Discovery and Recovery

I mulled over that post about my dad a lot this last week.  It was all true.  But it wasn't complete.  Certainly there is the darkness that is the loss of him, but at the same time--even as it was happening--there are and were discoveries of hope, of light, and of love.  Without those the story is only half told. 

Death of a loved one is life at it's most dramatic.  For me, facing mortality had an incredibly clarifying effect.  In those moments when I had to look death in the eye and reliquish our beloved father, every peripheral, unimportant element of my life slipped away.  Things that I thought were important, things that I thought I wanted, suddenly weren't.  What I did for a living, the size of my home, the style of my car, who knows my name and who doesn't  just...didn't...matter.  What was left after the blazing heat of grief was the crystalized understanding that few things follow us into the life hereafter.  Love, faith, and the time spent with both are about all we get to take with us.

I was rehearsing the lead for a play in San Diego when I got the call that my dad was in a coma.  It was because of those rehearsals that I missed our last family gathering and my dad's 70th birthday.  I regret that.  I don't think it's coincidental that I haven't done much auditioning since.  I still love the theater, but it is not the pivot around which my life revolves.  I'd rather be with my kids.  I'd rather have the freedom to make the reunions and birthday parties.  I don't want that gypsy lifestyle.  I want roots and deep friendships.  They require time, and Daddy's passing taught me that time is a limited commodity, there's never as much of it as we would like to think, and I need to be thoughtful about how I spend it.

When I got the second call 24 hours later reporting that Dad's condition had not improved as they had hoped, that things looked darkly inevitable, my husband was 90 miles away.  Or rather, I was away from him, but I needed him.  Immediately.  Thomas told me long ago that I'm a girl that needs a wide berth.  That I don't like being held too tightly, and I suppose that's true, but when things fell apart for me, when I was confused, heartbroken, and lost, I needed him to cling to.  What a felicitous discovery to find that the one person I chose to spend my life with is truly the one person whom I need.  And because I needed him, he flew to my side and held me together. That is a moment that cemented and sanctified our marriage.  My rock.

The plane ride home was miserable.  There were still a lot of unknowns at the time, but words like "brain-damage" and "vegetative state" were being thrown around.  I felt undone in a way that I had never experienced before.  Someone from the family, I didn't know whom exactly, was going to pick me up from the airport, and I worried that I would fall apart when I saw them.  That when I saw their identical broken heart,  my own, which I was barely holding together, would tumble out in gasping shards.  I came down the escalator to find two of my older brothers waiting for me.  As I met their eyes, in that very moment I had dreaded, I was surprisingly lifted up.  I felt stronger, more understood, more myself with them at my side.  This blessing of family that I had always appreciated held new significance.  It was now a necessity.  It was my safe harbor, and it would see me home.

At some point in the days spent in the hospital, it became clear that my father was not going to return to us.  The he that he had been was already gone.  Then we had the awful decision to make regarding life support.  Mom and the seven of us, her children, sought out a quiet room, and we knelt in prayer, each of us taking a turn to pour out our hearts aloud to God, to seek His will.  It was a significant moment for me--for all of us--and when we were done, we knew what we had to do.  However, His peace had settled on our hearts and we were unified in spirit.  Never before had faith meant so much to me.  Perhaps it is only in the darkness that we can clearly perceive its brilliancy.  Without its guiding light, I do not know how I would have found my way through the grief and come out on the other side intact.  But I did.  Not only did I come out intact, I think I came out better than when I went in.

Death is the great unknown, but I agree with the author who said it is like a ship passing beyond the horizon simply out of our sight.  Somewhere I'm out on that wide ocean myself, captaining my own little skiff.  My father's life charted my course in childhood, but it was his death that pointed me in the right direction in adulthood.  In the loss, I more fully discovered who I want to be and where I want to go.  Discovering the light in the darkness is not just the rest of the story, it is the only thing that gives the story any meaning at all.

Loss

A dear friend of ours just lost his father.  From the sounds of it, the circumstances are so much like my own father's passing that I have been feeling heavy and sad.  Both for him and for me, I suppose.  Often times, the journey to another's sorrow is through our own worn paths of old pain.  What I know is that one is never ready to lose a good parent. 

It's nearing a decade that I've lived without Dad, and I still miss him, every day.  I was 29 when it happened and nowhere ready to lose my protector.  The man would have slayed dragons for me; this I know for sure, and there were some big ones waiting down my path.  When he died, we were just beginning our maiden voyage to the land of infertility, that savage, undiscovered country that stole our dreams one at a time and broke our hearts before giving us our life back.  How I needed his wisdom.  His assurance.  His humor.

And then, when we finally became parents, I missed him all over again.  I want my children to know him.  To hear his voice tell stories only the way he can.  To hear him say, "Are you going to be a straight arrow?"  To get wrapped up in one of his giant bear hugs and hear him whisper fiercely in their ears that he loves them with all his heart.  I want them to experience his faith, his mirth, his perspective, his loyalty, and his joy; knowing that their lives are poorer because he is not here breaks my heart.

I have had a difficult time talking about the death of my father.  I can tell stories about my dad, but I can not communicate the loss.  It was nearly a year before I could simply write it in my journal, and even then, my description was brief.  I do not have the words.  Not to describe the searing pain across my soul that is the missing of him.

It is with this understanding that I stand near my friend, unable to heal what hurts.  I can not take his pain, but I can share it.  Sometimes that is enough. 

The Pocket Protector: Why Everyone Should Wear One

It was a night like almost every other: The family was seated around the table, enjoying a meal and trying to out-funny one another. Dad began to laugh over some comment that was made, and because he was just recovering from a cold, he also began to cough, which went unnoticed amid the entire hubbub that was the evening meal. He did get everyone’s attention, though, when he slumped over in his chair.

`Thinking it was another of his little jokes, mom nudged his arm and rolling her eyes said, “Oh, Dee...”

No response. “Dee?!” the panic beginning to rise in her voice as she shook him. Alarmed, she began to shout, “Somebody do something!”

I was too young to really understand what was going on and looked to Ken whose face was ashen. Curt was frozen in place, and I became sure that my dad had, in fact, died right there at the dinner table. The only one who seemed capable of any action was Ray who sprang to his feet and maneuvered behind our father. Dad was a big man and it was not easy for Ray to get his arms all the way around him to perform the Heimlich correctly, and Dad did not help as he was completely unconscious. With Dad’s head resting on his own chest, Ray heaved and squeezed as best he could. This action did not dislodge any food, but it did force a pen from Dad’s pocket protector to jab him furiously in the neck.

Immediately he came to with, “What the hell are you doing?!”

It was not the hero’s salutation that Ray had expected. More precisely, he was a little put out with the lack of appreciation. “I just saved your life!” he grunted. Ray may credit himself for Dad’s recovery that night, but I think Dad knew something all along: You just never know when a pocket protector will come in handy.

Dad's Answer for the Most Important Meal of the Day

Some things could be counted on as sure as the sun would rise every morning. Grandma Peterson would never say goodbye after a telephone conversation, Grandma Doty would always insist we eat the apples off of the ground first, and Mom would always make breakfast before sending her children off to school. Like the Earth circling the sun or the ebb and flow of the tides, we took it for granted: Our rights included breakfast.

That’s why when Mom was called as an early morning seminary teacher, she nearly said no. She still had a child at home, someone who needed a good hearty breakfast before school. Who could do that if she weren’t there in the morning?

“Dee Ray, you have to promise me that you will get up and make sure Laurel has breakfast before she leaves for school every morning.”

I’m not sure how much faith she actually had in his abilities to accomplish this feat as he was not a morning person nor did he possess any culinary skills, but he did give her the Boy Scout’s Honor and that meant something. Her first day was not, however, free from worry, and rightly so.

Just as I was ready to leave the house, Dad came stumbling out of their bedroom dressed only in his underwear and without his toupee. Still trying to get his eyes to focus, he firmly said, “Wait! I promised your mother I’d feed you breakfast.” He had opened the refrigerator and was examining the inside.

“Dad, I don’t have time. Besides, I’m not hungry anyway.”

“No! I promised your mother,” he said, eyes darting around the room. “Here! Eat a cookie.”

Nothing sounded more revolting than a heavy dose of pure sugar at eight in the morning. “No thanks. I don’t want a cookie.”

“Eat it.”

“Dad, I—“

“They have eggs and milk and flour. That’s all breakfast stuff.” He was getting desperate.

“…Okay, thanks for breakfast, Dad.”

“Have a good day,” he said as I walked out the front door holding the chocolate chip cookie in my hand. Mission accomplished.

Turns out there were some other things we could count on: Dad would never do his best work in the morning, and he’d never make breakfast, but he’d always try to keep his promises.