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Category Archives: Death of a parent

In My Humble Opinion

15 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by Becky Taylor Haas in Death of a parent, faceliftbook journey, Recovery journey, Relationships

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Someday that will be my go to response when asked what I think about topics near and dear to my heart.

I’m not there yet, but I’m aimed in that direction.

It’s taken me 59 years to get to this point. So I think I can endure another few weeks of the current political climate without my head exploding.

I am weary. Between news, social media, and the opinions of the adamant minorities I do a lot of mental “la la la-ing”.

Let me explain that.

Back in the day Dear Husband and I were both very passionate about a lot of causes, and very vocal when we had the chance. There was no social media. There were occasions when people gathered, phone calls, letters to the editor, and responses to other passionate people stating their views.

We both did more than our share of sharing our opinions. Mine were often more vocal and immediate, his more mulled over and written down.

And after years of involvement in and advocating for those causes, we came up with a philosophy about causes in general that I still think applies. That is that with any given cause there are maybe 10% of people who feel strongly for it, and another 10% that are strongly opposed, and the other 80% who listen politely but can’t wait to be away from both extremes.

I was one of the 10%.

If you knew me very well at all, you probably knew where I stood on certain issues, and were not about to ask me for my opinion on anything.

I was, to many people I’m sure, like the adults in a Charlie Brown special. What they heard when I got on my soapbox was, “Wah, wah, wah.”

Now I’m the one hearing nonsense.

It’s not that I don’t care deeply about certain issues. In fact, they are probably still the ones I used to try to convince others of, with even more added.

It’s that I’ve finally come to agree with Dear Husband’s view that while 10% are for and 10% are against a cause, neither extreme is going to convince the other extreme to come over to their side. And the 80% in the middle aren’t interested enough to became fanatics.

And I can admit that as one of the 10% I really wanted to convert a hard-core, opposite-minded person to see the light of my position.

In my blog I share thoughts, feelings, and experiences that are very personal. And those of you who read always have the choice of skipping any post that you don’t like or agree with. I’m not out so much to persuade you to agree with me, as to just illustrate how I see the world and how God is changing me to see it more through his eyes.

This is one of those things. Even just a few years ago I would have thought nothing of taking any opportunity to share every thought I had with someone I was talking to, especially if I knew they were in the opposite camp on an issue.

As I look back on it I can see that this came out of my belief that I was right. And beyond that, that I was telling you the truth.

Now, after five and a half years of recovery, I will freely tell you that I’m not right about everything anymore. And while I want and try to speak truth, I’m trying to let God show me how to do it in love.

Because the way I used to be was not very loving at all.

I did not beat around the bush. I called it like I saw it. And I would often make outrageous assumptions, as if just because someone was on the other side of an issue I could say with confidence what their motives were, what their values were, what their intentions were. And none of them were good.

Maybe it’s aging. Maybe it’s weariness. But I’m not interested in heated debates where neither side listens to the other, where each just wants to be louder and more insistent and more smug in their own rightness.

Been there.

So ashamed that I’ve done that.

Four years ago I was finding my rhythm in recovery when my mom died, and I went through a time of what I call situational depression. I didn’t care. About anything.

I quit reading the paper or watching the news. I didn’t want to go anywhere or talk to anyone.

I made myself take advantage of free counseling offered by hospice. I only went once.

But I did go to a women’s Bible study at my church, and I faithfully attended Celebrate Recovery, making myself stay connected to other people I could trust and open up to about my numbness.

During that time a friend made a statement that has had a profound effect on me.

“I don’t have to have an opinion about everything.”

What?!

I had never considered it an option to not have strong thoughts about everything. But it was an intriguing idea.

Turns out that was the seed that has led me into a deeper relationship with God, a desire to learn about boundaries and what is truly mine to have a say over and what isn’t, and a new way of looking at other people.

Sitting here thinking about that phrase “in my humble opinion”, I can only think of a handful of people I’ve known in my life who truly held an humble opinion.

Of themselves, and of the world around them.

They would be people who didn’t think they really knew enough to state their take on an issue. Or that their thoughts were not as important as other people’s. And they certainly wouldn’t have posted their positions on social media for the world to see and comment on and engage in battle over.

But they would be the few people in this world that I would turn to when I really needed to find some clarity, to figure out how I felt or maybe should feel about something I was struggling with.

And therein lies the key.

Right now tempers are hot, righteous indignation is spewing all over from every side, and I have no interest in what people who are just like I used to be have to say.

Because I know how self-focused my stances sometimes were back in the day.

I cannot know everyone’s motives and values and intentions, and I’m not saying that they are all bad in the current world condition.

I’m honestly just sick and tired of everyone’s opinions.

If I really want to know yours, if you’re one of that little handful of people whose thoughts I value, I’ll ask.

And I’ll try not to tell you mine unless you really want to know.

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The Fabric of My Life

28 Thursday May 2020

Posted by Becky Taylor Haas in Death of a parent, Pandemic, Recovery journey, sickness

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This past week I found a home for most of my fabric. A friend is making lots of masks and other items healthcare workers can use, and I have good material she can have.

This is actually a big deal for me. One of the first things I started exploring when I began going to Celebrate Recovery and did my first Step Study was a two-part issue I’ve had as long as I can remember.

Saving things I’m not currently using or needing, and procrastinating.

About the time I began digging into these issues five years ago, my mom’s health was declining, and that fall she moved into a nursing home and we had to sell her house.

It became crystal clear to me that I came by both of those faults I was exploring honestly.

I spent several weeks that fall trying to pack up and sort through Mom’s belongings. Both she and Dad had kept records of our church that they were involved in from early on, Dad’s radio shows, and everything else.

Everything.

Clothes, toys from our childhood, tools, Christmas decorations, furniture, you name it, she kept it all, long after Dad had died.

And fabric. Actually she had made baby quilts for several of the grandkids and shorts and shirts to pack in her Operation Christmas Child boxes, so there were good reasons for some of her cloth. The rest she had accumulated over decades.

That was a stressful time. We were under a deadline hoping to preserve some of the value of Mom’s house by selling quickly, and we had just a few weeks to get it auction ready.

Several nights a week I would go and fill garbage bags to put in the alley, and box after box to take home to my house.

For the last couple of years Mom lived in her house I knew the day would come when we’d have to go through all her stuff. In my mental scenario it would have been after she had died peacefully in her sleep at home, and we would have taken our time and put the house on the market after plenty of discussion to decide how to handle her things.

I’d been through this with my in-laws, and for the most part it wasn’t too difficult.

For a couple of years I had tried to go through some of her things when the kids and I would come visit or take her grocery shopping. I’d carry an interesting box up from the basement and hand her things to look at and decide if it could go in the garbage.

We never got very far. Mom got talking about the memories the items brought back to her. Since she was starting into dementia I felt that was more important at the time than emptying out her basement.

So when the day came to tell Mom we were getting her house ready to sell, she wanted to go home one more time.

We spent time in every room. I asked her to tell me which items of furniture and keepsakes she wanted someone in the family to keep, and we put post-its on them. We had a list of things she hoped we’d want to keep for good, and others she just wanted to be able to see again if she had the desire before she died.

We prayed before we left to get dinner before going back to the nursing home, thanking God for her years in the house and for whoever would come to own it. She prayed for all of her kids.

At the restaurant, her favorite, she forgot that she liked iced tea to drink.

I think that was the day I knew Mom wouldn’t be with us completely any more.

So each night I came home with a van loaded with Mom’s stuff, I felt a weight of responsibility to keep some of her memories.That fall and winter my family room had a double row of boxes stacked as high as the couches running around two walls, and underneath a large, square coffee table. Also under and on top of Mom’s dining room table she had given me a few year’s before.

There I was, with plenty of my own clutter, and Mom’s added in to the mix. And being faced with a need to start digging into why I kept my own things, it was nearly impossible to figure out why Mom had kept all of hers.

That winter and spring I went through box after box, at first trying to organize, and then just trying to minimize the space it took up when I got overwhelmed.

I’m not an organizer by nature.

It was the next fall, after Mom had died in the summer, when I went through things a second time. I cleaned out a large closet in my family room and transferred the boxes into it.

This time I threw more things away, though there is still plenty I should let go. That will come another day.

Because in the past few years I’ve faced a lot about myself and learned much along the way.

I don’t know how I never recognized how much I rely on my senses for my memory. I’m known as having the best memory in the family, which is true. And I’ve learned my memories are sparked by my senses. Like Mom I start looking through a box of my own things and I want to tell someone the stories of times long ago, friends I’ve lost touch with, what my life was like back in the day.

It was no different this past week as I washed up decades of saved fabric, ironed it smooth and folded it neatly to send off to it’s new home.

I was amazed at the memories running through my mind as I straightened and pressed pieces of cloth that I’d used to make clothes for my family.

There were many more large lengths I’d bought because they were so pretty, but I got out of the sewing mood and never used them.

Those were hard to part with.

So I didn’t, entirely.

There were some smaller pieces, leftovers from projects I’d made, that I washed and ironed and folded up for me.

And one bigger one I’d always meant to make dresses out of for my girls and I. As I finished ironing the eight yards of purple flowers I asked Baby Girl to come look and see material I thought was really “me”.

She gave me a great idea. Wouldn’t that be a pretty backing on a quilt?

The smaller pieces I’d been setting aside, I had told her someday I’d like to make myself a quilt and include these pieces of my memories in it. In all the things I’ve made for other people, I haven’t made many things just for me.

It had been many years since I’d looked through so many scraps and lengths of fabric, and the memories are still clear. So I’m okay not keeping it all. I have small bits of many of them, and I have a purpose and a plan for them.

And someday I’ll wake up leisurely and my hand will play over the feel of the stitches and the segments, and as I focus on a random square a memory will surface.

Of the time when I made pajamas for my kids, a vest for my son and a dress for my daughter, or presents for extended family.

And also of the time that came when I was okay with letting most of it go.

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Gathered to My People

09 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Becky Taylor Haas in Death of a child, Death of a parent, Parenting, Recovery journey, Relationships, Tragedies

≈ 1 Comment

We’ve had a challenging week in our family.

I’m still debating, as I write, if I even want to get into this yet. It’s so fresh.

Someone out there needs to hear that it is possible to have impractical, unbelievable peace in the middle of emotional chaos.

Because I’m feeling it.

And at the same time, I’ve had bone-crushing uncertainty and stress.

A couple of weeks ago I thought this blog would be about my husband’s hip replacement surgery.

It was scheduled for yesterday.

We planned it more than a month ahead. We made changes in our house and prepared to possibly be without income for a few weeks, getting the kids used to the idea and spreading the word to friends and family.

The surgeon’s office was less thorough, so we found ourselves at a pre-op visit to the hospital the day after Christmas, as well as an impromptu stop at the surgeon’s to communicate some of our concerns.

And quite unexpectedly there was another visit last Friday to the primary care office to be released for surgery.

The call my husband got at the end of a long work day led to a weekend of contemplating his mortality. Surgery was put on hold because of high white blood cell counts, and after more tests early Friday, a couple types of cancer were mentioned.

Just enough to make your imagination go round the bend.

So of course we both did what we know to never do.

We googled the ugly words.

After thirty-four years of marriage with this man, I was not surprised by his “it is what it is” attitude. Or the silent funeral planning behind his brooding eyes. Questions followed about life insurance and his desire that all our kids be able to have college paid for out of it.

Covering all the bases.

Having all that time to think could have been devastating if it weren’t for this.

Jesus. And hope.

At first I didn’t want to tell anyone.

I was headed to Celebrate Recovery an hour after we heard the news. In the safety and support of my open share small group, I began processing my own thoughts and feelings before telling any of the kids.

My CR women freely put aside their own hard things to hug and love on and support me that night. And I found clarity that comes from seeing what really matters.

Over the next day all of our children heard personally about this new development, and we counted down the hours to Monday morning when we could make more appointments.

Our care group met Saturday so my husband and I both were surrounded by men and women who love and care deeply for us.

Our kids each took in the information in their own ways, and I’m sure are going through many different stages of understanding and processing. Those first couple of days were hard for all of us. They will ease up in time.

Uncertainty stinks.

By Sunday my husband and I had thought all the thoughts we could stand. And talked about many of them with each other. And each of us had expressed that we were okay with wherever God takes us in this, whatever lies ahead.

Because we know where we’re headed.

Even knowing, I still cried a lot of tears and held even more back. Who can understand God’s plans?

But in all fairness, do we ever question why we have good times, when everything is going right? Do we ever wonder why God thinks we deserve easy?

We’ve learned in our life together, this man and I, that God is in control. And that it is always better to obey and follow him, no matter how hard the path looks to us.

So we went to church and answered questions about the surgery and why was it canceled and what does this mean.

We heard about friends with those same scary conditions and how unlifechanging they actually are.

And we breathed a little easier by day’s end.

But not before I had an unexpected moment.

It was during the final song. I was choked up. So I just bowed my head and said the only words I could put together.

“Jesus, help!”

And immediately an image came into my mind. That even if … it’s all good.

Fourteen years ago our pastor was killed in a car accident. In the hours and days and now years since I’ve seen God provide for his wife and young daughters in intimate, personal, miraculous ways. It was hard. But there was hope.

I thought a lot about that time over the weekend, the strength that was given to my friend as she navigated the unthinkable task of telling her girls that their daddy was with Jesus in heaven.

She didn’t get that strength until the moment she needed it.

And as I cried out to Jesus to ease my own fears for my husband, standing next to him in our church, a picture came into my mind.

Even if my husband were to leave this life way sooner than any of us would want, there would be a beautiful result.

He would meet our baby first in heaven.

Monday came and God quite directly provided an appointment with the hematologist/oncologist for that same day – a sudden cancelation that was no big deal for God to arrange. And oodles of blood tests and orders for an ultrasound.

And the very positive opinion of the doctor that after all our worrying, this wasn’t going to be a big deal. Even the hip surgery will get rescheduled after a solid diagnosis and some monitoring of his blood counts.

Numb from the whole thing I decided to go to Monday night Bible study, and I read words that have always been a comfort to me.

“He was gathered to his people.”

An Old Testament saying I had always loved to read, as it gave even my little girl imagination a picture of people I knew had died greeting someone else at the time of their death, gathering them in to a family, welcoming them home.

I had always pictured grandmas and grandpas in the mix, but now I added babies.

I have no fear of death. For me or my husband.

I want it to be a long way off, when our children are all grown and settled into their own families, raising our grandchildren and teaching them the things that matter.

Because when they go through scary, uncertain times like the one we are navigating right now, I want them to know the bottom line.

That God is not just a nice thought, but a real and powerful being. That he created us because the idea of eternity with us pleased him. That when we choose to follow him we will have bad things happen, but we have the absolute certainty that when they do he is bigger and stronger than anything that comes against us.

And he WILL work EVERYTHING for our good.

So as we live the next day and week and month with no guarantees, we can know many things for certain.

God is real. His love is unstoppable. His peace is unexplainable. He has made a people for himself from all of us who believe.

And no matter when any of us who follow this amazing God die in this body, we will be gathered in to our people.

And living life with so many of them now is just a bonus.

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Mom’s New Life

11 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by Becky Taylor Haas in Death of a parent, Relationships

≈ 1 Comment

Today, July 11, 2019, is the 3 year anniversary of when my mom died.

The weeks before her passing one of her four kids was with her 24/7, watching.

The day before she took to her bed, my husband and I came to visit. It was the only time I can say I don’t think she knew who I was for a little while.

I was telling her about the new cat we’d gotten a couple weeks before, and she said she remembered that cat, she liked that cat. But she’d never seen it. Maybe she thought I was my sister, who had a cat she was familiar with.

It was the only time I ever felt any apprehension about Mom’s dementia putting a barrier between her and us.

I started talking about a cat she’d had as a girl, a story she’d told many times, and she joined in and filled in the details, and by the time she got to the end she knew who I was again.

Our stories tie us to our past, our memories, each other. They have power beyond a few moments amusement.

So this is Mom’s death story. Or as I saw it, her continuing life story.

That next day after our visit she didn’t want to get out of bed and slept all day and night, and the next day one of my sisters called us all, feeling Mom was going to pass very soon.

I was sitting at an art class downtown with my youngest when the message reached me. There were strawberries to get, kids to pick up, others to call with the news, a list to keep my mind busy for a while.

Then my family gathered at the nursing home, thinking we were going in to see Mom in her last moments.

My siblings and their families were also streaming in, and everyone was quiet and somber. One group was in with Mom and we waited outside to give them time alone with her. Then they came out to give us a turn.

My younger kids used to go over every couple of weeks when Nanny lived at home to do odd jobs, put puzzles together or play games with her, and take her shopping. They had not liked to visit at the nursing home over the nine months she’d been there, and were nervous about coming now, when she was dying.

So we were all a little subdued, walking into a quiet, darkened room, feeling like we had to whisper.

Except Mom had been asleep for most of the last day and a half. And I needed to know if she was still there, still able to interact with us.

So I sat on the bed and held her hand. And she squeezed mine. I told her we were there, the kids kissed and hugged her. Her feet moved.

Aides came in then to do their periodic turn and tidy up, and asked us to wait outside for a minute. So I stood up and very loudly said, “Mom, they’re going to get you comfortable and then we’ll be back in.”

And she said, “Okay!”

By the time they got done she was roused up a little, unlike the past day, and my family went back in to have a real visit. This time Mom did the hugging and kissing, telling each of us she loved us. She smiled a lot, laughed a little, and seemed to know us all.

Soon we went out and told the others that Mom was awake, and the rest of the afternoon more and more family arrived to talk to her. We rearranged her bed so all could gather around her, and at one time there were more than twenty of us in the room, talking and laughing and singing a little.

At one point Mom was in a state of rapture, talking out loud but not to us. Telling God how she never knew this love he was pouring out on her, praising and thanking him for his tender care.

It was a truly beautiful thing to see, to experience as an observer. Because she was unaware of us all for a few minutes.

It was a glimpse into what was ahead for her.

And then she was back, kissing and patting the great grandbabies, enjoying the fruit of her life with us all.

And a plan had to be thought up and set into motion. The home got her moved to a room by herself, giving an extra bed to rest on and space for more chairs. We decided we wouldn’t leave her alone. We plotted out a schedule for the next day, then week, then weeks.

And we had the privilege of helping Mom transition from earth to heaven.

This is what she had lived for. This glorious, unknowable end that is really a beginning and a continuation all at once.

So we took turns, talking to her and each other, catching up. Singing and telling stories, feeding her until she no longer wanted to eat, didn’t want to drink anymore, her body letting her know it was okay to let everything wind down.

People came to visit one last time, always happy to see her. She had touched a lot of lives and hearts. I got to meet people she had talked about from her church, finally putting faces with names.

She and I had a long talk one night about things I’m in recovery to heal from, and I got some closure I needed. My daughter was there, drawing as we talked.

As she weakened she slept more and talked less. I sang through her hymnal, giving voice to every song I knew during my times with her. She would often join in for a few bars.

Until her last Sunday came, and we could tell there was a change. It seemed more critical to get anyone who needed to see her there. All of us kids decided to stay Saturday and then Sunday night with her. We took breaks running to get food, and eventually were all back, along with several of the granddaughters, as Mom struggled to take in breath.

Gathered around her, in the wee hours of Monday morning, drawn in by the sense of urgency, we knew we were going to witness Mom leaving this body that had served her well for 84 years, and entering into the presence of God.

To know as she is known.

Someone started singing “Amazing Grace”, and our quartet of siblings plus the backup choir of our families that were present sang all the verses we could remember.

Mom’s breaths were sporadic and labored. We kissed her as we sang, held her hands, told her we loved her.

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.”

As we held out that last note, Mom breathed out her last breath.

And began the rest of her life.

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Spike’s Legacy

27 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by Becky Taylor Haas in Death of a parent, Grandparenting, Parenting, Relationships

≈ 1 Comment

This June my father-in-law would have turned 96.

One of the worst parts of not having him around any more is that my kids never got to really know him. My oldest son was not quite a year and a half when Spike died. I was pregnant with my older daughter when he got what he thought was the flu, and days later died from a massive bacterial infection and heart failure.

So for all their lives my kids have heard about Grandpa Spike. They see pictures of him, hear stories, see his name on Dad’s work truck, as Spike named his business after himself, and it has been our livelihood and his legacy.

I knew my father-in-law, beyond just a name or to recognize his face, longer than I’ve known my husband. Which was a good thing, because he could be very intimidating.

He was a big man, a presence you had to notice. He could also be loud, startling even, when he wanted to make sure you knew he was there.

But for all his blustering, he often was content to just sit and not say much.

I knew him initially as a customer in the restaurant where I had my first “real” job. I had become a waitress and worked some weekend mornings when Spike and his wife would come in for breakfast. I recall the other waitresses would grumble, “there’s that grouch again”, and I would look at it as a challenge.

“He’s just a teddy bear,” I’d say, and march off to serve him his coffee with a handful of creamers (he preferred it black), just to make him yell. But it would soon turn into a chuckle when he realized I was egging him on to get a reaction from him.

It didn’t take long for him to become one of my regulars, and I liked it that way. I wasn’t easily intimidated, and he wasn’t easily won over, so it was a challenge for us both.

So fast-forward about seven years to the second date I went on with my not-yet-husband. After dessert we went to his parent’s house where he lived so that I could balance his checkbook and roll his change, things I loved to do and he never did. And meet his parents.

He warned me that his dad might be a little scary at first, but I assured him I wasn’t worried. I knew what I was in for.

I don’t know if he remembered me from the restaurant, but I had no trouble getting reacquainted with my future father-in-law. We went for cheap dates, so I spent lots of time in their living room. And once we were engaged we were down the road where our house was being built every spare minute, so we often dropped in to eat dinner with them.

Even after we were married and moved into our house, we didn’t have a phone for a few years, so I made a habit of stopping by their house most afternoons to make calls and chat with them. And see if they’d invite us to dinner.

Then when our first son came along, we broke down and got a phone, but the habit of stopping in almost daily stayed with me. Especially since the summer I was pregnant it broke records for the most days over 90 degrees, and I’d sit in front of a fan until I couldn’t stand it, then drive three miles to sit in delicious, cold air.

And since my mother-in-law was not a big talker, and my new husband took after his mom, Spike and I carried the conversations. I loved his stories and jokes and pronouncements on the latest happenings in our world.

One of my absolutely proudest moments came when he showed me how much attention he’d been paying to the things that were important to me. We were out to dinner with them, and walking through the restaurant I was behind him carrying our one-year old son. Spike pointed at the baby and told everyone along the way, “Look at this kid. Look how healthy he is. He hasn’t had a drop of anything but mother’s milk his whole life. Not a drop of water, no juice, no cow’s milk, just mother’s milk. Isn’t that something?”

I never asked him why he was so impressed by this, but he was, and it was the most empowering thing I think anyone had ever said about me to my face.

He’ll never know how, when our second child was born a few months after he died, and I would breastfeed her, I would picture him standing over me, bragging about how healthy she was, and by association what a good mom I was.

It was the same for our other children as they came along, for all the years I nursed them I had Spike’s voice in my head cheering me on.

Some of my children look like him in ways. Others have some of his personality traits. Or maybe I just like to imagine they do, because I got such a kick out of knowing him that I want them to be a little like their ornery grandpa.

And when they did seem to act like him, I’d just say what he always said to his grandkids, “Go outside and get the stink blown off you!”

Spike was a hard worker, proud of a job well done, but also a man who liked to kick back in his recliner and chuckle over a corny joke, especially if he could goad you into laughing with him.

So when my kids are horsing around or lazing after a long day, I like to think that Spike would have loved to sit with them, maybe holler to get their attention, have them pull his finger, or just lean back and smile at the parts of himself he would see in each one.

And that’s the real legacy.

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26 years less than I wanted

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by Becky Taylor Haas in Death of a parent, Relationships

≈ 1 Comment

Tomorrow, June 14, 2019, will be 26 years since my dad died.

I think about him every single day.

I remember when his life began to end.

It was actually a comment he made that my mind goes back to when I think of his final illness. It was his birthday in February. He turned 61, and after he opened my card, he looked up and said, “Well, I probably won’t live another year. My dad died when he was 61, and I guess I will, too.”

I checked a few years later in death records online and found my Papaw actually lived a couple years longer than that, but for whatever reason Dad had it in his head, and it was almost like he was resigned to a way-too-early death.

Because 61 is not old. I’m 57 as I write this, and though I have a few health issues, I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near death. Not a natural one at least. Everything else is up to God’s timing.

I held my breath for the year my husband was 61, not because I’m superstitious but just because I was struck with how young and healthy my husband is, and how tired and worn out Dad seemed by that age.

Dad grew up knowing hunger and need, but also love and compassion. His hard childhood, decades of smoking, and about twenty years of addiction to painkillers took a physical toll on his body.

So on March 4 that year he was out chopping up and shoveling snow on top of ice in their driveway when he had his first heart attack.

One of the neighbors who was helping ran in to call an ambulance, and from then on life was never the same.

I was in the emergency room with him when he coded.

He had just given me our special look, the one that meant I would get what he was going to say next, and then pointed up to a corner of the ceiling and said, “Look! I see an angel!”

And the steady alert started.

They rushed me out of the room as they worked on him, closing the blinds because I had my nose pressed to the glass watching his face as they worked on his heart.

They didn’t know I had been looking tragedies and injuries in the face for almost all my life. I still can’t understand why, when someone could be dying, they try to send the ones who love them away.

There is a time to every season under heaven. Even death.

But not that day.

Dad stayed in the hospital for a few weeks. He had procedures and tests, drugs and therapies, and came home to wait for the date of his scheduled bypass surgery.

Five days before that date, on April 14, he had his second heart attack.

I got the call and rushed to the hospital. On the way, there was a song that played on YES-FM that got me through that frantic drive. “Carry Me” by Legend 7.

“The love of the Father is always guaranteed, the hands of the Father will always…carry me.”

I didn’t know at the time how prophetic that song was. I counted on Dad’s faith to guide my life. I was lazy about developing my own. And while that night my thoughts were on Dad’s love, Dad’s hands, in the 26 years since, I have experienced God’s love and care in deeper ways than I could have imagined back then.

But I still long for the physical hands and arms of my dad.

They did a triple bypass, but the second heart attack had done too much damage. He wasn’t up and walking the next day, he stayed weeks in the step down unit, and most of that time he was sedated.

He reached a point where the medical staff wanted to invoke his signed living will, indicating he didn’t want to be kept alive on machines. He’d seen it too many times as a pastor.

I for one wasn’t ready to unplug and wait to see what happened, not when Dad was just a little beyond consciousness. So we decided to bring him out of sedation and ask what he wanted to do.

Food and water? Yes.

Medicine for a kidney infection? Yes

Oxygen to help you breathe easier? Yes

If your heart stops, should they try to resuscitate? Another nod yes.

Hmmm. Everyone is entitled to change their mind.

So we asked them to wean him off the i.v.’s, give us pill versions of his meds, and oxygen, and instructions so we could take him home.

We had two weeks more.

Two weeks of living, with his wife and mother, kids and grandkids, fussing over him not eating enough, late nights spent talking with one of us kids while Mom slept so she could work during the days.

And that last day and night.

All the family had been over. Dad sat in his wheelchair cleaning out the garage, handing things that would explode to my husband and telling him to throw them in the burning barrel. The kids climbed on him and pushed his chair around. He ate a big bowl of fresh strawberries with sugar and milk, and later bargained with me to reduce his tube feeding by half because of those extra calories.

When everyone else had gone home I helped him down on his sleeping bag on the floor, where he had preferred to sleep for years, and tried to make him comfortable on that hot June night. After hours of sleeplessness and sporadic conversation, he agreed to let me help him up on the couch.

So we sat side by side, my arm around his shoulders as he leaned into me.

It occurred to me that I kind of liked being the strong one for once.

The sun was coming up and the air had finally cooled. Dad turned his head a little to look at me, and he gave me our look again. He raised his eyebrows, wiggled them a little, and laid his head down on my shoulder with a long sigh.

Finally. I sat still, wanting to make sure he was really asleep before laying him down and covering him with a light blanket, adjusting the oxygen canula on his nose. His blood sugar tested high, so I called my older sister to come give him a shot of insulin on her way to work.

I lay back down in Dad’s sleeping bag, and I felt like he was hugging me. My oldest son, four at the time, was staying the night, and when he came down the stairs I had him crawl in the bag with me. He felt Dad’s hug as well.

And though I didn’t realize it until my older sister came in and knew right away he was gone, Dad had died in my arms.

Every day since, I have looked at my life through a different lens. What would Dad think of…my kids, my life, my calling, this meal, this newly mowed lawn?

Ordinary things take on significance when I am saving them up to tell to someone I love.

Because I know when I get to heaven, I can spend as long as I want filling him in.

Twenty-six years. Lots of things to talk about.

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Minding My Own Business

Watching the “This is Us” season premiere this week I finally saw some of my own thoughts and feelings mirrored by some of the characters. And it wasn’t a comfortable thing. Talking about the hard issues that we’ve been facing over the last few months has not been easy. Racial injustice, police policies, political differences, […]

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