Life and death of my Dad – part 3

When I was a lifeguard/coach/swimming instructor many, many moons ago, I taught lifesaving skills classes.  One of those skills stayed with me as a life lesson and helped me understand something very cool about my Dad.

A person actively drowning is usually in an all-out panic.  If it becomes necessary to make a swimming rescue, the victim may lunge at the approaching rescuer and cause both of them to drown.  The parry enables the rescuer to defend him/herself from a victim’s attack by grabbing the wrist of a lunging victim and using the momentum of the attack to turn the victim around and put him/her into a cross-chest carry.  The cross-chest carry is a very secure way for the rescuer to keep control of the victim while swimming them to safety.

Attack as the means by which the attacker gets rescued – there’s a concept.  Reminds me of the biblical account of Joseph, the guy with the fancy coat whose brothers sold him into slavery only to find years later that he had become Pharoah’s right-hand man in Egypt.  As Joseph loaded up his brothers with grain to get them (and their families and their livestock) through the famine back home, he explained, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”  (Genesis 50:20)

I remember my Dad employing his own version of a parry when someone spoke an unkind word or told a joke at another’s expense.  Instead of letting the barb sting the one at whom it was aimed, my Dad would make himself the target and deflect the unkindness away from its intended mark.  I saw him do this numerous times, but never more powerfully than when on behalf of someone who wasn’t quick or skilled at defending him/herself.

A small gesture?  Not to me.  My Dad’s willingness to intercept the arrow shot at someone else and render it harmless was a God-like thing, and I look forward to the day when I can do it as readily and as gracefully as he did.

1 picture = 1,000 words

Look at the skill and concentration of my handsome, athletic son Zack:

Wish I could take credit for the photo, but that belongs to Julie, the Mom of one of Zack’s good buds.

Kid jokes

From my long-time friend Bill:

Jack (3) observed his Mom breastfeeding the baby and wondered aloud, “Why do you have two?  Can you give her hot and cold milk?”

When Granny said she couldn’t remember how old she was, her granddaughter (5) said, “If you don’t remember, just look in the back of your panties.  Mine says five to six.”

Kissing his Mom good night, Steven (3) told her, “I love you so much that when you die I’m going to bury you outside my bedroom window.”

A girl (4) with an ear ache couldn’t open the bottle of pain relievers.  When her Mom said it was a child-proof cap and opened it for her, the girl marveled, “How does it know it’s me?”

When Brittany (4) and her mother met an elderly woman with wrinkled skin, Brittany asked, “Why doesn’t your skin fit your face?”

James (4) listened to his Dad read the story of Lot:  “The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt.”  James wondered, “What happened to the flea?”

“Dear Lord,” the minister prayed, arms uplifted and a joyous expression on his upturned face.  “Without you, we are but dust…”  His momentary pause gave a listener the chance to ask, in her shrill and very audible four year-old girl voice, “Mom, what is butt dust?”

…and a blue heron in a fir tree

Susan was looking out of a kitchen window when what to her wondering eyes should appear but a great blue heron flying across the street.  The bird took a right turn and flew up the driveway next to us, then parked in a fir tree where it remained for the rest of the day.

A neighbor with a telephoto lens observed that the bird appeared to have an injured shoulder.  Happy to report that when she saw it in the same tree a few days later it looked much better.  These pictures were taken from outside our dining room:

Life and death of my Dad – part 2

I received a most wonderful gift from my Mom this Christmas:  a CD recording of my Dad reading the prologue to the Gospel of John (chapter 1, verses 1-14).

Dad was a layreader at the Episcopal church in which I grew up.  Though not ministers, layreaders wore vestments and read portions of scripture during worship services.  Dad loved this opportunity to serve and regarded it as a most sacred duty.  In his preparation he would study the passage to be read, learning what he could about its context and intent.  He would rehearse the passage aloud again and again – and again – until he felt he had captured its essence and could deliver it properly.

In the Episcopal liturgy, the congregation stands to hear a reading from one of the gospels.  My Dad projected that same reverence from the pulpit as he read.  His unhurried and deliberate reading allowed listeners to consider the words they heard.  It seemed to me that my Dad read from his heart, and that was never more evident than when he read the introduction to John’s Gospel, a passage he loved dearly.

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Susan and I made that recording in my Dad’s hospital room using an old portable cassette tape recorder.  His voice was weak and he stumbled through one section of the familiar passage.  He died six days later.  The tape was played at the Christmas Eve service a couple of weeks following Dad’s death, introduced as follows:

“One of our layreaders who especially liked to read the prologue to the Gospel of John at this service, and to be called upon to do it, was [my Dad].  Those of you who knew and loved him know he did it well.  He’s not able to be with us physically this year because he got a call to come up higher.  He got a better offer.  But just before he died, from his hospital bed after a long bout with cancer, he gave us a Christmas gift in a recording of the reading of the prologue of John.  And he’s in a different part of the church now which enables him to be with us here present, as well as with his family who is celebrating Christmas elsewhere.  So I’ll ask you to stand, please, for the reading of the prologue to the Gospel of John by [my Dad].”

Last Christmas was the first time that my Mom and sisters had listened to that recording since my Dad died.  At my sister Katie’s suggestion this year, my Mom had it produced and gave it to each of us.  What a great gift.  Lauren and Zack heard my Dad’s voice for the first time.  I was instantly transported back to those final days of his life 25 years ago.  And we were all powerfully and poignantly reminded of the Light that continues to shine in the darkness.

An audio Christmas card

My pal Steve shared this:

Life and death of my Dad – part 1

My Dad died 25 years ago today when his life was cut short by cancer at the age of 65.  This is the first of a series of posts by which I want to observe the anniversary and remember my Dad – his life, his death, my life with him, and my life without him.

In CS Lewis’ book A Grief Observed (written following the death of his wife), he noted:

“Slowly, quietly, like snowflakes – like the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night – little flakes of me, my selections, are settling down on the image of her.  The real shape will be quite hidden in the end.  Ten minutes – ten seconds – of the real H. would correct all this.  And yet, even if those ten seconds were allowed me, one second later the little flakes would begin to fall again.  The rough, sharp, cleansing tang of her otherness is gone.”

This is the grief of a spouse who has lost his soulmate.  Because of the woman I married, I can believe that the untimely death of a spouse is a sharper and more profound pain than the death of a parent.  However, 25 years later I still regard the loss of my Dad as one of the formative events of my adult life, and I still carry around a hole in my heart that misses him.  Snowflakes like Lewis described have been falling on the image of my Dad for a quarter of a century.  But once-visible edges that usually stay buried under the drifts can be suddenly uncovered by a passage of scripture or a joke or an old note in his handwriting.  When such occasions come – sometimes with tears – it’s a concession to the fact that someone I loved is gone.  I’ve also come to understand that we don’t necessarily “get over” our loss.  Grieving can be a lifelong process, and I’m okay with that.

I’ll do my best to present facts as I remember them, but please forgive me if there are inaccuracies.  A lot of snow has fallen since 1984.

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My Dad died well.  Toward the end of his life, he knew that if he was healed of cancer, that would be another of God’s gifts to him.  If he died, he knew that he was going to see Jesus.  For him, it was a win-win situation, and we witnessed hope at work in him.  Final-stage cancer patients typically receive increasing doses of morphine to control pain, but my Dad’s morphine intake was decreasing.  At the same time, he had requested and was receiving communion from a minister of his church who brought and served it to him every day.  That food nourished parts of him that were hidden from the eye and from medical knowledge, giving him strength even as his body weakened.

During the last day or two before he died, bleeding in Dad’s brain allowed him to travel back and forth between different times of his life.  He talked more and more of people and situations unfamiliar to me, and only occasionally came back to visit territory that I also recognized.  It seemed to me that the lines securing his boat to the old moorings were coming loose as he prepared for his final journey.  I was at his side, whispering in his ear that he could go, that he no longer needed to stay here.

There was a point at which I had a strong sense that he – everything that made this person I’d known as my Dad – was gone.  His body still breathed, but he wasn’t there; I was looking at his empty house.  Then each successive breath grew shorter and more shallow until the next one didn’t come.  In my head I had known this was coming, but when the curtain came down, the finality of his death hit me like a freight train.  As long as there had been even one more breath, the possibility remained that he might get better and come back to us.  Not now.

It took a little longer for hope to appear.  It crept in quietly, shining a surprisingly bright light into death’s shadow and offering faith’s deep reassurance that death no longer has the final word.  I believe with all my heart that I will see my Dad again, healthier and stronger and more full of life than I can begin to imagine.  Meanwhile, I now regard death differently.  I felt like I had seen the end of my Dad’s old life and the launch of his new one, and it injected new confidence and reality into that aspect of my faith.  It also enlarged the place in me from which I can empathize with and offer comfort to those who face the loss of a loved one.  While I would never choose the circumstances by which these gifts came to me, I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

God’s economy

This story has come up recently, so perhaps it’s time to give it a little wider circulation:

When Zack was just six months old, we discovered that Susan had early-stage thyroid cancer for which she underwent surgery twice in six weeks.  Part of her treatment involved a medication that significantly increased a baby’s risk of cardiac arrest, so Zack was unexpectedly and abruptly weaned.  He had not yet become accustomed to a bottle and wasn’t happy about the sudden change.  That was tough.  Susan’s further treatment added radioactive iodine to the mix, and Zack was allowed very little physical contact with radioactive Mommy.  If she had been on her own as a parent, Susan could have obtained a lead-shielded apron to hold him, but we didn’t push it.  By the time she was far enough out of the woods to resume nursing, Zack had lost the hang of it.  Aaargh.

Some time later Susan was in for a follow-up scan and I shared the radiology waiting area with a young couple.  She looked like she might have a baby any minute, and he had a big and new-looking scar across his neck.  I noticed that they had a devotional book with them.  When Susan emerged from the scan with a big thumbs up, we hugged and whooped it up.  The pregnant couple asked what news we had just received, and we learned that they were about six months behind us in his treatment for thyroid cancer.  He was concerned about not holding their new baby and missing out on those first opportunities to bond.  As we talked with them, there were half a dozen specific things we had learned that were helpful or encouraging for them – including the lead apron option if they wanted to do it.

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That situation remains one of our clearest pictures of how things work in God’s kingdom.  As we celebrated the good news of a clean scan, there were people less than ten feet away who needed some of that same hope and encouragement that God had just delivered to us.  God’s gifts are not given solely for our benefit, but also for the sake of others.  And sometimes we don’t even have to look or wait for a chance to get them circulating.

He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.  –2 Corinthians 1:4

Windshield wipers

In recent weeks it has rained almost every day.  Soggy even for Seattle.  And it’s reminded me of the time years ago that we got a brand-new Ford Fairlane station wagon.

My Dad believed cars were to get people from point A to point B.  They were not comfortably furnished living rooms with wheels in which one might listen to a radio or indulge in frivolous playthings like electric windows or power steering.  Car = transportation.  Even so, I was 13 and excited about a new car in the family.  We’d had the old station wagon for ten years, and several delays in the delivery of the new one only heightened my sense of anticipation.

It finally arrived:  “Silver Smoke Gray,” pretty blue steel dashboard, three-speed manual transmission with shifter on the steering column, no radio, all crank-down windows, including the tailgate window.  It was Exhibit A for my Dad’s functional view of cars.

This was the era when it was practical and affordable to “go for a drive,” and we took the new car out for a spin after church one Sunday.  We ventured much farther than the usual routes, onto back roads and into countryside we’d not seen before.  I’ve always enjoyed exploring new areas and neighborhoods, and what could be better than touring in the new Fairlane?

It started to rain.  Almost immediately after turning on the windshield wipers, the bracket that connects the electric motor to the wiper arms broke.  Rain was coming down in buckets and we didn’t have a way to keep the windshield clear in the gathering darkness.  But it turned out that there was a way.  I crawled under the dashboard in my Sunday best and pulled that broken bracket back and forth by hand.  Wow – manual windshield wipers.  What a concept.  And this was before the 1968 advertising slogan, “Ford has a better idea.”

Seemed like it took us at least an hour to get home, which is a lot of pulling-that-stinking-bracket-back-and-forth-to-wipe-the-windshield.  All the sparkle and appeal of that car evaporated in that hour, and it never returned.  In fact, if someone had offered us two cents for it that afternoon, they probably would have had themselves a new car.

That was 1965, and there hasn’t been another Ford in our family since.

The love of a father

I swam competitively when I was in high school.  We worked out in a crappy pool covered by an inflatable bubble during the winter months.  If the fans quit working or it snowed, the bubble collapsed onto the surface of the pool.  A guy threw up in the water once, but our coach insisted that we keep swimming because “it’ll spread out.”  Another time the fog inside the bubble was so thick that we couldn’t see three feet in any direction.  We positioned ourselves around the edges of the pool and made appropriate splashing sounds while the coach sat in the fog blowing his whistle for most of an hour.

Perhaps swimming is a genetic thing.  My Dad swam on a college swim team, and now Lauren is turning out for her school team.  I respect her discipline and willingness to take on the commitment.  And if anyone can make swimming a more social sport, Lauren’s the one.

I also get some points for my own discipline and willingness to take on her commitment.  I’m driving her tomorrow, when she starts two morning workouts a week that begin at 5:00 AM.  I’ve never been more interested in carpooling, and will make a point of giving her more driving practice.  I should also add a note of appreciation for my Mom, who was one of those faithful early morning drivers of our carpool in days of yore before we could drive ourselves.

Like I told Susan while we were out in the wind and pouring rain watching Zack play soccer last weekend and again today, I think I’ll have a good reply if the kids ever tell us that we don’t love them.