9:05 a.m. The phone rings. Who's calling so early? The sun shines brightly and I'm eager to start the day on a fresh note. But there's Mom's shaky voice on the line.

“Are you sitting down right now?”

“Yes.”

“Something has happened.”

“Mom, you're scaring me. Did grandma pass away?”

“No, it was your Dad.”

“What?” I scream, as tears stream down my face. “No! It can't be, Mom. It can't be.”

The sky turns from blue to gray.

I fall to my knees and cry hysterically. I run to the bathroom and throw up my sadness and disbelief into the toilet below me. Dad is gone? He died of a massive heart attack. He was 53. But that tells me nothing. What happens to the unanswered questions, the things I wished I would have said, all the what ifs?

9:10 a.m. I'm still in my pajamas but already on my way to the Oakland airport for my father's funeral.

11 a.m. I board the plane. I've got a middle seat with an odor that smells like peanuts and urine. I plug in the headphones to my bright pink Ipod, put one in my right ear and then my left. I don't care if one of the flight attendants come around to say we're not high enough to use electronic devices. I have a pretty good excuse for disobeying the rules. No one comes around to check.

11:30 a.m. The flight attendants make their first wave up and down the aisle.

“Vodka. Straight up on the rocks.”

She jots on her black pad. She doesn't ask any more questions after that.

After I gulp every last drop of the alcohol, I drift into a deep sleep.

“Elly, wake up…Elly, wake up.”

“Dad, you're alive? It was only a dream…Thank God. It was only a dream.”

“No, Ells a Bells, you are in a dream. I just wanted you to know that I'm okay, and I'm happy. This isn't goodbye, you know? We'll see each other again someday. I just had to say I love you one last time.”

I reach out to touch his face with my hand, but stop mid-gesture. He is not the man I once knew. He is a younger version of himself. The one I've only seen in pictures before my existence.

“Dad, why do you look so young?”

“When you get to heaven, you get to choose the age you would like to live the rest of your life as.”

I reach out to touch his face once again. I suddenly wake up. I've touched the face of the man sitting to my right. He looks startled. I begin to cry. He doesn't ask why.

People say after you experience a sudden death, as I did with my dad, the way you communicate with them, is through your dreams. I believe this is true.

The dream I had on the plane is my one and only.

4:30 p.m. I arrive in St. Louis. Granny cries as soon as she sees me. We immediately embrace. I need to be strong for her. I don't cry. I just tell her, “Everything is going to be okay.”

That's a lie.

7 a.m. The next day, I drive Granny to the small town of Rhineland, Missouri, where my father once lived in a large log cabin on a farm. My parents constructed it from different parts of seven authentic Civil War log cabins, one early 1920's home with old weathered siding, five brick pre-Civil War homes from an old river town where they once housed slaves and another home where they stripped the hand-chipped, hand-carved stone chimney flue from when they first got married.

We drive down that long peach-colored gravel road and there it is. That house meant everything to my father. It was one of his greatest accomplishments…one of his pride and joys. Granny limps because of her bad knees. I knock on the door. I've never done that before. Dad was always there to greet my sister and me.

Her face is pale when I see her. We both begin to cry. I run to her…hug her…hold her.

10 a.m. My sister, Granny, stepmother and me pack up the car, and head to Hermann, Mo., a neighboring town where Dad used to live. It's the first time I see his body.

He's lying in the coffin, cold and stiff. The man who taught me to be so strong and to always be like a “Swetz” is now lifeless. I touch his face like I did in my dream. This face is older-looking. It's the face I remember. One by one, we all take turns saying our goodbyes.

This is the last time I will see my father. The funeral services are tomorrow.

A week later, after the casket had been closed and buried in a cemetery not far from his log cabin, I return to San Francisco. I feel empty. While home in Missouri, I had all the comfort food in the world surrounding me, brought by neighbors, family and friends. I didn't once take a bite. I could not take comfort. I was alone.

7 p.m. Back at my apartment, I have to deal with my dad's death.

And then a miracle happened.

A month later, at 9 p.m., when I'm coming back home from school on the bus, I get off at my normal stop at Baker and California streets. I walk the block toward Broderick Street and hear footsteps behind me. Naturally, I turn around. No one is there. I shake my head and continue to my apartment. Again, I hear footsteps behind me and look back. No one is there. I cross California Street and walk onto Broderick, which is very well lit. I can't seem to shake the feeling that someone is behind me, but brush it off. No one is there.

Then it happens. Almost in slow motion, I look to the right of me, where rows and rows of Victorian houses stand tall and bright. As I glance, I see him. It's only his silhouette, but it's surely Dad. There's his shadow walking to the left of me.

That night, my dad walked me home. And, I've got to believe, someday he'll visit again-in a dream or a shadow on the street, it doesn't matter.

-----------------------------------------

Each year in the United States, approximately half-a-million people die of unexpected sudden cardiac death (SCD) and family and friends are left to deal with the aftermath of it all. There are many different counseling centers in the Bay Area that can help. The following are some places one can visit.

o San Francisco State University's (SFSU) Health Center Counseling Services: http://www.sfsu.edu/~psyservs/

o A Program of National Grief Support Services, Inc.: http://www.griefsupportservices.org/

o University of California San Francisco's (UCSF) Medical Center: (415) 476-9000

o San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center: (415) 206-8000

o Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Workshops: http://www.pbs.org/witheyesopen/mourn_forum.html

o Various articles and resources all in one Web site: http://dying.about.com/od/denial/