To Love Another Person, is to See the Face of God - Les Miserables



He wasn't my father, I admitted in silence multiple times on the cab ride to the hospital. Hector Diaz Jr; the man whose surname I inherited, wasn't my father. Yet, he raised me like I was his own flesh and blood. Pulling up to the Virginia Mason Medical Center, the cabbie puts the car in neutral for moment before turning to the back seat, his palm open and his arm outstretched, ignoring the mental state of his crying passenger to make his bottom line. Jamming my hand into my pocket, I pull out a twenty dollar bill and slam it into his hand, gritting my teeth as his grubby fingers wrap around the note. Opening the door and stepping out, I hear him say something aloud to me.

"Take care and have a nice night."

"Go fuck yourself."

He does a double take, looking as angry as he did confused. Glaring at him, tear stained cheeks shining in the light of the real moon, I resist the urge to slam my fist through his window, grab him by his fucking Mariners jacket and smashing his head against the car door about a hundred times. A simple middle finger gets the same message across. He pounds on his horn, people walking out of the main building shrug their shoulders in confusion at him as I continue forth into the building. I can feel blood flowing through my veins, and immediately run cold as I step into the heavily air conditioned lobby of the hospital. Seeing my reflection in a powered off television screen as continue walking, I see that the color has drained from my face and leaves me looking like a ghost.

My ankle begins to throb, and almost gives out when I try to place too much pressure on it, marking the end of the adrenaline rush I got from hearing the news. Reverting back to a simply moronic looking limp, I slowly approach the desk, where some middle aged woman with about fifty more pounds than she needs looks up from a stack of papers that appear to have gibberish scribbled on them at me.

"Now, what can I help you with?"

Oh gee, I don't know; my mind begins to trail off in a particularly vulgar tangent that biting my tongue barely prevents from being audible. She drums her fingers on the top of the desk, waiting for me to stop giving her my deer in the headlights look and answer her question.

"Hector Diaz, Jr. Where is he?"

My open fist slams down on the table to little sound as the woman shrugs off the angered, impatient tone in my voice and flips through a packet of papers that I'm sure were the ones she was just looking at, before condescendingly answering me.

"Why don't you take a seat over there? They aren't letting visitors see him right now..."

I shove my hands into my pockets so I don't smack that tone right out the bitch's vocal chords. Spinning around on my good heel, I limp over to the row of seats and sit down in one, facing the desk but making an effort to avoid any sight of the desk worker. I lean back in the chair, trying to make myself forget about why I'm here.

He isn't my father, the thought creeps back into my mind again. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, the more I ponder the phrase that devours all of my focus, maybe even faster than Peter Gilmour eats a double cheeseburger. Wow, that was really off topic, I think as my eyes start to close. I feel myself drifting away from the conscious land, and don't care in the slightest at this point.

What feels like seconds later, a short, skinny man taps me on the shoulder. The sudden action knocks me out of my sleep and I open my eyes to a much brighter and noisier lobby. The midmorning sun peered in through the windows, as the man timidly looks at me, unsure of what to say.

"Um, uh, just follow me."

Hmm, random guy who's at a loss for words approaches you and tells you to come with them, where's the danger in that? Despite the rational half of me, that recognizes the risks of this, I still follow behind him. He starts out at a rather brisk (well, as brisk as you can be in a hospital and still be considered socially acceptable) pace, but slows himself upon realizing my condition.

Around the corner we turn, into room 216, and laying in the bed is a man whose face I could recognize even in a thick cloud of darkness, or in the case the cuts, gashes, and bruises that stained his whole body from head to toe.

Hector.

Seeing him, the condition he's in, the solemn look he gave me as I walked into the room is my breaking point. I drop to my knees and take the hand on the side of the bed nearest me in mine. Tears stream down my cheeks as I kneel there, trying to choke out a sentence between sobs.

"You're, going to, live! You'll be, just, fine! Please...

Please..."

I continue whispering that magic five letter word to God, if he does indeed exist up there. Not yet, please don't take him yet. One of the doctors breaks the awkward silence that was left by my pleading.

"He can't hear you, he's in a coma."

No, that's not true! I saw him look at me when I walked into the room, dammit! I can't bring myself to speak at a reasonable level, so I continue to sob hysterically and grip tighter onto his hand. I see the doctor walk over to his life support machine, ready to shut it off. If what he's saying is true, and Hector really can't hear me, I know what he'd want. Without protest on the outside, but an uproar within, I watch as the doctor powers down his life support and leaves the room along with the skinny man who led me here.

I try to console myself, but each time I do, I see his eyes looking at me in that solemn way and burst out again. Fuck, I need to pull myself together, and fast. One last look back at the man who's now in a sleep from which there is no waking up.

No, I didn't lose my maker. I lost him a long time ago.

I lost my father.