Margie and I were eating dinner on the back porch one evening and she said “You’re going to go to Ohio for your dad’s operation tomorrow morning, right?” I told her that it had been suggested by everyone in Ohio that there was no need for me to go up since his operation was to be a routine one, and that I wait until after the surgery to go see him. She asked me who WAS going to be there during the operation and I told her that I didn’t think anyone was.
She simply said, “If it were you, would you want someone to be there for you?” I said, “Of course, you are right,” and immediately packed my bag. Within 20 minutes I was on the road for my 7 hour drive to Columbus, Ohio. I arrived about 3:00 am, got a motel, slept for a couple of hours and went to the hospital to meet my dad who was arriving at the hospital by ambulance from the convalescent center where he was residing. A brain tumor had grown back and the operation was, again, to remove as much of it as they could.
When I got to the hospital, I couldn’t find him. I thought I might have been too late and he was already in surgery. As I went from desk to desk, it became clear that they didn’t know where he was either. They knew he was supposed to be there. They had checked him in, but they didn’t know where he was in the hospital. They pointed me in several directions, and I found him lying on a gurney, in some hallway. He said that someone had said they would be back for him, but hadn’t shown up yet. I went to the nurse’s station, told her of the situation and they immediately took him to a surgery waiting room and prepared him for his surgery, seemingly rushing to get him ready.
Someone came to wheel him out; I said “Goodbye Dad,” and started walking with him towards the surgical suite. Half way down the hall, the orderly received a message that the surgery was to be delayed because of an emergency and my dad and I went back to the surgical waiting room. We were just chatting, when my cell phone rang. It was Margie wondering how things had gone. I told her about the delay and asked if she would like to talk to my dad. I gave him the phone and they chatted. At one point, just before he handed the phone back to me, he said to her, “It is.” I saw tears in his eyes. Tears? Are you kidding me? I knew something she had said had touched him deeply. My dad never cried. Never. I saw his eyes go red once, when he got the phone call that his father had died. Eyes that got red, but no tears. I found out later that what she had said to him was, “This, what you are going through, must really be hard.”
During the conversation with Margie my mind flashed to my dad and how valiantly he had lived his life. Many times he could have quit and didn’t. At the age of 72, he started going to therapy and in doing that for the next four years, forever changed our family’s history. How valiantly he fought his brain cancer when it struck him down. How he refused to concede anything to it, fighting it every inch of the way. Never giving in or giving up.
When he finished talking to Margie, I decided to say some version of that out loud. I knew I was breaking an unwritten family rule. Sons didn’t say that to Dads. Dads didn’t say that to Sons. Family members didn’t talk to each other like that, but a voice from somewhere deep inside of me said, “Dad I am really proud of how you lived your life. You are showing me how to do this part too, with grace and gentleness and determination.” He reached for my hand and there were some more unspoken tears, this time, from both of us.
He then said something that I will never forget. He said, “I don’t think I have ever told you how proud of you I am. I always wanted you to be a missionary or a preacher, and for years couldn’t let that go. As I have seen who you have become and how you help people, I have come to see that you help people just like they do.”
Now we were both leaking tears even more.
The orderly came in and said, “It’s time.” I wiped the tears from my face and his, and as he was wheeled away I said, “Love you Dad, go get em”. He said, “Love you, too”.
All this love and appreciation talk was unbelievable. That NEVER happened in our family. At least when I was around. The only way I knew that my parents MIGHT have liked me was when I snuck out of my bedroom one night and heard my mom and dad tell our neighbors who were visiting that “Our kids are really good kids.” They never let on that they felt that way in person. My hunch is that they were of the sincere belief that telling us things like that somehow might spoil us.
After they took him, I waited what seemed like hours to get the Surgeon’s report. When it came, it was good news. The Doctor said he expected that my dad would make a full recovery.
As the hours and then days and weeks passed it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. Though he lingered for a few months, he never spoke again. The treasure I took away was the very last words spoken between this father and son. Words of pride, appreciation and love. What a gift. What a lucky man, to have received those words and also to have been able to give them when he could still hear me.
What difference has this moment made in my life? One is that I try to remember to tell my wife, my son, my daughter those things. I am proud of them, I love them. I don’t want to take a chance on not being found in some hospital hallway. I can tell them, and in doing so, pass on the greatest gift from my father.
Thanks for that story, Uncle.