I have not arrived yet as to why I am writing this today. Maybe it has been building up for the past two years and I feel the need to share it. Either way when I woke up this morning documenting this experience was not in the day’s agenda. It just is happening. Very much like the subject matter, unplanned but something unavoidable. I am going to share the moments of my dad’s passing through my eyes. Maybe it is for attention, but I’d like to think it is for a genuine desire to pass on an experience that we all will face or have faced at some point.
Around the 12th of December 2007 my dad had brain surgery to remove the cancer that had spread there from its original source in his lungs. I was in Uganda, Africa during this operation. More specifically I was on the Nile River at the exact time the surgeon was at work. The waters of the Nile in Uganda are fearsome. It is full of classes five rapids that treat large zodiac boats like rag dolls. I was reminded of Moses and how as a baby he was laid in a basket in the Nile. I couldn’t believe the treacherous waters I was looking at were the same waters that calmly supported the basket of a baby. That brought me such comfort in regards to my dad’s surgery and his cancer. What appears out of control can lead to peace in the hands of the Lord.
The surgery went wonderfully. They removed the lesions and were confident they got it all. This surgery came toward the end of many months of chemo and radiation treatments so pop’s body was not at 100%. His organs had been weakened quite a bit. Nothing that he couldn’t come back from though, as he had did in the past.
On Christmas Eve for the past 30 years or so our family goes over to the Smith’s house to eat dinner and try to teach Juma their parrot bad words, Christmas ’07 was no different. A few hours before we were going to head over I got a call from my mom saying that Pop had fallen down out side and was bleeding and to come over immediately. When I arrived Pop was in bed and very white. He had been hunting squirrels in the backyard and had lost his balance and fell. We decided he needed to go to the hospital to get looked at as he was still pretty dizzy. So when Silas, my brother, got there we pilled into the car and headed to the hospital. I remember as we walked out turning a seeing the table in the dinning room had already been set for Christmas brunch the next day. I think I drove, I don’t remember really, but we got checked into the emergency room and Pop got some fluids. He was very dehydrated and after two bags of fluids he felt much better. They ended up wanting to run a few tests and keep him over night so he was moved into a different room with a bed and tv. I don’t remember where I slept that night. Maybe at my place or maybe at home, but he as still at the hospital.
I had been planning to leave late Christmas Day and head up to Tennessee with a few buddies for a winter camping trip. So I was on and off the phone with my friend Will Alexander about the plans. I was still planning on going as my dad didn’t seem to have anything wrong with him expect for being dehydrated. It ends up there was a blood clot that had formed after his brain surgery in his kidney. The clot was causing his kidneys to malfunction although the normal test for this was not showing signs of a problem. I remember looking at a monitor that displayed my dad’s kidneys and when the attendant pushed on his stomach you could see them firing correctly.
Pop was breathing very deeply. I think we all remember that. I do that also sometimes when I feel rotten. He said he thought he could breathe it off. Ha. He keep saying he wanted to be well, that he had to get well. No one likes a hospital bed and Pop was ready to get out of one. I never asked but I imagine everyone including my dad had a weird feeling of is this what is to come. Weeks in a hospital bed, that is what happens sometimes with cancer. That is where it takes your body. I am thankful for people that take the time to visit those who are confined to a hospital bed. What a tough place to send time.
As we learned nothing of his condition the tension began to build and questions started racing. What was going on? Are we doing everything we should be? Are the doctors doing everything they should be doing? It’s freaking Christmas day are we really here? This leads one to start watching everything. I started watching monitors. I started watching movements. I started watching the faces of the nurses and doctors. And I started asking questions. The first person I started in on was Pop. He never really lets on to how he feels when it comes to medical news. Golf, whaterburger, fishing, mom, reality tv, now those are things he will tell you about. I asked him several times how he felt. I said, “You are breathing very heavily, why? Does it hurt?” He would answer, no it doesn’t hurt I just feel that if I keep breathing deep I’ll get better and get out of here.
At this point around 5pm or so I decided I was not going to go to Tennessee and I called and told my buddy Will I was out. My sister and her husband had gone home also to try and have a little Christmas for their two little ones. We were watching Rio Bravo on the tv and it reminded me when my dad would read old Louis La’mour books to me as a kid. When he read he paused for a few extra beats at the end of sentences. I never knew why, but he did. Our friend’s the Blakeny’s had come up to the hospital to see us and we decided to go down stairs to the cafeteria and grab something quick to eat and let Pop rest for an hour as we had been in there all day. Before we went down I walked up to the side of Pop’s bed and told him I was not leaving for Tennessee and that I’d be here until he got out of here. He bent his arm at the elbow and raised his forearm vertically up so that when I grabbed his hand it was more of a grip then like a hand shake. Like what good friends do when they say hello or goodbye. That was the last time I saw my dad alive. He was happy I was staying.
We all went down stairs with Ann and Bob to eat. My mom, brother, my sister-inlaw Jen and myself. I don’t remember what we talked about or what we ate. I do remember that no one else was there. After eating we said goodbye to the Blakney’s and headed back up. As we got out of the elevator my sister Liza called me to check in as they were on their way back to the hospital. Silas and My mom walked into Pop’s room first and as I came around the corner I saw my brother running from his room yelling for a nurse. My sister heard this through the phone and asked what was happening. I didn’t know what was happening but I knew it wasn’t good. I lied and said I had to go to the bathroom or something. I knew they were just a few miles away and what was happening they would know soon enough and I didn’t want to freak her out. I closed the phone and ran to the door as my mom was walking out with Jen holding her I believe. She looked in shock. Once in the room I could see that my dad was not breathing. His leg was barely off the bed as if he has tried to get up for a second. But then laid back down. I started shaking him to get a response and then a nurse appeared and helped. I remember being in the same position with my friend Luke when he got an overdose of respatory pain medicine after his accident in LA. It is a weird feeling calling out someone’s name when you don’t know if they can hear you. You feel very helpless and powerless. A lot of things happen very quickly then. The room filled with about 12 people. All calling out readings and numbers. I found myself perched on the window ledge right next to the head of my dad’s bed. He didn’t look alive but I didn’t know. Three large guys quickly bought a wooden step to the side of the bed and started to do the chest CPR on Pop. They worked hard and when their arms got tired they switched. For about ten or so minutes they worked. Maybe if was only five minutes but it seemed like thirty. I didn’t really know what to think. Was he going to wake up? Was there going to be a gasp and he would be breathing again? Am I really sitting here? Why I am sitting here? Should I be seeing this? Is this going to scar me for life? Are people going to feel sorry for me? Why the F am I think about myself? I am sick! I can’t believe I am just thought that. I am supposed to be screaming? Why are the nurses starting to look at me? Is he gone? Where is he? Why is everyone looking at me?!
I realize everyone is looking at me because they need my permission to stop doing CPR. They had only done CPR this long because I was right there. He was gone. I looked up and met eyes with my brother who was at the other end of the room and I waved him over to my side and said, “I think they need our permission to stop working on our dad, how do we say that?” With a nod they got the message and they announced the time of death and left the room. I am thankful for the guys who were doing the CPR, they were all sweating and that let me know they were trying. I learned that the blood clot from his kidneys moved to his heart and when that happen there really wasn’t anything anyone could do.
Liza and Jae had arrived while they were trying to revive him and I remember her later saying she could see his window from the parking lot and knew something was wrong.
We all cleared the room and sat right outside in the hall. Pop’s doctor was there and kindly sat on the floor with us for hours. I didn’t think doctors did that but he did. He had been amazing over the past couple of years and we were very thankful that he was Pop’s doctor. Our pastor Skip Ryan also was there with us.
For some reason I decided to go back into the room to see my dad. His body was still there although they had laid the bed flat and moved it to the middle of the room so you could walk all the way around it. His eyes and mouth were closed and I stood at the head of the bed. Because it had been Christmas holiday he hadn’t shaved in a few days and had the beginnings of a beard. I was 28 years old and I could not help but put my hands on his cheeks. With both hands I gently rubbed this beard. It was soft in one direction and prickly in the other. I felt like a child. I had not been that close to my dad since I was a child. I’m sure I used to rub his face all the time when I was tiny. I see my niece and nephew play with their dad’s face all the time. I have seen a Ugandan farmer named Paul let his baby girl play with his face also. It is universal. This was beautiful because I realized my dad never pushed me away. My brother, sister and I always had access to him. I have been enough places to see that is not a given but a choice of the father. Access to the father can only be granted by the father. It’s his choice. Nothing has been more influential to who I am then the love of my father and mother.
As this rushes over me and as everyone gathers around the bed crying and holds a hand or a shoulder I start feeling very strange. Goosebumps, chills, and weight falling off. I start thinking about one single thing. The story of Lazarus. For the past month the story of Lazarus had been coming up almost every other day. I would hear sermons about it, have conversations about it, and hear the word Lazarus in unrelated stories. I knew the story and what it meant and now it was all I could think about. Crying over my father’s body all I could think about was Christ crying over Lazarus and that moment I knew Christ had already been here over my dad with us. I heard a sermon by Matt Chandler only a few days before about how Christ was not just weeping over the death of Lazarus but over the death and pain and loss of everyone in history. He explained and it makes since that in the moment of Lazarus death there was no reason for Christ to cry because He knew He was about to raise him from the dead. Why cry for a man that you know will be fine and alive in a matter of seconds and at your own words? But Jesus cried still. Being God Christ was overcome with all death and loss. Even that of my dad. So I felt that right there in the Presbyterian Hospital during 2007. I felt comfort that my God knew my pain and after feeling it He did something about. By restoring Lazarus’s life he set in action the end of His own in order to defeat death for everyone in the past and future. I didn’t start smiling or anything but I wasn’t crying hopelessly anymore.
At some point late that night we decided it was time to leave. I think the hospital needed to take his body or something. I don’t really know how we all did that though. I remember getting in the car and looking up at the window of pop’s room. Was he really up there? Looking back I will never know how we were able to drive away. We arrived home to a house set for the planned Christmas feast. Presents everywhere, a table set with beautiful dishes and decorations. There where name cards for your seat and my name was next to my dad’s. He really loved Christmas. He had this red sweater he would wear with green corduroy pants. That Christmas pop had gotten me a watch from the ducks unlimited catalog. I have it on right now. The card said to Will, Love Pop. I guess the point of sharing this story is to encourage my friends that are now becoming fathers. My father is gone and I have asked a lot of questions about that but I have never questioned if he loved me. I’ve always known he did because he gave me access to him. And because of this I have a better understanding of how to love others. I might be wearing a watch but that was not his last present to me.
Story of Lazarus
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+11&version=NIV
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