Stuck in the In-Between and Still Losing Air

My mom and I are driving home from the airport at 11:30 PM after a million little flight delays, sharing stories and trying to process my dad’s death anniversary and birthday that had just passed.

Then all of a sudden we get a warning from the car: low tire pressure and declining.

And the energy leaves our bodies, the light leaves our interaction. Not again.

You see, when my dad got sick, we all started to have trouble with our tires. And not just one or two times of low air pressure as is expected when you drive a lot. Punctured tires, shattered tread, pieces falling off unexpectedly. On different cars and in ways that even baffled people at autoshops.

Over and over again. And it hasn’t really stopped, except I guess for the 6 months since I’ve been home.

I used to try to make light of it (and make sense of it) after he died with my mom and my brother by saying that it was dad messing with us, reminding us that he was still here. But my god I wish he’d find another way.

The last few years are a bit hazy for us, but the first time I distinctly remember it happening was on our way to UCLA for my dad’s biopsy.

I had just packed up my sublet in New York, put everything I could in my brother’s apartment and booked us flights, hotels and rental cars so that we could pick my parents up from the airport.

My parents had just gone to get an MRI while they were in India for my dadi’s1 funeral because my dad’s condition had gotten so bad that he couldn’t even participate in any of the rituals to lay his mom to rest.

And while we didn’t yet have a second opinion, everyone who saw his brain scans kept trying to gently warn us that this was one of the worst they had ever seen. That we really should prepare for the worst. For the end.

I still have these brain scans in my camera roll. I had to send them to so many people and upload them to so many portals that it felt easier that way. And for some reason, I can’t bear to delete the photos.

In a blur of events, all four of us somehow made it to SFO, together for the first time to try and make sense of — and cope with — the worst news of our lives. I called institutions and we had call after call with specialists at Columbia, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, UCLA and more. I’m grateful to the doctors at UCLA for showing us the most care and professionalism in this challenging moment.

And when we finally had an appointment to do the tests that would give us an official diagnosis, a brain biopsy where he would have to go under so they could get multiple samples of his tumors and properly diagnose the stage, growth and life expectancy.

What I do remember feeling as we were packing our things to head to LA was this overwhelming sense that after we walked out of this house, he would never come back. Not in the physical sense, we did make it back after all the tests. But in this larger, more profound sense of fear and change that he was slipping away from us.

So even if we did physically return, much of him would already be gone.

After finally getting everyone settled in the car and making sure my dad was as comfortable as possible, we started the 3.5 hour drive to UCLA. A drive I was intimately familiar because I had made it countless times before, first when I was in college and then when my brother was at UCLA and I was living in Los Angeles.

This one felt infinitely heavier.

We all tried our best to make conversation and reassure each other — and ourselves — that everything would be okay. At least we would have answers on the other end. If I’m honest, we weren’t really doing a great job.

At that point, my dad couldn’t swallow water or eat much and could barely think, talk or walk. My mom was trying to get him to eat and I was telling him we should get a little treat for all that we had managed to do.

We made a plan to get some McDonalds soft serve and a coke icee (what became a staple of his brain cancer diet) when all of a sudden that tire warning light came on. Low tire pressure. Losing air quickly.

We all just looked at each other because of course this would happen. Everything about the past 72 hours had already been a nightmare, every possible thing was already going wrong. So why not this too?

As I searched for a gas station so we could examine it and try to fill the air enough to make it to LA, I sat in the knowing that this was just the start. Everything was about to get worse and worse, to keep breaking and shattering and going wrong. And there was no end in sight.

We did safely make it to LA and things did, in fact, keep getting worse.

My dad was in such bad shape that I wasn’t sure if he would even make it out of the anesthesia (this was just my anxiety) and the doctor that finally came to tell us the biopsy results genuinely looked like he was going to cry the entire time because it was that bad.

Here I was, in this place I loved so much, at this school that had given me so much, trying to figure out how to hold it all together — and deal with a tire situation so we could eventually make it back home.

I’m really not sure how we all managed to get through this time period, but I truly now feel like I can get through almost anything.

There were many, many other tire instances in between then and now, but the most absurd and crushing one was on the way to the funeral.

It had already been a terrible 24 hours. We were all in really bad shape, tensions running high, fighting about everything, overwhelmed by the sheer number of people — and opinions — in our house while we were just trying to survive watching the life leave my dad’s body.

Finally we manage to get ourselves together enough to sit in the car and, of course, the tire light is on. So we immediately switch to the other car in our garage so that we can make it to the funeral we planned on time.

I’m dysregulated and sobbing. My mom is yelling at me about having no concept of time and being late. My brother is brooding in the corner, fists tightly clenched and clearly finding it all to be too much.

My dad hated being late so it felt like we were letting him down.

We start to back out of the driveway to be on our way and then the car starts to sink a little and slow down. Everyone immediately stops crying and yelling and brooding and we just look at each other.

Again? NOW? Dad, please.

We get out to check the car and lo and behold the bottom of the tire is completely flat. It’s not even a little functional, it is completely out of commission. We all just stare at it dumbfounded for a minute, as if the world just stopped around us.

Then we are suddenly snapped back into reality as more people trickle out of our garage, trying to figure out how they, too, will make it to the funeral on time. Much of our family is here from all over the world, so they were also reliant on being able to use one of our cards to make it there.

I start making calls to not just get ourselves there but to somehow make sure all of these people can get there too (rideshares aren’t exactly easy to get very quickly in Visalia). We cannot be late to our own funeral.

I try to crack a joke about dad reminding us that he’s there, but it doesn’t really land, which is completely fair (but they did appreciate it later).

Thankfully, a friend comes and picks us up and my aunt says she will handle everyone else. By the time we get there, there are already other people in the funeral home. We are rushed to the front, just letting people move us as we are still reeling from what had just happened.

So when we found ourselves yet again having to pull over to a gas station to check our tires and hope for the best, all of these memories came rushing back. Barely making it to the biopsy. Barely making it to the funeral. Barely making it to the airport to spread his ashes. And everything else in between.

And as I searched for a place, I brought up again about how this might be dad reminding us that he’s still here with us and that’s when she told me that it actually hadn’t happened since the last time I was home.

I honestly did not even know what to do with that information. Was I actually the reason this was all happening?

Everyone always says that I’m so much like my dad and in this moment I genuinely wondered to myself if I was bringing him — or his bad luck — home with me.

Was I the curse that was making so much going wrong all the time?

For some time now, I’ve felt like I’ve been stuck in this purgatory. I’ve shed much of my old life and sense of self that no longer works for this moment, but haven’t quite managed to step into this new one. Like I’m stuck in the in-between and can’t find my way out.

There will always be this profound marker in my life that divides it between “before” and “after.” Who I (thought) I was. What my life looked like. What I cared about. What actually mattered. How much pain — and love — I was capable of holding.

Some days it feels like my mom and brother have tangibly moved forward in different ways. They at least seem to have one foot in what the “after” version of their lives will look like.

But I’m still here, stuck in the perpetual cycle of tire problems and things going wrong. Everything breaking around me physically and metaphorically — getting closer and closer to an answer but not quite making it there.

Pieces of a new life that I feel so close to, but can’t quite grasp. A tire that seems like it’s going to make it to its destination but slowly loses air or shatters in one full swoop.

Given all of this, it made so much sense to me that the tire problems would start again when I came home.

Maybe it’s my dad reminding me to keep fighting and keep going, that I can handle anything. That he is here with me, even when all I want to do is ask for his help.

Maybe it’s something else entirely.

But for now, I’m just trying my best to hold on until I too can get a foot into this new life, the one that is forced to exist in the “after” because of this terrible thing that happened and fundamentally changed me forever.

I’m here working and waiting until I manage to find a tire strong enough to withstand the bumpy road of all that I am and am trying to do. I don’t yet know what’s on the other side, I just know that I’m still here, checking the pressure and hoping it holds on long enough to get me there without my dad needing to remind me that I can.