There is the age old question of whether death is better sudden or drawn out where you have time to say good-bye. My thoughts: they both suck. I have seen plenty of death in my short time as a pediatrician, and death is death. The chronically ill child that dies does not hurt any less than the unexpected death of a healthy child. It hurts immensely as a physician to watch your patient die even if you only cared for the child for a few minutes, but I had been lucky to be the one standing from the outside looking in compared to the families going through it. One of my main goals was for my dad's death to not be dragged out to where he was suffering: if only illness and death operated so fairly.
He was healthy until all of the sudden he wasn't. I try to replay the past 10 months or so in my head, and it's hard to wrap my head around that my strong, invincible-to-me father is gone. How did cancer slowly yet so quickly steal him from us? Anyone who has witnessed cancer knows it is a thief. It literally stole the past 6 months from us (longer to him and my mom who dealt with it on a daily basis). It is hard to remember my healthy dad, because cancer tortured him until he was almost unidentifiable physically and mentally. I feel cheated that my last memories of my father weren't with his best version. God covered us through the hard times and created some beautiful memories with him during his last few months with us, but it's really hard to look past the bad memories and remember the good.
It's autumn and I picture my dad in his sweaters driving his Toyota Corolla all over Missouri and Iowa attending Football games. I imagine him taking his country drives with a Coke in hand and Starbursts in his cup holder. He's driving to the nearest orchard to buy apples to share with me for my next visit home, or maybe he's home whipping up a batch of his famous 5-Alarm chili or vegetable stew. He's in the garden harvesting his beloved sweet potatoes, or maybe he's sitting in the living room watching football with my mom. Somedays it is unfathomable that this version of my dad is no longer with us, because in my deep recesses I think I lived with the idea he would always be alive. Who doesn't live with these superhuman ideas about their parents?
I was in Whole Foods the other day, and they had their cranberries and stuffing material out already. I teared up in the dang grocery store aisles thinking of Thanksgiving without my dad's cornbread dressing. Grief: It can hit out of nowhere. My first experience with losing someone close to me was my 2nd week of medical school when one of my high school best friends tragically died in a car wreck. I can remember for months afterwards her death felt like we were in a really bad fight, and we weren't talking but that everyone else got to see her and keep making memories with her. My dad's death feels like he is gone on a drive and that we just moved on with life without him, and that he is really sad that we won't talk to him. Grief: It distorts reality.
My mom told me to listen to this song the other day, and she is right: It perfectly describes how we are feeling. I am hopeful in that God promises more than the confusion and hurt that death leaves behind. It's just a matter of meditating and praying on these promises until I am living out again what I know in my heart.
1 Thessalonians 5:17-18,"After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.'
