Now and at the Hour of Our Death

by Susana Moreira Marques

  They always told me I was like my mom and my sister was like my dad, and I always wanted to be like my dad. And my dad said that him and my sister were made of the same stuff, and that created a kind of rivalry between us – and jealousy… The more they told me I was like my mom, the more I’d get annoyed and want to be like him. I always wanted to show everyone I could be as strong and smart as he was. That I could be stubborn like him and never leave anything half-done. I wanted to be a daughter who deserved a father like him – and to be like him.

  You could write a book about my dad. No matter what he said, it was always interesting. He’d talk to judges, to maids. He didn’t have any enemies; he never got upset. People always asked him for advice: they needed to know what he thought. He was never boring, never over the top. I knew people liked my dad, but I never knew how much. Having twenty people around on any given day is nothing. People are always bumping into each other here. They’ve got to wait their turn. There were times when there’d be people around till eleven at night. They’re living through this with us. The other day, when I was visiting Mogadouro, I bumped into someone who’d lost more than one relative to cancer and I felt so awful. I thought: ‘You lost your dad too and I never said anything.’

  I didn’t give a damn. I just didn’t care. I never liked going to funerals, so I just never bothered. We’re all selfish. Only now do I value sharing this suffering with people, being comforted by them – people are always comforting me these days – everywhere I go.

  Whenever I had to ask for advice, to help me make a decision, my first instinct was always to ask my dad. His opinion was the one that mattered. Mom always agreed with him. My mom’s the one who took care of us at home: buying shoes when we needed them, doing our homework, teaching us to cook or to darn socks; she had to deal with the hard stuff. He taught us about morals. He had this amazing life philosophy – and without having ever gone to school. He was such a chatterbox. He spent hours and hours of his life talking to me and my sister. And it was normal – the things he said, they’d sink in, and now that we’ve grown up, we do things we didn’t even know we had in us, but that, little by little, have stuck. He taught us to be sure of where we stood – to dance, but to always know where we put our feet. It was only when I realized I was losing him that I started appreciating what he taught us. I was always really proud of my dad, but I never told him. We never had much time just to ourselves. Whenever I’d come over from France, the whole family would be around. Guests coming in and out of the house. The phone ringing off the hook. But I’d find a way for us to be alone, and still I couldn’t tell him. I wanted to, but it just wouldn’t come out. I so needed to tell him how sorry I was – for the war I’d waged against him to prove I was just as strong, if not stronger, than he was. I know he understood. Last time, before I left, I had to tell him

  I’m proud of you.

  If anything, I didn’t tell him enough. I didn’t have the time, living so far away. What I didn’t do then I can’t do now. He can’t hear me anymore.

  I’m driving and it already hurts to think of how I’ll arrive and then have to leave again. It’s not like living in Porto or in Lisbon, which are sort of near. If I could just press pause on everything over there… Just for a month or two, and take it easy. I could be here to support my mom, to take over for her. I feel like I’m just not enough, that maybe I should be doing more for them. I even blame myself for having moved to France. I’d counted on leaving and never coming back. Now I think

  why’d I decide to go so far?

  And what about when my mom’s turn comes, when she’s old…

  why’d I go so far away?

  But life goes on. I come back as often as I can, but going back and forth so much is exhausting, and then there are the expenses and the risks involved in driving so many kilometers. My husband says

  you’ll make me a widower, too.

  There’s no way of knowing how long you’ll be in this kind of situation. We don’t know if it’ll be today or if it’ll be tomorrow or really soon. If we knew when, it’d be easier to manage, if we could just predict it… I’m afraid something bad will happen to him while I’m away. When I’m in France, I can’t stop wondering

  is he breathing?

  I’ll spend hours like that. When the phone rings, I shudder. When it doesn’t ring, I just stare at it

  it’s going to ring.

  I’m fixated on things – it’s crazy. I think

  I’m just here, relaxing, smoking my cigarette and drinking coffee, and right now my mom might be screaming by his side.

  I’m scared of enjoying life while all this is happening. My mom knows to call me immediately. And I can’t stop planning the trip back. I’m obsessed with that moment. I’m both scared for it to happen and just waiting for it to happen. I tell my son

  get everything ready, we might have to leave at any moment, pack your bags, grab some clothes, ’cause when I call you, no matter what time it is, even at night, I’m going to come pick you up.

  I’m also drilling that sense of urgency into him to see if maybe he’ll realize he’s going to lose his grandfather. When I lost my grandparents, I didn’t even blink. I tell him to call his granddad, I tell him

  watch out, ’cause the day you feel like calling him, he won’t be around anymore.

  Like everyone, I think I love my father more than other people love theirs.

  I love my dad so much I’d do anything for him. I’d give my life for him. But there’s nothing I can do. It’s horrible because I like fixing everything. I was never the kind to throw in the towel. I’ve always managed to find an answer to everything. But what’s that worth? He’s always had an answer for everything, but not for this. Neither do I. We think we control everything, but we don’t control anything at all.

  ‌Elisa

  The nurses realized it was almost time, so they called my sister and me. We made it. We even got to spend a day and a half with him, except he was already unconscious – I mean, sedated. Everyone was ready for it to happen, everyone but me. I just sat there, acting like nothing was happening, cracking jokes. And when it happened, my mom and my sister started screaming. And I couldn’t react. It must have been two months before I cried. It’s really hard for me to cry. And now I’ve finally started crying, but only because I’ll get all worked up over something minor, and then I might cry a little out of frustration. But when it happened – and the atmosphere at our house was just so strange… It took me a long time to realize what was going on.

  And those memories are so awful. The worst ones are from the last days. I’d almost rather not have seen anything. They’ve got nothing to do with him. It’s not the same person. I can’t erase them and I can’t deal with them either. I see my dad, sick and suffering – he’s stretching his fingers, wracked with pain, screaming. It was hard for me to believe it was that bad. It was always hard for me to believe he was in pain. These days, when I’m in pain, when my knee hurts, for example, I’ll feel that pain and then I’ll start imagining it being much more intense, and all over my body. I beat myself up a lot. I try to imagine how it feels… When I lie down, when I’m in bed, I wake up in the middle of the night and my body is half-asleep, still half sleeping, and right then, when my body’s like that, I start picturing what it must be like to feel that way for a full twenty-four hours, then another twenty-four hours and another twenty-four hours… I try to feel what he felt.

  And what was going through his head?

  It haunts me so, so much:

  what does someone who’s dying think about?

  does he believe he’s going to die?

  does he believe it all the time?

  is it a constant thought?

  isn’t it?

  does he try to kid himself?

  what happens?

  how does he see other people?

  does he try picturing what everyone else’s life will be like?

  does he think about what he’s going to lose?

/>   I can’t really picture death, much less when it comes to my dad. But now I have that image of him lying there stretched out, white and cold and so different to what he was really like. And then they go pick up a coffin and they put your person in the coffin. And that’s so strange to me. All I wanted was to hit the man who took the coffin away. We’re so medieval about it. Death itself seems medieval. You put a person in a box. And he’s in there, all bunched up. Just there. And then the old women come see him and kiss him and pray and cry. I reacted very badly to having other people see my dad. I didn’t want anyone to be there. I saw all that mess… It happened at home, in that little room where his bed was, that was where… And the man, he brought in a coffin, but the first coffin was too small and so he was standing around there, with my dad… Then they went to get another coffin and they were just walking around like that! They went to pry him out of the first coffin and put him in another one. All I could do was watch them and think to myself, that’s a coffin and it’s small, and then they went and got another one. And then they set everything up, and they held what people call a wake. And my dad spent the whole night there. In my head, we all went to bed and my dad was sleeping, too, and everything was alright. I just couldn’t acknowledge it, even after everything I’d seen. But the worst part, the absolute worst, was when they came to pick him up. They came in and it felt as if they’d just stopped by to pick something up from a store. These are the images I live with. It’s the same day after day, they come by and say ‘it’s time,’ and they take him.

  ‘It’s time?’

  When they came to take him away, my world collapsed. I saw the hearse outside and all those people on the street and it was just horrible… I had this urge to hold him, to hold my dad… And that’s when I realized what had happened. He made this sound… And the air inside him went into my mouth and I almost threw up. That’s when it clicked. Because I don’t really just accept things, I never have, like, my whole life. And at that moment, I got it.

  They put up tripods in the cemetery to rest the coffin on. Since we’re not religious, we didn’t have a priest. Our friends spoke. It was really beautiful, more beautiful than anything any priest could’ve said – they never make any sense. First my dad’s friend spoke, then I did. I don’t know how, but I spoke loud, so everyone could hear me. From what I’ve been told, I was calm and I spoke well. I explained why there hadn’t been a mass and said something along the lines of: my dad’s religion was love and friendship and that’s all anyone needs to be happy.

  My dad was put in a niche. I wasn’t about to let them put him in the ground. My dad – down in the ground like an animal? No. Niches, they’re nice and clean. They’re made of concrete and my dad really liked concrete. And they put the person at eye level. It’s clean. It’s still not a twenty-first century thing, but it’s halfway there. ’Cause something’s got to change. One day we’ll have to figure out a new solution.

  In the next few days, I didn’t notice a thing, I did everything mechanically – I just went and dealt with everything

  what needs doing?

  what needs doing?

  We needed to handle the paperwork and go to the funeral parlor and order letters to spell out his name on the niche and all those awful things you have to do. Clean the house. See who needs paying, check whether we owed the pharmacy any money, or anyone else. And then I went back to Ovar and my mom went with me. I went back to work. It was hard to go back to court, to face people. They’d come up to me and ask how I was and I’d tell them not to ask. He’d pop into my head from time to time, but I’d fight it. But after a while – that’s when it got really bad. I don’t know how long it took… The other day, I had to stop and ask myself when it had happened, because I couldn’t remember what day it had been. I know people normally memorize these dates, but I couldn’t remember the day – I couldn’t even remember the month

  was it June or July?

  was it August?

  I’m reacting very strangely, the littlest things make me want to scream. It’s not that I want to start sobbing or anything. I feel like hitting people. One day, this little old man came to the courthouse to complain, he was fifty-something, sixty. I went to talk to him, I was being friendly, and he just started whining, ’cause he’s broke and he’s got so many problems and his son is getting his master’s degree, and he’s worried he won’t be able to pay for his son’s master’s, and it just started getting to me. And I said to him: ‘Look, you need to go to a lawyer and do this and do that.’ And he wouldn’t listen to me and he just kept on whining. And that started messing with me, I looked at that bastard and thought to myself

  you son of a bitch. Do you even know what real problems are?

  I pictured punching him. All I know is that I looked at that man and felt such hatred… I just had to say to him: ‘You have no idea what real problems are, get out of here! You’re lucky you’re alive and that you have a son who’s getting his master’s!’ And I kicked him out of there. And everyone was staring at me. As soon as I sat down, these tears, nervous tears, started running down my face, they weren’t out of sadness, they were just tears of anger, and they wouldn’t stop falling. With my mother and my boyfriend, it’s always on the cards. Everything they do annoys me. Everything they don’t do annoys me. Everything they say, the way they say it, annoys me. It’s like I’m constantly boiling up inside, while also trying to be reasonable and thinking:

  but how is any of this their fault?

  I try to be rational, but there’s a part of me that needs them to understand. And then, when I stop thinking about myself and I think about my mother, I wonder

  how is she doing?

  She must be so much worse off than me, and then I think I’m never going to give her a hard time again, never again, and then I see her and she says something and I explode.

  I try to keep calm and get everything done. It takes a lot of effort, so much effort. I still haven’t passed my law exams, my future seems so uncertain, and even though I believe strongly in so many things, my future seems really far away, like I’ve pressed pause on it. I don’t have a job yet, and I don’t have my dad to give me a hand. My mom was never independent, never had a job. It’s not going to be easy for her to get her life back together. She needs me. I feel like there’s this huge weight on me. I’m trying to do everything and organize everything. And I feel as though I’m failing, and I do stupid stuff sometimes, which really annoys me.

  I miss my dad the most when I can’t fix a situation. Even if he couldn’t fix it himself… But whenever I’m upset, I immediately think of my dad. My dad was the one I’d talk to, the one who’d say the right things. And that – that’s when I miss him. And so I think that the only thing I can do is try and make things run smoothly. And try to get everything done.

  When I started the whole deal of moving to Porto, I had to face the facts because my dad would’ve been the one to help me out. He would’ve been the one to fix everything up in the apartment. I brought tools with me. The first holes I tried making, they… I was so anxious… I’m getting things done… In the beginning, I’d be doing something by myself and I’d feel like my dad was by my side, as if I was doing these things with him, and that gave me strength: because I pretended I still had my dad. I pretended night and day, all the time. But then it all started feeling distant. And I couldn’t pretend all that well anymore. And now something strange has started happening – it’s like he’s inside me. I know it’s nothing paranormal, that it’s all in my head, but even so it’s really strange. I’ll be kneeling, laying down some mortar, or hammering something, or tightening a screw… Or I’ll have put the wall anchor in and I’ll be tightening it… And the way I hold the screwdriver, the way I breathe, the expressions I make from the effort, everything, everything I do feels like how my dad would do it. It’s like he’s inside me.

  I’m really selfish when it comes to my dad. My dad is mine. I was the one who knew him. And sometimes, when it comes to my mom, I�
�ll say: ‘Ok, you’re the one who was married to him for thirty years, but there’s a lot about my dad that only I knew.’ I was the one who knew what he liked. Of course it’s kind of subconscious, but it’s like I want our relationship to be untouchable.

  My dad died in peace because he lived a full life. And that brings me peace. Now I always think about how anything can happen, at any moment, so you’ve got to make the most of it.

  If I ever have a son, I’ll name him Rui.

  ‌

  ‌When You Come Back

  from the Journey no Healthy Person Wants to Take, You Will…

  ‌

  watch the clock and finally see time passing;

  know you are a machine and not feel saddened but, rather, liberated by the thought;

  read obituaries about anonymous deaths and feel responsible, as if you’d known them;

  remember those you’ve lost who did not die a good death and promise yourself it will never happen again;

  make sense of the frantic makeup of your days;

  share the corniest things you can remember with those closest to you;

  want to get married and have children if you have not yet done so, and if you have, spend more time with them;

  feel strong, since it will become clear that to do so all you need is to be alive;

  want to amend the future if you can no longer amend the past;

  live uninterruptedly, like nature;

  rather than believe the world ends with each death, believe that, with each birth, the world begins anew.

  ‌Acknowledgments