An audio Christmas card

My pal Steve shared this:

A sad anniversary – part I

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.

* * * * * * * * * *

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 how hope was 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 an 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.

* * * * * * * * * *

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 the car that afternoon, they probably would have had themselves a deal.

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.

Flu season

Good batteries make good neighbors

We all know how smoke detectors start beeping when the battery needs to be changed, right?

A couple of weeks ago Susan and I were awakened about 3:45 AM by one of those faint but persistent beeps that we recognized as a call for a new battery.  I got up to see which smoke detector it was.

Not the one in our bedroom – it would have been louder.  Not the one in the skylight hall, nor in the downstairs hall.  Lauren and a friend were sleeping downstairs, and the problem definitely wasn’t in her room.  I didn’t want to go into Zack’s room and risk waking him, so I checked the other ones again.

It’s not a quick process.  The interval between beeps is at least one minute, and it seems much longer when just roused from that all-important deep sleep.  Beep.  Nope.  Sounds like it’s upstairs.  Pause.  Hold on.  Wait for it.  A little longer.  Beep.  Not that one.  I’m sure it’s not our bedroom, but it’s coming from that direction.  Wait.  Wait some more.  More.  Beep.

I’d already pressed my ear against Zack’s door and it didn’t seem to be coming from in there.  I opened the door very quietly and went in – just to be sure.  “It sounds like it’s outside, Dad.”  We waited and listened again.  Beep.  Not in here.  “Sorry, Bud.  We’ll find it.”

Of course no one’s going to have a smoke detector outside; that’s ridiculous.  But Susan and I had checked and rechecked all of our detectors for the last 20 minutes and found nothing. I opened the front door and listened.  It was pouring rain.

Beep.  A little louder this time.  I walked around the side of the house outside of Zack’s room, and what to my wandering eyes should appear but a smoke detector on a rail of the neighbor’s porch.  His lights were on – apparently another victim of Midnight Battery Failure (MBF).  Oh, I get it.  He took care of his problem by putting it outside.

I picked up the unit and tried to open it to remove the battery.  No can do.  BEEP - much louder now.  Man, it’s wet out here.  Not gonna bring that thing into the house to solve the problem right now.  I stuck the detector in the back seat of my car under some cloth grocery bags.  That’s enough of that.

Went back to bed and dreamed of kicking my neighbor’s butt the next time I’d see him.

Sometimes change sucks

In May Zack started delivering the West Seattle Herald to about 30 customers around our neighborhood on Wednesday afternoons.  His first time doing the route by himself was in the pouring rain, pulling papers out of his backpack, checking addresses off his list, trying to keep everything dry – what a miserable way to start a job.  Susan got a tearful call from our newly-minted carrier, and was able to help him get the papers delivered and figure out some easier ways to do it next time.

Zack settled right into the routine.  His buddies helped him deliver papers.  He struck up friendly conversations with neighbors.  He acquired new customers, earned tips, and wrote thank you notes.  He deposited checks in his new bank account and had his own money to spend on the school band trip to Idaho.  Zack enjoyed a responsibility that belonged just to him.

Now big newspapers are fighting for survival.  Our own well-loved Seattle Post-Intelligencer lost the fight a few months ago, leaving the city with one daily paper that has no soul.  Smaller papers are feeling the squeeze, too.  The West Seattle Herald is consolidating its operations and switching to distribution by mail, and this past Wednesday was the last time neighborhood carriers delivered the paper.

Like millions of boys, having a paper route was Zack’s first regular job.  Like millions of Americans, he recently lost his job.  He’s already had at least one of his customers ask if he’s available for other work, so it’s good that he can see how ‘referrals’ and ‘networking’ and ‘good customer service’ come into play.  It just bugs me a little bit that he had his first taste of ‘unemployment’ at the age of 13.

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all of you other manly men:

Caring for your introvert

For those of us who are married to or otherwise closely associated with an introvert, here’s a good article from the March 2003 issue of The Atlantic.  I laughed out loud.