May 6, 2013 is the last time my dad ever told me he loved me. When my sister went home to get some much needed rest, I was suddenly in charge of making one of the most critical decisions of my dad's life in a frantic rush to get him into emergency surgery. After weeks, months even, of trying to figure out why he was so sick, doctors knew they had to get inside for answers before his health got even worse. As I went with him to prep for the surgery that I had okayed, he and I both knew that there was a strong possibility he may not survive the surgery. I remember he - the man who was always terrified of being on an operating table - told me he was so tired and wanted to proceed. I promised I would bring him a Coke as soon as he woke up, something I have remembered every single day for the past three years.
The next five days could be simultaneously described as both a whirlwind and as the longest days of my life. Looking back, it seems like weeks passed between his surgery and the day that he actually left this world. In reality, it was just five short days, a culmination of months of suffering, as his body, unknown to anyone else - including his doctors - slowly poisoned itself from the inside.
Losing a parent is hard. Even when you can describe your relationship with that parent as tumultuous at times. As much as I always longed for it, my dad and I never had the ideal relationship. He had his faults, I have mine, and we tended to butt heads on many occasions. People close to me have a hard time understanding why I still tried to be close to my dad, why I picked up the phone after the hurtful words he hurled at me that always left me in tears. They find it hard to believe that I can still shed tears because I miss him.
Regardless of our problems, he was my dad. There is no denying the bond between a parent and child. My dad was the one person I always wanted to make proud. While he could indeed be quite truculent at times, he also had a heart of gold. He would have given the last thing he had to someone in need. He was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known. He may have had some strange ways of showing it, but, to quote Edgar Allan Poe, he loved my mom "with a love that was more than love." He taught me the value of hard work, to always change my oil, and that birthdays and holidays are special occasions. I would be lying if I said I didn't learn some colorful language from him, and I'm sure I got a little bit of his temper too. Many times in my life, I felt like I'd never quite measure up to the kind of daughter he wanted, but deep down somehow I always knew he loved me - and that's what kept me constantly striving for that relationship with him that I always wanted.
It's ironic to me that I ended up alone with him on the morning of his surgery. Of my dad's three daughters, I may not have been the most preferred, but there I was. He was so scared, but I also got the sense that he was at peace with the decision we made. I got to have a few quiet moments alone with him where we had some very important conversations, which made me feel like I had somehow been placed in that moment for a reason. If nothing else, he was able to see that despite all of the other baggage in our lives, I was beside him, and I really hope that made him proud and feel loved.
In the last few months of his life, my dad unknowingly presented my sisters and me with a gift that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. His gift to us was that the three of us now have a bond that will never be severed. I have no idea how any one of us would have gotten through the months leading up to his passing without the other two. Whether on the other end of the phone, in a text message, curled up in a hospital chair, we were beside each other every step of the way, and that is something for which I will be eternally grateful.
My dad had quite a sad childhood, which I think influenced many of the decisions he made in his life. I'm not sure that he always felt loved, so he sought love in different ways. When he took his last breaths on May 10, the three of us held his hands and filled that hospital room with an abundance of love. I sure hope he felt it, as I know we did.
It's always amazing to me how books come into my life at just the right time. Every time I read something, I can glean new meaning from it. When I was reading aloud the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio for probably the fifth time not long after my dad died, a passage jumped out at me. Two of the characters in the book were discussing death, and one said,
"I think when people die, their souls go to heaven but just for a little while. Like that’s where they see their old friends and stuff, and kind of catch up on old times. But then I actually think the souls start thinking about their lives on earth, like if they were good or bad or whatever. And then they get born again as brand-new babies in the world."
Camden, my two-year-old daughter, was born on February 10, 2014 - nine months to the day after my dad died. I look at her sometimes and feel so incredibly blessed that she is even here. After a miscarriage and a year of failed attempts to get pregnant, suddenly there she was - after I had lost one of the most important people in my life. She's smart, funny, sweet, and spunky. I like to think that she is all the good things that my dad always wanted to be in his lifetime. I know there were things in his life that he wished he had done differently. When I look at this little miracle of a child, I see his opportunity to get it right. Somehow the magical timing of his death and her beginning of existence gives me a peace I never knew I needed.
There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of my dad. There are many days that I want to pick up the phone to tell him something about my day. I don't think I will ever stop trying to make him proud. Every May I will most likely relive the final days of my dad's life, but as the years pass, I am able to look back on that time and feel a sense of purpose. His struggle was not for nothing. There was meaning behind everything that took place, and that, along with my memories, is what I will carry in my heart. Losing someone is never easy, but the meaning it has brought to my living is what gets me through.
