"If they're angels..."

On missing my dad

It’s been four years since my father died. I find myself missing him on an increasing basis. Maybe because I’m feeling my own age more lately, maybe because I still have questions I wish I could ask him.

One of the last times I saw him, the sparsely furnished room in elder care was full of people, most of whom were invisible, at least to my stepmom and me. His clothes hung loose on his wasting frame. The dementia that ravaged his final years, causing paranoia, fear and forgetting even how to smoke a cigar also caused him regular hallucinations. Various people flitted in and out of his sight, some he talked to, some he recoiled from, others he just commented on.

In the end, my dad’s incredible physical resilience kept him trapped. He took serious falls, but recovered, lived long beyond what was expected with an arrhythmic heart and seeping brain bleed. It was brutal to watch, much worse for my stepmom who valiantly cared for him for as long as possible at home and faithfully visited him when he was moved to a care facility.

I hate dementia with a passion. My wife and I have watched all four of our parents cope with various forms of it. As much as I hate it I also have to grudgingly allow that I’ve learned from it, been formed in some positive ways by it. It doesn’t make me like it, I don’t think I ever will, but I have a weird kind of respect. It takes so much away from people, but also opens up things we can’t otherwise see. I’m not saying it’s an even trade, but you take what you can get.

That day in the room as we made the kind of random, frayed conversation created by the loss a comprehensive, structured reality, my dad looked up to an empty corner of the room, smiled, and asked “Should I go with them?”

To which I responded, “If they’re angels, yes.” My dad looked at me with wonder and then we all laughed. For a fleeting moment we were able to fully be together in a thin place where not everything that was real was visible to every person, but we could all see each other. It’s a good memory to hold onto in the season of longing.

Grace and peace y’all

This Tuesday is Giving Tuesday. Your support means everything to us. Thank you