A loud rumbling as my phone vibrated on the metal shelf; a rude awakening at 4am. Ignoring it, I fell back asleep.  BZZZZZZZZZ! The phone continued to rattle the aluminum mesh.  Time and time again I reached out, half-asleep, shutting off what I thought to be a mis-set alarm.  It persisted.  Finally, one more whir across the shelf, I realized it as a phone call from my brother.  I answered, but from what I heard I couldn’t have been awake.  It couldn’t be real.

It was the call no child expects… our Dad had passed.

The room, once black from the night started to materialize around me as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.  A vacant bed across from me as my dorm-mate had moved out the days prior.  Silence and emptiness surrounded me.  The faint sound of my brothers voice emanating from the phone.  That always confident reassurance in my brothers voice was different. I could hear his tone, strong, but in a subtle cracking I could feel his panic.  I knew this was real.

I crawled down from my loft and collapsed into my sofa. My arms, my head, my body felt numb as if floating in water.  Physically it didn’t know how to react to what I was trying to comprehend.  The man who raised me, the one I could always count on, the individual I associated with strength was gone.  But he couldn’t be…

Just two days prior he was sitting where I sat.  Coming to my aide as he always had, my mom and him had driven up to college and spent the evening with me.  My dad; helping me out of a bind once again, exhausted, sat calmly down to watch TV with me.  He, at the time seemed more tired than I had known him to be, but didn’t think anything of it.  We relaxed there, before his long commute home watching an episode of Next Generation.  Our fascination with space and astronomy had always bonded us.  Maybe it was our mutual wonderment of the future and the unknown.

I couldn’t breathe.  I was choking on my own breath.  It felt as though a fist was shoved down my throat and clenching my insides.  Searing needles pierced my stomach and a gaping emptiness filled the place where my heart once was.  I felt my body shake to it’s core, my soul ripped from me.  A piece of me had been stolen away.

The phone rang once more; my mom gasping for air just as I was.  I remember her telling me to find someone; to be with someone and not take this news alone.

Pounding on doors; it must have been in my mind, as there was no answer to my cries.  I thought I shouted to my suite-mates through the crack in our doors, but never was there a response.  I left my room seeking someone, anyone.  Knocking on my friends door two rooms down and even my RA.  I must have imagined it because I couldn’t find anyone.  I felt completely alone.  An eerie silence as I walked the hall back to my room save for my deep breaths and forced swallows.  A warm salty taste as tears swaddled my lips and draped onto my tongue.  An ugly site as snot and tears blended with drool.

The night before, a realization had hit me.  I had an overwhelming feeling of appreciation to my parents and to my dad especially.  I was supposed to go home the next day and I had made a promise to myself I would tell him how I felt.  How much I loved him and wanted to thank him for everything he had always done for me.  I don’t know why of all nights, it was that night I had that revelation.  I chose not to call, as I would just as soon see him the next day.

Face first I fell into my couch once more.  I wanted to scream and rupture my lungs but I couldn’t find the sound.  I paced the room, rocking my head back and forth.  Insanity seemed to envelop me.  A rush of every emotion chased after one another.  Anger and fear rolled into one terrifying display.  I remember hitting the wall with force, throwing myself into the cushions.  Scraping for some sort of sound I kept trying to yell, to scream.  As deep as I breathed I could not gather enough air to fill my lungs.  A whimpered attempt as my throat tightened and tightened.  I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t shout, I couldn’t breathe.  I felt helpless.  Out of control; my mind and my life.

I must have tired myself out at one point as I found myself sitting back down, cradling my hands in the other.  Memories of my dad filled me; every positive light he ever shone upon me.

A child peering through the banister; watching Star Trek past his bed-time.  An obvious shadow shown on the wall above the TV from the light behind him.  My dad called to me. I feared the trouble I was in but it never came.  Instead he sat me down with him to watch.  I remember sitting there, feeling so proud that my dad had let me join him in viewing those adventures of Capt. Jean Luc Picard.  In my eyes, it was him accepting me as a young man; no longer a child.

Memories I will never forget.  Memories that make me, me.  Life can change in an instant, so cherish what you have when you have it.  Never take anything for granted; especially life itself.