comfortable in my body.

The usual things that lift my spirits had no effect. Water aerobics, puttering in the yard, meditating, sewing, even a massage. It was as I was lying there on the massage table that it hit me. Hard.

It’s the season. Not the date, but the season. Seven years ago, on the Thursday morning before Palm Sunday, I went into Dad’s bedroom to tell him goodbye, as I was about to drive to Charleston for a dear friend’s 50th birthday celebration. I found him doubled over in pain, unable to speak. I immediately called 911 and watched as the paramedics took him away. We reunited in the Emergency Room, and the doctors assured me that all he needed was a drip of penicillin to combat the infection from his dialysis. I didn’t go to Charleston that day.

I stayed with Dad, and watched over Mom. I silently cried, unable to bear to see him in so much pain. I apologized profusely. See, the day before, we had had an argument. An argument in which we raised our voices with each other, which I had never remembered happening in my entire life. With Mom, yes. She was a yeller. With Dad, no. He was a negotiator, a peace maker.

I was sitting at the dining room table, working. He was sitting at his desk across the room, writing correspondence. Mom’s best friend was visiting. She had agreed to take Mom to a medical appointment in a couple of weeks, as I would be taking Dad to a chemotherapy appointment that day. Dad confirmed with Mom’s best friend that she would take Mom to her appointment next week. Without really thinking, I said, “Week after next.” Dad turned to me and yelled, “Stop correcting me! Just stop it!” I was so stunned that he raised his voice that I was paralyzed. I excused myself to take out the trash.

As soon as I was out of the condo, I started bawling. What was happening? I literally had never heard Dad raise his voice. Not when I was arrested for underage drinking and he had to collect me at the county jail on Christmas Eve. Not when I thought I was helping with weeding and accidentally butchered all of the raspberry and blackberry bushes, wiping out the season’s bounty. Not when I had a wreck and totaled a new BMW with paper tags (ie, less than 30 days in the owner’s possession).

I collected myself and returned to the condo. As soon as I saw him, I started crying again. Not kindly, he said, “What?” All the feelings at once assaulted me. What had I done? Why was he mad? Why had I sacrificed months to live with them? Why was he dying? And all of that poured forth. And we both cried, and hugged, and cried some more.

And the next morning he was in the ER. That couldn’t be our last memory. I apologized over and over. He apologized. And yet. In my bones I knew something was off.

He implored me to go to Charleston. Relationships are too important; you have to nourish them, he told me. I’ll be fine, he told me. I’ll be home by the time you return on Sunday, he told me.

On Saturday morning, I reluctantly drove to Charleston. On Sunday morning, less than 24 hours later, my sister called and said she was driving straight to the hospital from Atlanta because Dad had taken a turn for the worse. I immediately got in my car, praying I would arrive before he passed. I did. And a few hours later he was no longer in this world.

In a strange twist of fate, this Saturday morning I’m due to drive to meet the same three friends I met with the weekend of Dad’s death. In Atlanta this time, not Charleston. And the sense of deja vu is in my bones. The tears are already flowing. Even though there is no one left to die.