ON HOLD

Thank you for your patience. Your call is important to us. 

I’m typing this at the coffee house. Smooth Jazz is playing over the speakers. Kim Waters’ version of “Midnight at the Oasis”, according to Shazam, the song identification app that I would have killed to have access to as a young person, and one that still kind of blows my mind, even though I’m embarrassed to say that I use it as often as not for “Hate Shazamming”, as my wife calls it. It makes me think of an old quote from Nick Cave: “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” In my experience, it’s astonishing how often I’ve asked myself a similar question, only to have Shazam inform me that I’m listening to Black Eyed Peas. 

I digress. 

As I mentioned, I’m in the coffee house, and Smooth Jazz is playing. One of my least favorite genres of music, truly. The Jazz of privilege. Jazz for people who don’t really like music, but need to have music playing. Jazz with all the rough edges– all the things that make it interesting– sanded off, revarnished and engineered for maximum profit and marketability. The safest Jazz. I feel like I’m watching the Weather Channel. I feel like I’m on hold. 

We are experiencing a higher-than-usual volume of calls. A representative will be with you shortly. Thank you for your patience. Please stand by.

I spent a lot of 2025 on hold. Not literally waiting on my phone, but in a hazy, liminal, gray area, an existential waiting room, as it were. I was in a bit of a dry spell, creatively and emotionally; Life was serving up a steady stream of chaos and curve balls, and every time I was on the verge of re-establishing the groove I had enjoyed the year before, something would come up and throw sand in the gears. On top of the general shambolic state of the world tugging at our sleeves, our household went through unemployment, a move, and countless other little paper cuts of setbacks and tribulations. 

2025 was a lot. 

The biggest upheaval, by far, occurred at the end of July, when my dad, who had been living with dementia for the past decade, took a sudden, dramatic, and confusing turn for the worse. Living across the country, I received the details in a jumble, delivered by my (quite understandably) stressed-out mother and sister and, even now, I’m a bit unclear on the precise details and order of events. The upshot is that, after an episode in the middle of the night, Dad was taken to the ER. A CT scan was administered and nothing major was detected but, having been told that CTs often miss things, it’s my firm, uneducated layman’s belief that Dad had a stroke, because he was never the same man after that. His posture was hunched. He could barely move. His agitation and dementia symptoms intensified dramatically and his speech was often indecipherable. He had seemingly aged a decade overnight. He was transferred to the rehab center at the retirement community, where he would stay, confined to a wheelchair,and unable to care for himself, for the remainder of his life. 

I was able to fly home in mid-August and stayed there for about a month and a half. My sister (bless her heart), being local, had been the “boots on the ground” with our mom in the weeks following the episode, and I was glad to be able take the baton from her and help Mom with the day-to-day routine- running errands, assisting her with the T-crossing and I-dotting, machete in hand, hacking through the jungle of paperwork that comes with the final chapters of a loved one’s life. 

We spent time with Dad every day, timing our visits for the late morning/early afternoon hours, the sweet spot of lucidity when he would be most present, most like “Dad”, between his morning ordeal of physical therapy and the mid-afternoon onset of Sundowner’s Syndrome. Mom and I would grow to dread that daily 5-minute drive across the complex to Rehab, not knowing what, or who, awaited us. 

Even in that long, slow, hard decline, there were moments, though. Dad’s old wit would suddenly shine through the fog, and he would say something that made us laugh out loud. I took advantage of one of those flashes of awareness early on. At the time, we were under the impression that he only had days left with us, and he kept saying how sorry he was that he was being such a burden for us. I got right up to his ear and whispered to him that we were going to be alright, everything was in order, that he had a lot of friends and family waiting for him on the Other Side, and that he shouldn’t worry about Mom and Jill and me, and just go ahead and leave when he was ready. I told him how lucky I’d been to be his son, and how much I loved him. My words got through and, of a lifetime of “thank yous” I had received from him, that one was my favorite. 

In early October I finally returned to California, and the next few months settled into the familiar routine of daily phone updates and vigil-holding from four time zones away. The situation continued to deteriorate. Hospice got involved. The end of the runway was rapidly approaching, and I flew back again in early December for his last few days. By then he was sleeping most of the time and, when he did say something, it came out in a barely understandable croak. This time it really was a vigil. Mom, Jill, and I were all there, projecting a strange, incongruous informality that somehow felt appropriate; we had always been a close family, and I feel like we had all decided without discussing it that, if Dad was going to check out, he should do it to the sounds of his family chatting and laughing, as we had for decades. 

At one point, an unexpected smell filled the room, one different from the usual smells we had grown accustomed to over the previous several months there- pungent, almost fruity. We all noticed it, as did the Hospice nurse on duty. “Is that some sort of disinfectant? Is someone vaping?” The nurse checked the hallway and came back shrugging- nothing amiss. The smell went away as abruptly as it had appeared, and we resumed our conversation. After about ten minutes, Jill looked over at Dad. 

“Is he breathing?” 

The nurse moved to the bedside. We all stood up and hovered. After what seemed like several minutes of listening and checking vital signs, the nurse announced that Dad had passed. 

It was heavy, but somehow different than I expected it to be- relief far outweighed the sadness. I remember the staff (who had grown quite fond of him in spite of the pain in the ass he could be) seeming much more visibly upset than we were. I remember taking the boxes of photos, clothes, and personal effects out to the car. I remember texting Patrice and a few close friends. Jill’s husband Dan met us at Mom’s afterwards (Now just Mom’s, not Mom and Dad’s- weird), and we all went out to dinner at the local Mexican place. I couldn’t stop thinking about that mysterious smell. It was nagging at me. Finally, it clicked. 

“Mom, what flavor tobacco did Dad used to smoke?” Dad had been an avid pipe smoker when Jill and I were little kids.

“Cherry.” 

That was it. That was the smell. The scenario immediately took shape in my head: at some point, before his heart and lungs had gotten the memo, some part of Dad, the real part, had transitioned to a place– a lobby? A vestibule? A reception area? Something– where his brother, my Uncle Don, 20 years gone, was waiting for him, with that impish grin I remember permanently plastered on his face, offering Dad a pipe. Dad lit it, taking a luxurious, ceremonious first puff. 

“Ahhh. FINALLY I can smoke a pipe again.” 

“It’s good to see you, Keith. Come on, I’ve got some people I want you to meet.” Uncle Don was the most gregarious man I ever knew; he never met a stranger, and I have no doubt that he’s the heart and soul of any Afterworld there may be. 

That little vignette was a comfort to me over the following days leading up to the memorial service. I can’t help but think that the tobacco smell in the room was a smoke signal from the Beyond, Dad letting us know he was at peace.  

The day after the service, Patrice and I were at John Glenn Airport in Columbus, in line to board our flight to LAX. The entire western sky was painted with the most incredible sunset I’d seen in ages. I’d really like to believe Dad had put in a request for that, a little something to send us on our way home and, between that and the Tobacco Incident, I was preparing myself for a constant string of little synchronicities, little signs from Dad, but the months since then have been notably devoid of them.

I’m on hold again. 

I wonder if I’m not tuned in, not looking hard enough. I wonder if I’m looking too hard. There’s not a manual for this kind of thing. I don’t think I’ve actually had a chance to really grieve for my dad yet- there’s been no huge rush of emotion. I initially attributed that to the long period of suffering he went through and the relief of it ending, but now I feel like the other shoe needs to drop, and maybe when that happens the little signs will start showing up. 

Another theory of mine is that the issue’s on Dad’s end. He was always a Luddite. He was brilliant and kind, but technology of any sort gave him fits. It’s quite possible that he’s manically pressing buttons on the Cosmic Afterlife Sign remote, to no avail. 

“Balls!!! This dad-blamed thing!!!” 

Whatever the reason, I’ll stay on hold, Dad. Your call is important to me. 

Epilogue

I closed up my laptop, left the coffee house, and walked back home for lunch. Patrice was making hers as I got home and, as she was heading out to the patio, noticed we had a visitor:  

Message received, Dad. Thank you.