My dad would have been 95 years old on August 21, 2018. He’s been dead for 28 years. Sometimes I get asked if I’d like to see him one more time. I say no. Then, I get a lot of side eye.
My dad went out in a lot of pain. Not the Faces of Death stuff my mom went through, but it was rough. People say, but if you had one more day, he wouldn’t be sick. That’s cool and all, but he was 57 when I was born. He was “well,” but he wasn’t in the best of health. He worked hard to stay healthy and alive. I know he’d say, “You brought me back like this?! WTF.” My dad was brutally honest.
If I brought him back at an age where he was completely healthy, he wouldn’t know who I was, the world would be disorienting, and he’d want to know why coffee was so expensive.
Again, people go: in the one day scenario, everything would be fine. You would just get one more day with your dad. What’s wrong with you?
Well. Nothing. Thanks for asking. That scenario just isn’t real to me. When I was born my parents were old, sick, and (with all respect in the world) not prepared to raise another kid. That’s how I grew up and that’s the dad I got for 9 years. In spite of all that, he always told me he loved me, hung all my homework on his wall, and was the first person to ever really trust me. I miss him. But I only got him for 9 years. There’s no changing that. The idea of messing with all of that is actually more disturbing to me than the fact he’s gone.
Enjoy family and friends while they are alive. When they’re gone, they’re gone forever. You have memories. But there’s no going back. And if you did, all of the memories you have would be meaningless when you came back.