My dad passed away in March of this year. It wasn’t sudden. We saw it coming. It was exactly six months after a terminal and devastating diagnosis. Those six months were some of the most traumatic of my life. There are no words to describe watching someone you love suffer and wither away. Even as I type this, it feels unbelievable.
The waves of grief over those months were indescribable and I have felt them very few times in my life.
The hardest part about grief and pain and loss is that you simply cannot prepare for it. I knew one day I would likely bury my parents. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But I did not know it would knock every breath out of lungs. I did not know the sheer volume of times the words, “I can’t do this” would come out of my mouth.
Death is inevitable, unshakable, and unbearable. I was taken aback by the emotions that chew you up and spit you out. The comfort we long to give our weary souls comes rushing in at 100 miles an hour: “it happens for a reason” “they are in better place”. Because without it, it would rip us entirely apart. Then there are all the coulda, woulda, shoulda’s that haunt you with every ache.
My dad called me two days before he passed and I didn’t answer. I put it on my calendar to call him back, but I never got that chance. I don’t feel guilty because I know I loved him well and the best I could given our relationship, but I do feel remorseful. I do wish I had answered. I do wish I had realized how precious time is and how fast it moves. I wish my own grief and pain hadn’t kept me from being strong for him in the end.
This is not my guilty conscious letter. This is my story of a perfect father making the most beauty of the loss and agony it brings. I know in my weakness, the Lord was perfectly strong and there for him in the final moments, holding his hand home.
I can look back now with so much gratitude for the way my dad died. He asked me about Jesus and I got to share the gospel with him. The lord shows up to us all in the evening of life. I wholeheartedly believe that to be true. I believe he showed up for my dad and was ever faithful to reveal himself to him.
Death and dying is something so shattering we never get over it. It stays a scarred over wound with us for life. The waves of grief that come with it are in some ways, worse than death itself. But there is a speck of beauty there too.
The sobriety death brings reminds us to live.
My dad’s passing jolted me awake and reminded me how fragile and short life is.
It’s so devastatingly easy to forget.
We get so lost and swept away in the day to day and the burdens of life that we don’t enjoy it while we can.
I have started thinking a great deal about the end of my own life. There are a few things I know for sure:
When my day comes and I’m (hopefully) old and gray, I know I won’t look back and say, “ I wish I had worked more hours, or made more money". I know I won’t feel like I should have taken less trips and been less generous. I know I won’t say, “ I wish had spent more time worrying and less time laughing and really living and relishing in all the joy life can bring.” I know I won’t regret all the love I poured out on my friends, family and those I hold so dear.
It’s easy for me to get caught up in what does not matter, what will not live on in my absence, and what cannot go with me when I leave this earth.
But I want to live right now for what does matter, what is important, and what will live on long after me.
My dad’s suffering and death taught me maybe more than it took from me:
We are not promised our next breath.
We only have right this very second.
I try very earnestly now to watch every sunset like it's my last, or close my eyes and feel the sunshine on my face like it might never happen again. I try to put my phone down when I’m at dinner and take my nieces hand when she asks me to read to her. I try to take my friends and family dinner and ask them to come along. I try to make them know with every breath, "they matter more". I try to remember one day, it will be my last time earth side, that I get to experience these precious moments.
I don’t want to miss it because sometimes when the moment calls, you don’t get the chance to call it back.