Because I Said So

Sitting in the dark, I reached out and slipped my hand into his.

It felt small, but the squeeze was firm.

How many times have we as parents sat in the dark with our sick loved ones, not really doing much, save letting that person know we are there? That way, when there was a whimper of distress or a scared moan, we could put a hand through their hair, stroking and letting them know that they were not alone.

It is instinctual. No one needs to tell us to be there or what to do. That empathy, that presence, is wired into most humans. And it doesn’t end with our children.

My father, Honest John, has the kind of retired life many would covet. True, my mom is gone, but he found another true love, Sandy, and they have joined forces late in life and put together a grand, fulfilling life: The house on the lake and the boat rides that go with it, the grandkids that are always popping by to ski, and the annual flight to Florida to wait out that part of the year in Minnesota when the boat is in dry dock.

Even though my dad is 85, he still hits the golf course on most days and seems surprised when he plays poorly – truth is, he was never that good. But some weeks ago in Florida, he began experiencing shortness of breath and fatigue while he was out on the course. Some doctoring later, he was confronted with the stark news that one of the valves of his heart was not operating properly. Valve replacement surgery is an open heart affair, something that he experienced twenty years ago and wanted no part of. Then the doctors told him that the other choice was respite care and a slow decline.

He chose life. Right now, I’m at a coffee shop on 27th and Lyndale and my dad is over at Abbott Northwestern. A week ago, he had the procedure. It got scary after he came off the table, with some bleeding and they took him back in. The surgeons were able to stop the bleeding and by the time I got there a few days later, he was sitting in a chair with a scar down the middle that looked like he had been attacked by an axe. “It doesn’t hurt,” he said as I touched the scar and whistled.

Honest John spent the next few days looking after us as we looked after him. Our family is always one to pull together around wounds, so my sister Missy and her husband Don were constantly there, as was my sister Lisa and her husband John. My brother Joe, the anchor of the home team, popped in every morning to bring him the newspaper and some decent coffee and bring his wife Mary by for some of it as well.  Sandy was at his bedside through most of it, and her kids were there as much as we were. My brothers John and Jim came running from a long ways away to check in and take a turn.

(It turned out well. After much talk about sending him to a nursing home for some rehab, Honest John eventually threatened to do a cartwheel to prove his fitness to go home without the stop at another strange place. The doctors, seeing that their work was done and done well, finally let him go home.)

I had my four days here.  While many others loved to stop by and chat – my dad was happy for the company – I spent a lot of time in the room just sitting quietly and occasionally putting a hand on him. There were some dark thoughts about mortality and its wages, but mostly thought about the gifts this life brings, how my dad taught me to look after the children in my life and to be there unconditionally when they needed me.

And whatever gifts that I bring to him, they were things that he gave me in the first place, among them, this: Things don’t matter, people do. He taught me that and a thousand other things that now are baked into my nature and watching him surrounded by people who loved him, I could not argue with any of it.

Honest John instructed me in how to be a good man by being a good man himself. What people say – the sermons, the preaching, the advice – is generally much less important than what they do. And my dad is a guy who went to church, told the truth (give or take his golf score) and was good to the least of us, including me when I was not exactly the most loveable person around.

At night after the hospital went quiet, feeling his hand in mind, sitting in the half light of the room, I was content. I was where I was supposed to be. And then he spoke: “If there’s any good to come of this, I really am happy that you and I got to spend so much time together.”

Which is great, but serves to remind that we should not just hold those dearest to us closest to us when we or they are in distress. I fully expect that sometime this summer, my dad will be back on the golf course, quietly swearing when a shot goes awry. And if I have my priorities in order, I will be there on the course, reminding him that golf is just a silly game and that he has always played the game of life and won.

return to top