my probable upcoming heart surgery in Cleveland<\/a>, and six days before Shaun\u2019s shoulder surgery, my Dad died. He\u2019s the good-looking guy holding the beer in the picture. His death was rather sudden and not so sudden at the same time. He\u2019d had a serious brain bleed a few months ago, but looked to be recovering quite well. Meaning, he was returning to his old self. Not the way he was a few days before the brain bleed, but the way he was in his earlier years. Then, for reasons unclear, his blood pressure dropped, dropped, and dropped some more to the point that CPR was performed for an hour without success. I didn\u2019t even know medical professionals would perform CPR for that long, and if I could, I would talk to them and ask them why. Why did they keep going? Was it because my brother was in the room? Was it because they saw something in Dad that spoke of a fighter?<\/p>\nI\u2019m learning there are a lot of questions that come up when your Dad dies<\/strong>. You want to know if he suffered, and if so, how. Yet at the same time, you don\u2019t want to know anything because it\u2019s better that way. Grief is worse if the suffering that led to death was horrific, and Dad\u2019s suffering was nothing short of terrible and awful and horrific and heart-hurting. But something in you demands to be told the tale of how it all went down, in spite of knowing that knowing will do nothing but pour proverbial salt in your wounds. So you ask. Then you know. Then you don\u2019t want to know. You want to get off the not-so-merry-go-round of grief and soul trouble, but there\u2019s no stopping. The snippets of informative phone conversations with your brothers are embedded into your memory and they spin your guts around and around and shake you up at the oddest times. Like when you\u2019re reading a fairly stupid novel to get yourself thinking of the lighter side of things and your undisciplined mind just floats right back to why? Why now? Why Dad? Why in a way that feels like open heart (soul) surgery without anesthesia?<\/p>\nI\u2019m learning there aren\u2019t a lot of answers for all the questions.<\/strong>\u00a0God\u2019s ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. Simple. Straightforward. But still hard to accept.<\/p>\nI\u2019m learning that the type of grief experienced when a parent dies is unique.<\/strong> I am not new to grief. I lost grandparents who were more like parents to me in the years my parents were unable to \u2026 well, parent. I\u2019ve lost great aunts and uncles suddenly, due to natural and catastrophic causes \u2013 diabetes, a snow avalanche, a mining accident, a car accident. I\u2019ve lost a beloved Sunday School teacher to a brain tumor. I\u2019ve lost a mom-in-law on my birthday. A radio preacher who ministered to me in ways nobody else could at the time \u2013 in a car wreck. Dogs. Cats. A cow named Jessica, because my family was hungry and we were dumb enough to name what would one day become our dinner. A bunny, because I fed it too much.<\/p>\nAnyone who has lived any length of time knows what it\u2019s like to lose many souls in different \u201ctents\u201d, as the Apostle Paul called the body. But when the soul of a parent is rent from the body that gave you life, it\u2019s different. That body and soul have always been there. Maybe not by your side, literally. But around. On this earth and a phone call away. And when death comes rather unexpectedly, the hands that used to grip your knee to make you squirm and squeal, the hands that swatted you for being naughty, the hands that fed you, clothed you, and provided for you for a decade and a half are now a small part of a big pile of ashes? It cuts pretty deep. Even if those hands didn\u2019t always do their best. Even if those hands weren\u2019t always faithful. Even if those hands hurt rather than helped at times. It just \u2026 smarts like a soul slap, if a soul could be slapped.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m learning that death purifies memories<\/strong>. It\u2019s strange, really. I\u2019ve no desire to air my Dad\u2019s dirty laundry, but like everyone, he had a few piles. Err, maybe small mountains would be a more accurate phrase. When the now-deceased and his descendants are alive, it\u2019s easy for the descendants to get honed in on the laundry stench. Then death comes, and the stench-y sin struggle of the deceased wafts further and further away. Put another way, it\u2019s as if the good memories become so light, they surface to the top, and the bad, ugly ones become too heavy to bear, and like a silver fishing sinker, they do what they\u2019re meant to do: hide and sink. The bad memories, though there, become much less visible, less noticeable, less hurtful. And the good memories come to the surface and float as though they have no plans to ever do anything different. I didn\u2019t expect that. I expected the bad-ugly to remain vivid, and the good to remain elusive. My only question about this pleasant, unexpected surprise is \u2026 how do I make that happen with every living person I know and love, in the here and now?<\/p>\nSurface the good. Sink the bad. Sounds Biblical, even.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m learning to cherish Dad\u2019s wicked cool accomplishments.<\/strong> Dad had enough intelligence to make those of us with smaller brains terribly envious. His accomplishments include serving as Mayor, and earning some pretty cool medals in the Navy. Not to mention he provided the dinky town I grew up in with electricity for years via huge computers. His work at the power company took brains, not brawn, even though he was loaded with both. Also? He ran into a slew of Hell\u2019s Angels once. He said hello. They flipped him off. He nodded his acceptance of them flipping him off. They drove away on their Harley Davidsons. Takes intelligence to know when to catch a California bird and when to take a shot at beating someone\u2019s brains into the concrete. He never really<\/em> said, but I bet he was so scared he nearly wet his bell bottoms.<\/p>\nFact is, Dad was pretty cool in a lot of ways. His Bible that he used the whole time I was growing up was heavily marked up in the book of Romans. And anyone who marks up the book of Romans is cool in my book.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m learning to be careful of what movies I watch<\/strong>. Shaun and I switched on the TV last night and came across The Bucket List.<\/em> I love Morgan Freeman (and I can put up with Jack Nicholson), and I\u2019d heard it was a funny movie. So since laughter was the medicine for which I searched, we watched. But you guys. There are maybe five scenes worthy of a laugh, and if that wasn\u2019t disappointing enough \u2026 it\u2019s one of those movies that by the end, if you\u2019re not in tears, you\u2019re dead. Some of the similarities to Dad\u2019s end of life experience were uncanny. Kinda freaked me out and comforted me at the same time. So uhh, note to self: do not watch movies about an old crotchety man dying post brain surgery after your Pa just died post brain surgery. It\u2019ll jerk tears out of you until you succumb to sleep, finally.<\/p>\nI\u2019m learning that grief is hard on a body.<\/strong> Clearly, we are having a ridiculous run of misfortune lately between Dad\u2019s death, Shaun\u2019s surgery, and my upcoming surgery in Cleveland. So perhaps it\u2019s everything combined. But as of two days ago, my body said stop everything, and stop it now. <\/em>Typically, when I am up, Shaun is down. When I am down, Shaun is up. God\u2019s been gracious to, for the most part, let life work out like that. But right now, we\u2019re both down, so it\u2019s an adjustment. Turns out being half orphaned throws me into a bit of a relapse, which I need to get under control before we leave for Cleveland! No. Pressure!! But as Earl A. Grollman once said \u2026<\/p>\nThe only cure for grief is to grieve.<\/em><\/p>\nThere\u2019s no way out of this. Grief has to happen and it has to happen in its own way, in its own time. Thank you for listening to my (sappy at times) account of raw grief. This too shall pass, although perhaps not until others are grieving for me and I\u2019m up in Heaven with Dad, our relationship healed and perfect, with nothing between us except love, acceptance, and understanding<\/em>. What a day that will be.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m learning there are a lot of questions that come up when your Dad dies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2920,"featured_media":1138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,122,84,156,52,157],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-forgiveness","tag-humor","tag-losing-a-parent","tag-romans","tag-suffering"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n