My Dad died six years ago today. SIX years! I can hardly believe it. My kids have gotten older. I've had another baby. My Mom has moved to Knoxville. Plus a thousand little things that I'd like to tell him.
It's still a tough day. It's still sad. But even through the tears
and the pain and the sadness, I can say HE IS GOOD. I can't praise Him
in the good times and then blame Him in the bad. He is good, all the
time.
(Yes, I usually want to break out in song when I'm praising Him.)
I would encourage you today to remember that life is fleeting. Hold
fast to your family, be in the moment. Put your phone down, turn your
computer off. Leave the dishes in the sink. Be engaged with the people
that are here right now, loving life and laughing. Soak them in.
So be blessed, be encouraged, and take heart! He has overcome the world.
--
(from November 2007)
Soon you will read in the newspaper that I am dead. Don't believe
it for a moment. I will be more alive than ever before....Earth
recedes....Heaven opens before me! DL Moody, on his deathbed
My Dad went to the doctor on October 21 to get the results of his CAT
Scan. I knew he wasn't doing well, but I just figured it was the
chemo, or that they could switch to a new chemo if this one was no
longer effective. When my Mom told me the oncologist had given him 4-6
weeks, I was floored. Was I in denial? Perhaps. In the very beginning, I
remember reading that the average pancreatic cancer patient lives 6-8
months from diagnosis. But they weren't my Dad! This would be
different, I thought. And then I put statistics out of my mind, because
who needs statistics when you have an All Powerful God? (For the
record, my Dad lived 5 months from his initial diagnosis.) Certainly
not me. But then I heard four to six weeks, and I thought that's not
enough time! That's not even to Christmas! But the doctor was wrong; my
Dad lived two weeks and two days past that doctor's appointment.
Who told us we'd be rescued? What has changed and why should we
be saved from our nightmares? We're asking why this happens to us who
have died to live? It's unfair.
He faded fast. We found this out on Monday; John and I went to visit
him that Friday, and he was already confused, tired, quickly fading.
And I thought that was how he would die, just like that. But I was
wrong. It got worse. Cancer is a monster that robs the body of its life
quickly. I had no idea how devastating it would be. He could still
talk to us that weekend, when he wasn't sleeping. We left on Sunday and
returned on Wednesday. By Wednesday, he was sleeping most of the time,
and we had to wake him to try and talk to him. But talking to him
wasn't a good thing, because he was easily agitated and restless. He
kept trying to get out of bed, but he was too weak to stand, so we were
constantly on guard. He was increasingly restless; we increased his
medication. He slipped into a coma on Sunday.
This hand is bitterness. We want to taste it, let the hatred numb
our sorrow. The wise hand opens slowly to lilies of the valley and
tomorrow.
By Monday, we knew it would be soon. We constantly poured over the
book from hospice on the signs of death. He had all the signs that said
death was 1-2 days away, or hours. He was pale; his body was robbed of
nutrition and muscle. It appeared not much different than a skeleton,
every bone protruding from the skin, his face sunken in. On Wednesday,
his hands and feet were starting to turn purple. His breaths became very
shallow, like he was struggling for a breath, but the hospice nurse
told us that he was not struggling. We knew it was coming, but I didn't
even like to be in the room because it was so painful to see my
Dad...this man lying in the bed who hardly resembled my Dad anymore. My
Dad's heartrate increased, because his heart was trying so hard to
compensate, trying to bring oxygen, working overtime. His hands became
cold. My Mom and I were sitting in the family room. John came out and
told us he was gone. I ran into the bedroom, and saw my Dad take his
last two shallow breaths, and then no more. No pulse. I sobbed. I cried
out to God, in pain and in joy. My Mom hugged me, and she prayed. It
was the most heartbreaking moment of my life, and yet the most joyful,
all merged into one. How is this possible? Jonathan held a picture of
my Dad that was taken one year ago; you would not have guessed that it
was the same person lying there on that bed. The funeral home came and
took him away. I knew that he was no longer there, that his spirit was
already home, but yet this body, that's who I have known for 32 years. I
followed him out to the porch, crying while he was wheeled into the
hearse and taken away.
This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is
torn from your life and you survive. This is what it is to be loved.
And to know the promise was when everything fell, we'd be held.
This post is perhaps more for me than anyone else. I told myself I
didn't really want to remember these last moments, but then a part of me
doesn't want to forget. I thought all I would be able to remember of
my Dad is the frail image of him as he died, but I find that image is
replaced by a thousand other images, when he was healthy, laughing,
joking, singing. But part of me still needs to remember the image of him
dying, because that is what brings me to the Cross, draws me closer
and closer to my Savior, holding me through my pain, knowing I can't do
it on my own, trading my sorrow for joy, drawing me to Him. And that's
where I want to be.