Dissolution

Sensitive Note: Story contains mentions of death and starvation.

“Water signifies Spirit and cleansing,” her father said, pouring warm, clary sage-infused water over her hand from a silver pitcher. The extra liquid trickled like a soothing fountain into a silver basin below. The room was thick and heavy with the aroma of white sage, and Jewel’s album, “Spirit,” hummed against the cozy pale yellow studio walls.

Wren’s 30-year-old legs hung over the side of the massage table, gently swinging back and forth. Her father had just finished cleansing her feet, a part of the energy healing ritual she had experienced dozens of times since she was twelve. And in those dozens of times he’d washed her feet, he also reminded her—as if she could ever forget—that cleansing the feet first helps the energy flow better. This regular musing was usually followed by remarks on The Last Supper.

With her other hand, Wren brushed a long tendril of brown hair behind her ear while her father massaged her other, pulling at each finger until joints softly popped.

“Even when we dream about being in the water—bathing, swimming, whatever—our higher self is telling us it’s time to cleanse our Spirit,” he said.

She recalled the times her often wild and distorted dreams led her into water. With too many to count, she wondered if her father expected her to cleanse her spirit 24/7. What an exhausting thought. Working on yourself. Being that involved in your own spiritual development. Just the idea of it felt like a full-time job.

Wren wiped the frustrated thoughts from her mind, trying to recenter.

Energy healing sessions were supposed to be relaxing. A time to unload what felt heavy. A time to let go. But with her father facilitating—and his extensive views on how everyone should live their lives—it felt less like self-care and more like obligation. And Wren hated feeling obligated to do anything.

“That makes sense,” Wren said, pretending she hadn’t said something similar countless times before. He dried her hand with a towel, and pulled her sleeve down to her wrist.

The palms of her hands and the bottom of her feet felt hot now. A reminder that her chakras were open, running energy, and ready for cleansing.

“Okay, honey. Lay down on the table with your feet pointing North,” Wren did as instructed, positioning herself in the center of the table. The more center she was, the less he would critique her alignment. Her father hobbled to the end of the table, the hip that never healed restricting his mobility.

Taking a foot in each hand, he said, “Looking good, kiddo.”

Wren smiled toward the end of the table at her dad, his silver hair and clear blue eyes bright and shining in this chaotic world.

She breathed a gentle sigh of relief, finding herself more settled.

As the third track on “Spirit” started, he rounded the table, picking up a clear quartz pendulum from the set of rocks, crystals, and stones sprawled atop a nearby shelf. Then found his standing place by her head.

“Take a deep breath and set your intention. Ask for what you want,” he said, inhaling a breath of his own before raising his palms to the ceiling, the pendulum dangling from his fingers.

Wren closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting the white sage aroma fill her nose, letting her mind clear. As her father started his own prayer, voice fading into the background, she said silently to herself, with more heart than she had ever felt in her life, “Mother, Father, God, Spirit, and all that is… I don’t want to do these anymore.”

Wren had been recalling that memory more than ever these days. Because shortly after she set that intention, she found herself dodging his energy healing sessions. Gently ignoring his encouraging emails on embracing the spiritual self. Staying painfully silent during the hours-long spiritual lectures that popped up at random, which often made her feel like a hostage.

Wren just stopped engaging with the conversations all together, even when she felt physically forced to be in them.

Sometimes, his devout spiritual beliefs felt akin to the religious extremism many of her friends had experienced in their childhoods. A comparison Wren often talked through in the presence of her best friend, the one person who could understand most.

For two straight decades, she’d listened to her father’s stories, spiritual sermons, visions from God, and calls for people to engage with their higher selves. Some of the ideas and messages were new, most had been practically beaten into her DNA, until she felt like she could never possibly forget.

And for a time, even though she knew it was wrong to admit, there were days she looked forward to never hearing the lectures and pressures of connecting to her spiritual self again.

Now, she couldn’t recall any of what he’d taught her. And even if she wanted to ask, he wouldn’t be able to give her an answer.

Over the past few days, his most articulated words were, “fuck you,” the aphasia slurring the terms as if his tongue learned them just hours ago. And such cruel words were usually directed at her mother.

Wren couldn’t imagine a worse thing to hear from the person you loved most, especially in their final days. But Wren’s best friend, who had lost her father just years before, told her the end would look like this. That a heartless side would emerge, one unlike anything she’d ever seen in a beloved person. She also said there would be pockets of joy and hope, moments where he seemed so normal that he might make it through this. But she had yet to experience those moments.

Wren really looked at him now. He was in the center of his living room, eyes closed and lying in a plastic bed the hospice facility delivered over a week ago. The whole room was so out of place, Wren felt like it was just another nightmare she’d dreamt up.

Apart from his shining energy slowly disappearing, the severe dysphagia and his refusal of anything resembling a feeding tube made him so thin she almost didn’t recognize him. Wren will never forget the starving and desperate look in her father’s eyes as he took a single bite of melted vanilla ice cream, the first bite of any food-like substance he’d had in days.

Each time he drank or ate something, he aspirated, of course. And not long after, the family agreed to stop giving him things to drink and eat, because it was delaying the inevitable death he asked for.

The more she observed his finals days, the more Wren felt like it was her fault. Or that she contributed to the stroke that trapped him within himself.

Had Wren’s waning support for his spiritual callings—his one greatest passion in life—been the thing slowly killing him now? Maybe if she had paid better attention to his spiritual lectures, responded to emails on Starseeds, and did more energy healing sessions, he would still want to be in this world.

He had talked about it a lot. How every person in his life strayed from their spiritual selves, and by association, him as an energy healer. How, just like Jesus, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”

Wren couldn’t breathe over the thought.

“We should go home and take care of the boys before it gets too late,” Wren’s boyfriend said, interrupting her spiraling thoughts. They had spent days at her mom and dad’s, leaving their two Australian Shepherds and tuxedo cat at home and without the daily love they required.

Before leaving, Wren kissed her mother and waved to the six other family members in the living room. Before walking out the back door, Wren glanced to see her uncle and his wife starting an energy healing ritual on her father.

The trip home was quiet, and what probably should’ve felt like an hour or so of retreat and solace, felt like a stalled moment in time.

After caring for their pets and swapping out dirty clothes, they got in the car and headed back to her parents’ house.

“Do you need anything, my love?” Wren’s boyfriend asked.

Yes.

She needed her father to be around for the day they got married and give her customized jewelry boxes with opal bracelets, just like he did for her sister. Needed him to live so he could read the novel she still hadn’t finished writing. Needed to hear him say “I love you, Wren,” just one last time.

But that’s not really the answer he was looking for and Wren knew it.

“I could use a caramel milkshake, I think,” she said, knowing it wouldn’t help her feel better. They'd been together eight months now, and he had been trying so hard to be there for her while navigating such unfamiliar territory himself.

When they walked into her parents’ house thirty minutes later, it was 9:00 pm, and they were met with darkness and silence.

Wren took off her boots, the residual light from the fixture above the kitchen sink the only glow guiding her. The air was smoky and heavy with the scent of white sage as she padded across the cold kitchen floor and into the living room.

Everyone was circled around her father, sitting on the couches and floor. Wren heard the guttural and sharp gasping for air before she rounded the bed to see him, mouth wide, silver hair seemingly whiter, and tanned Italian skin so deathly pale. With each draw of breath, his body convulsed in desperation to get more oxygen to the brain.

For days, Wren couldn’t decipher if he was getting better or worse. Perhaps the denial was too strong. Now, she knew for sure.

She found a place on the floor within the circle beside her sister and brother-in-law, watching in horror as her father’s body jerked upward, struggling for each breath.

Moments later, Wren’s eldest brother left his wife's side, returning with a syringe of morphine the hospice nurse had permitted. Wren remembered the nurse telling their father, “There was no gold star or award for toughing out the pain of your final days.” Ever since then, he had graciously taken the drug from his eldest son.

Wren’s brother took his place beside his head, radiating love and sadness, waiting to give the dose. Not a second off schedule.

As her brother brushed his silver hair, there was a small burst of light from his watch showing 9:15 pm. As if on cue, her father took one final, exhausting breath. Then, it was silent, as if everyone else had taken their last breath too.

Wren waited for another sound, another breath from him, but nothing came. She looked to her brother one last time as he said to their father, “Thank you.”

Painful sobbing ripped through Wren as her boyfriend wrapped himself around her, trying to absorb her grief.

At some point, Wren’s brother was before her at eye-level. Gripping the back of her neck, he drew his forehead to hers, his striking blue eyes just as full of tears.

“He held on until you came back. He waited for you,” he said. Wren leaned into him, sobbing harder. “He loved you so much. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Wren nodded gently, feeling like her grief would rip the world apart.

But how could he know how complicated her relationship was with her father? And how could she accept her brother’s words when she abandoned him and the thing he loved most in this world?

Her brother kissed her forehead and she felt her heart shred within her chest. One last time, she glanced up at his lifeless body and gaping mouth.

Wren didn’t want that to be her last image of him, and yet it was.

The need to escape from this room, this body, this feeling, was so powerful she couldn’t help but rip herself from her boyfriend’s hold. Wren hauled herself from the floor, and raced to the back door.

Flinging it open, she stepped out onto the back stoop, nearly colliding with the downpour she hadn’t realized was happening outside. Retreating into the doorway, she wiped the tears from her face, her chest tense, and stomach roiling.

He was gone. He was gone even though she had begged him to stay.

She wasn’t ready to be without him, without his stupid spiritual lectures, without his annoyingly consistent pushes to see her grow, without his beautiful stories and hugs and laughter and smile.

The falling rain drowned the sounds of the world around her. Lighting flashed in the distance, dimly illuminating the dark clouds above and the desert wasteland behind the property.

Water overflowing from the gutters above tauntingly splashed onto her skin. Wren wiped it away like a pest, hugging herself amongst the damp air. She took a considering hand and placed it under the rain, feeling it hit her palm and run down her wrist and forearm.

It was a feeling other than pain, so she reveled in it.

Wren took one step down into the small creek of water running over the slanted cement path that led to her father’s studio—where they often did healing sessions.

She inhaled the fresh, earthy scent of rain, letting the sensation momentarily halt her tears. The chilling water ran over her bare feet as she stepped forward, exposing more parts of body to the world falling down around her. Her steps continued until both arms were outstretched and rain was playing silent songs on her skin.

It hit her hard and cold, soaking her hair and clothes. Tipping her head back to the sky, droplets pelted her face, cleansing away trails of tears, but mere droplets weren’t enough.

Wren raised her dripping hands to the sky.

Taking her deepest breath, she silently begged the Universe to give her enough rainfalls and oceans—across dreams and worlds—to cleanse her spirit from the mountains of relief, regret, and grief she now felt.