MY LOPSIDED AFRO, HOSPITAL GOWNS, AND THE MAN WHO LOVED ME.
I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was a frigid day in Queens and I laid in my bed about to close my eyes for the night. My phone rang. It was my mother.
“Hey baby girl…”
“Hey mom, what’s up?”
“Your dad is in the hospital. You probably should get here if you can…”
She continues and her tone changes. My dad didn’t have much time left.
My father, Michael Shan Berry, was born on July 23rd, 1955. He would’ve been 65 today. He was a lion for sure. Smiling only for babies and corny jokes, he was a stoic man of few words. He’d been sick most of my teenage years and received a new liver in the summer of 1996. We didn’t get close until then. I was mostly embarrassed of him. Scrubs and dress shoes were not supposed to be the wardrobe of a father picking up his 13 year old daughter from middle school. I didn’t often introduce him to my friends. I was ashamed of how simply he thought. How simply he loved me.
Right after his liver transplant, my mom suggested I spend the night at the hospital with him. By then, the hospital was already his new home. The starched white gown, his lackluster fashion statement. I slept in the empty and impeccably white bed next to him. And we laughed and watched tv like two little kids on Saturday morning. I decided then that I…
