{"id":60633,"date":"2025-05-23T09:54:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T09:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=60633"},"modified":"2025-05-23T09:54:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T09:54:17","slug":"i-hadnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=60633","title":{"rendered":"I HADN\u2019T"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image-552.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-60634\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image-552.png 512w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image-552-240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>He used to call me his little girl\u2014even in my thirties, living miles away with a life of my own. We were close. Incredibly close. Until we weren\u2019t. A foolish fight\u2014politics on the surface, but beneath it: grief, pride, control. Six years passed. Silence thickened. Then came the call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A care home nurse said he was sick\u2014dementia creeping in, pneumonia settling. I hadn\u2019t known he\u2019d even left his house. I visited, heart racing. Through the glass, he saw me. Blinked. Sat up. When our hands met on opposite sides of the window, it felt like a decade collapsed into seconds. I said I was sorry. He closed his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three days later, a voicemail waited. \u201cYour father has taken a turn. He\u2019s asking for you.\u201d It didn\u2019t make sense\u2014but I went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inside Room 12, he looked so small. Frail. But his eyes? Still sharp. \u201cWhy\u2019d you come?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI got your message,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He nodded, quiet. \u201cI wanted to see you. Before\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before what? Before memory faded? Before forgiveness passed us by? I didn\u2019t know. But I stayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He used to call me his little girl\u2014even in my thirties, living miles away with a life of my own. We were close. Incredibly close. Until we weren\u2019t. A foolish fight\u2014politics on the surface, but beneath it: grief, pride, control. Six years passed. Silence thickened. Then came the call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A care home nurse said he was sick\u2014dementia creeping in, pneumonia settling. I hadn\u2019t known he\u2019d even left his house. I visited, heart racing. Through the glass, he saw me. Blinked. Sat up. When our hands met on opposite sides of the window, it felt like a decade collapsed into seconds. I said I was sorry. He closed his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three days later, a voicemail waited. \u201cYour father has taken a turn. He\u2019s asking for you.\u201d It didn\u2019t make sense\u2014but I went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inside Room 12, he looked so small. Frail. But his eyes? Still sharp. \u201cWhy\u2019d you come?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI got your message,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He nodded, quiet. \u201cI wanted to see you. Before\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before what? Before memory faded? Before forgiveness passed us by? I didn\u2019t know. But I stayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=60444\">also read&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He used to call me his little girl\u2014even in my thirties, living miles away with a life of my own. We were close. Incredibly close. Until we&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60633"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60636,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60633\/revisions\/60636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/60634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}