Toes

My dad can hardly string a sentence along anymore. He's not been out of bed for about two weeks now. When we speak to him, sometimes he registers, and sometimes he just stares blankly past us -- looking at...only he knows what. He's on a fairly steady stream of morphine, and he seems close to his coma stage, and the nursing home will alert us of any major changes.

Grim? Well, my mom called it "ghoulish" the other day.

But it really shouldn't be. He's not afraid to die -- he's assured of his eternity and his salvation. Besides, as a good friend of ours said today, "no one gets out of here alive."

Right.

Still, it's been hard to remember that dad hasn't always been the way his is now, emaciated and frail in his bed. But once a rather stout, gentle, and jovial man whose barely contained sense of mischief and joy was inately infectious.

Though sometimes his inner punk shines through, even still.

I have a hard time sometimes knowing what to say to him as we both sit and look at one another. Telling him about my day (not much to report, really) seems pithy, but I can't think of any "deeply serious" insights to ask him as he lays there. So, today I asked him:

"Dad, what do you think about while you lay here?"...

"Toes"

Toes. My mom and I stared at one another until I saw a crooked smile creep up on my dad's face, and I busted out laughing. He was never a serious guy while he was healthy, why would he start getting esotheric now?

I love my dad...and his silly toes.

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She stands by the sink, washing her plate. She opens the dishwasher door.

"Could you put mine in, too?"

She rolls her eyes slightly. She reaches into the sink and rinses his plate.

"What do you think I am?"

She continues, washing a knife in the sink.

"A sweetheart."

He reaches to put an arm around her.

She startles and turns, the knife in her hand cuts his arm.

Red on the floor.

"Oww."

A mixture of shock and awe.

"Here."

Before he can move, terry cloth to skin. Pressure applied.

"You can forget that sweetheart line."

She grabs his arm, pulls it to the water.

"It's not so bad."

Joshing.

"You're such a baby."

Hurt, scowls.

She leans in and gently kisses the top of his ear.

"I'm sorry."

"I'll survive," sarcastic.

Incredulous.

"This is the last time I'm helping patch you up, then!"

He looks back, a sly smile. Pulls his arm out of the sink.

"Thank you, nurse."

"No great shakes, mister."

A quick kiss.

"Now get out of my kitchen."

My favorite moment of the day was listening to my sweet pea of an aunt recount a story in which her daughter yells "oh shit!" twice.

She's so darling. Words like that should not be coming out of her mouth. Gathered 'round my dad's nursing home bed, we all just laughed and laughed...

My dad looked around, and said, in some of the few words he spoke today, "what a wonderful family."

No kidding...

My William Miller Moment

Cross posted here.

I wrote this whilst aboard New Zealand Air Flight 2, headed for Los Angeles. Seat 51C.

I’m home a week earlier than expected, for those of you who notice these things.

Have you ever seen ALMOST FAMOUS? The story’s young protagonist, William Miller, unexpectedly finds his world a whirlwind of the rock’n’roll circus. He is (rather willfully) kidnapped for the adventure of his life. By the end of the journey, when the tornado puts the house back in Kansas, he’s left saying merely, "get me to my bed.”

I’m living my first William Miller moment. The past nine months working on Crossover have -- at times -- been the hardest, yet also the most exciting of my relatively young life.

I learned one lesson this week, amongst many others: be careful what you pray for.


“Dear Lord, increase my faith.”

“Okay,” says God. “I will now take those things that you hold as secure, so you don’t feel so secure anymore, right? You asked for an increase of faith -- well, it’s only with me that you’re going to get through these next few days.”


So, that makes God seem a bit unloving, doesn’t it? But his love can lack remorse at times. I like how Brennan Manning puts it: “The prayer ‘increase my faith’ separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls.

On my last day in Auckland, Adam apologized for what this week has been -- and I told him, and will continue to tell him -- don’t apologize (don’t apologize!). He’s no reason for it. For the thousand times I could have said “no” on this journey, I always said “yes.” I know I am part to blame for what’s happened. I regret words said and words left unsaid. I feel like I have not been the best friend I could have been at times. I’m sorry for all the moments of human fallibility, of emotional frailty and sheer chicken-shitted-ness. I read a good line recently -- your greatest strengths can also be your biggest weaknesses.

Humans so infrequently like to gaze upon their pitfalls -- myself included. Perhaps it is an optimism or hope (there’s that word again) that despite the bad parts, despite the deficiencies or things that might be lacking, humanity and love and understanding and reconciliation do exist and long to be let out.

Part of this week was to fill in some of the blanks of what happened in New Zealand while I was gone. It was a useful exercise, in part, but it didn’t make me feel any better about things in the long run. In fact, I just feel icky about the whole thing. Icky -- that’s a pretty juvenile term, but that’s about as descriptive as it’s going to get at the moment.

I began to understand maybe how a child of divorcing parents starts to feel after awhile. Negative comments building upon negative comments. It’s hard not to start resenting everyone. But at the same time, I find it difficult to harbor bad feelings. I could -- for five days or weeks or months -- but it wouldn’t change what’s happened, and it wouldn’t change anyone else’s mind. Is that rolling over and taking it, or is it rolling with the punches? Anyone?

As I sat atop Mt. Eden last week, I thought about how we’re not guaranteed an easy life or things happening fairly. That thought makes me want to cry sometimes. “Hey!” my inner voice says “it wasn’t supposed to fall apart like this! Unfair!”


But God loves, therefore I should love (though my efforts pale in comparison).
God forgives, therefore I should forgive (yep, even myself).
God doesn’t judge, therefore I should not judge.


I should embrace the dark parts of life (the sour, if you will), because darkness isn’t dark to God. He is the provider of all things. “In all things, whether word or deed, or anything else, do it in Christ’s name.” Forgive me Lord for falling far below that expectation.

I went to church Saturday night, and during communion, all the emotions fell away, as the minister came up to me with the bread and he says “this bread signifies his body, which was sacrificed for you.” Whoa, thought I FOR YOU -- FOR ME. Yeah, silly, imperfect, failing, wailing, moaning, crying me. For one glorious shining moment I felt a peace that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

So what now? I refuse to talk about Crossover in the past tense. It’s future tense. Maa te waa, the Maori say -- “in time.” Right now, I have a father to go home and say goodbye to. I had almost forgotten about that this week. I thought about it this afternoon and winced. “Ha, there’s something that hasn’t sunk in yet.”

Then what? Well, dunno. But it’s life -- and it’s large and a little daunting, but full of possibility and potential and pain and praise and (well, fill in your “p” word here, 'cause you get my point)...

Come on along...

Going back here again.

It's taken me a couple of days to get this down on paper (or whatever you want to call this).

My dad's dying. And not in the esotheric way that you know "we're all dying," or whatever bullshit. No, he's actually, palpably dying. He had another MRI done on Friday, and the results were such that the doctor said that not only were the radiation treatments not helping, they were in fact, doing more harm than good and he refused to carry on treatment.

It's no surprise, really. Seeing my dad again, after only three weeks away, there was a marked difference in his being. The left side of his face has fallen, leaving him with difficulty speaking and swallowing, and also what I like to call a "Salvador Dali" smile that creates a diagonal line across his face. Okay, honestly, he looks a bit like Sloth from THE GOONIES, if you remember that movie. And no, I'm not being derisive, 'cause I always though Sloth was pretty cute for an ogre. He's still able to comprehend things, and up until today he was speaking, and making feable jokes. Today, his responses were all head nods and shakes. We're hoping that with the end of his treatment, he might get a bit of strength back since he won't be constatly barraged by radiation and chemotherapy and all kinds of other toxins.

Anyway. Apparently the prognosis is "weeks," though true, doctors don't always know, and right now we don't know how many weeks, but we'll be finding out in the next couple of days.

As I think about things, I oscillate being feeling at peace with things and wondering if I've even started processing them. The death part, to be honest, doesn't really bother me. I've always known that this is a reality that we all have to face -- death isn't and "optional" box to check on the form of life -- it's mandatory. In fact, I'm thankful that this has been a gradual process. I didn't have to face a phone call and a tragic message at the other end. And in doing so, there's been time to mourn and grieve and get used to the idea of life without dad. And really, he hasn't fulfilled the function of dad for quite some time already since the time of his operation in June. I'll surely miss him and that relationship, but I know that for a simple day-to-day emptiness, that burden falls solely on my mom's shoulders. I can't really imagine what this must be like for her -- to lose a spouse to cancer.

The only experiences with death I've had have been in the movies, and the reality has so far, been very far from the fictional "death bed reconcilliations" that plagues cinematic death sequences. You never see death being handled in the context of a functional relationship. I know my dad, there are no last minute confessions to tell. We've had 25 good years, and trust me, there will be no dramatic music playing at the moment of his last cognitive thought. Forget what I said a few posts back about this trip being to save money. Nope, I believe this trip was for me to spend a few last days with dad before he slips into a coma and finally off into the heavens. And that's another thing -- in the eternal sense, I know that I'll get to see him again, so "goodbye" really isn't forever, and for him, this really is a win-win situation.

Kevin

The point of this post is two-fold.

The first of which is to just thank God for my blog. It might sound funny to be thankful for something like a blog, but I'm serious. I'm a big advocate of blogging -- it'll change your life! I just feel like God has blessed me so much through this thing and I'm so thankful for the ability to write and connect to other people and have fun doing it -- I experience the fruits of those blessings every day.


The second is to relay a silly story my mom told me about my dad today. He's back in the nursing home now, and there's a new guy in the room across the hall. Apparently this guy leaves the television blasting all day -- and LOUD. So yesterday, my dad decided that he'd had enough. He wheels across the hall, his own television remote in hand, and proceeds to turn the sound down on the blaring TV -- from behind the door -- the guy inside the room has no idea who's turning the volume of his television down, and the entire staff is cracking up. I started laughing to the point of tears when mom shared that with me. Because that's just DAD! Same old mischievious self. I could picture the little smirk he gets and all, and again I am so thankful that despite his illness, he's still able to carry on like a child. Awesome.