Remembering losing my dad 18 years ago and the oasis in my desert of grief…

The call came at 3:00am.  As I reached for the phone I was filled with dread.  “We are taking your Dad to the hospital, he’s having a stroke.”  This had happened before, the calls in the middle of the night.  For over fifteen years I had lived with the fear that God would take my Dad before I was ready.  He suffered from heart disease and we had already been through several heart attacks, congestive heart failure, and one other stroke.  Each time, Dad would recover and miraculously retain his quality of life.  But, as Dad often said, he was living on borrowed time and the next call might be the last.  He was ready to face it, but I wasn’t.

I was, and still am, a daddy’s girl.  As the late-in-life child of a pastor and his wife, I was raised in a much more relaxed atmosphere than my older brother and sister.  They were grown when I came along and by this time Mom and Dad had matured and life had slowed down in many ways.  My brother and sister insist that I was raised by different parents and often introduce me to their friends by saying “This is my sister.  She’s an only child.”  It’s the family joke.  But because of this I was privileged to enjoy a unique relationship with my parents, particularly with my Dad.  We would go to hospitals and nursing homes.  We’d visit the elderly and not-so-elderly members of the congregation.  He even took me car “window shopping”.  He loved to look at cars and always dreamed of driving a Cadillac but being a conservative pastor, he believed that for him it wouldn’t have been good stewardship of God’s money to own one.

I respected my Dad more than anyone else I knew. He truly practiced what he preached and lived it at home.  He was always patient with me, which was a feat in itself.  Raising a teenager in your fifties is a challenge, to be sure, and I caused my parents more than their share of worry and frustration.  But all in all, I have wonderful memories of my childhood.

So when that call came in the middle of that hot, balmy June night, I was overwhelmed with fear and dread.  By this time, I had been married for 14 years and had two young children and had been praying that God would allow Dad to live to see my children grown.  He was a wonderful grandfather and mentor to my husband.  We had much to lose.  “Please God, not now.”

The stroke was severe and he would not recover.  Two weeks passed and with nothing they could do, he was released from the hospital.  Mom wouldn’t even consider putting him in a nursing home, and agreeing, we all took shifts helping to care for him at home.  He had always been so strong and vital it was difficult to accept.  But this was my daddy and I would do whatever he needed.

It would be only five days before the Lord took him home and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever faced.  On July 5^th as we were all there with Mom, gathered around his bed at home, we watched him struggle between life and death for several hours. His lungs filling with fluid, he was suffocating to death. It was an emotional time because he did not go quietly.  I was praying “God please take him home, I don’t want him to suffer any more.”  And, at last, He did.  A peace seemed to settle over the house as Dad’s suffering ceased and he left our presence to enter God’s.  God knew what I would be facing and had already prepared a sanctuary of comfort for me: My marriage.

Thankfully, I married a man with the same steadfast commitment to the Lord that my Dad had.  Len possesses the strength of character that I respected in my Dad and in the days and weeks to come God used him to provide the comfort and healing I needed to face the void that death had left.

The most poignant and precious memory I have of that time with Len is something that happened a week or so after the funeral.  Physically and emotionally exhausted I had cried until I was sure there wasn’t a tear left in my body. All I wanted to do was forget the heartache and loss.  I wanted to relax and needed rest desperately.  Len was the only one I could talk to about how I was feeling.  I had to be strong for Mom and my kids.   I couldn’t even imagine the grief Mom must be dealing with having lost her lifetime partner of 53 years.  I was also grieving the fact that my children had lost an irreplaceable Godly influence in their lives.

I was dazed. I had the strangest sensation the world had stopped for me and I was stuck in a time warp of grief, watching life from a distance, wondering how anyone could face each day living with such acute pain.  One day sitting together with Len, his arms around me, he asked if I could do anything I wanted right then, what would I do?   I remember telling him “I’m tired of crying and I don’t want to think about it anymore.  I just want to be on a deserted island alone with you. No tears. No people. No pain. “

Days later Len pulled into our driveway with a canoe in the back of his truck.  “Come on.” he said.  “We’re going for a ride.”  He wouldn’t tell me our destination and, exhausted, I just went along.  We drove to a small lake, where he unloaded the canoe and reclining lawn chairs and helped me into the boat.  He then proceeded to paddle us out to an uninhabited island in the middle of the lake where he unfolded the chairs on the deserted beach.  With the water gently lapping at our feet he said, “I know this isn’t exactly what you had in mind, but it’s the best I could do.”   I was overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness.  He had taken the time to ask and then, more importantly, listen to what I was saying and feeling.  We relaxed there together, holding hands in silence and watched a beautiful sunset in the quiet still of that summer evening.  And for a few precious hours, I was able to rest and enjoy respite from my heartache.  I had been taken to an oasis in the midst of my desert of grief.

18 Years have passed and the pain of that summer has faded into bittersweet memories of Dad and letting go, and of a deserted beach, a gorgeous sunset, and a tender loving moment with my husband.   “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Job 1:21b NIV