Grieving my father’s passing

I truly thought I had dealt with my father’s passing. It will be 9 years next June and I still remember a time when I thought I couldn’t bear living one single day without his wisdom and guidance. I was 24 when he passed and hadn’t begun to consciously walk any type of spiritual path. In fact, it was my father’s passing that pushed me to align with the divine. I figured that since Daddy is in heaven now, I better get right with Jesus if I hoped to see my beloved father in the hereafter. Hey, we all have different reasons for turning to God, right? All that matters is that I chose to start The Work.

So I embarked on my spiritual journey in June of 1999, soon after my father’s passing. The path has been an interesting one, filled with diversions, pit stops, unanticipated detours…but that’s a story for another day.

I’ve replayed the events leading to his untimely death a million times in my head. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and was told it was most likely related to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. He did the chemo, did the radiation, we all thought he was on a path to remission. In early June 1999 He came up to Raleigh for a work conference and it was the first time my daddy stayed with me in my own apartment. I had graduated from NC State and was now a working woman. I finally made enough money to be able to comfortably pay for both our dinners at the Steak and Ale. We were both proud. ;o)

A friend was giving me an entertainment center for my new place. We went to pick it up and Daddy helped me carry it into my apartment. Later that week, when he was back at home, he was having trouble breathing so he and Mom went to the emergency room at the base hospital. The military doctor on duty thought it was a good idea to do a stress test, and asked Daddy to get on the treadmill. A few minutes later his lung collapsed. It wasn’t until years later (after the statute of limitations on malpractice had run out) that a nurse friend informed me that a stress test can be done via injection for patients for whom treadmill testing isn’t a good idea…such as a lung cancer patient who is having trouble breathing, perhaps??

My father always told me not to stress over situations I cannot change. It took awhile for me to put that into practice in this case. What if he had overexerted himself helping me lift that entertainment center? For months I had dreams of visiting him in the hospital with the doctors saying, “We were wrong, your father is alive!” and would wake up in tears as reality hit. In reality, nothing could bring him back of course, so all I could do was figure out how to go on with out him. I realize now that the old saying “Time heals all wounds” isn’t exactly accurate. What time really does is give you a chance to adapt to the new circumstances in which you find yourself. My first step in healing was to forgive the doctor I had been holding accountable for my father’s death. My next step was to allow myself to feel gratitude that I had 24 years with a man I considered to be the perfect father. I was working through it. As I said, I thought I had finished grieving.

A few weeks ago, something triggered thoughts of my father randomly, as is usually the case. A song lyric will remind me of him, or I’ll see a movie that we watched together a zillion times whenever it came on cable, like any Indiana Jones or Star Wars flick. This time, my thoughts returned to those last hours in the ICU. My father was unconscious in a hospital bed with an iron lung doing his breathing. My mother was overcome with emotion and faced the decision of continuing my father’s life on the iron lung or turning off all life support. He had always said he didn’t want to be a burden on anyone and he didn’t want to be kept alive artificially. The iron lung was turned off. The thought occurred to me, as I sat in my living room those few weeks back, that my mother had a choice in that situation…and what if she had made the other choice? What if my father could still be here, but was house-bound? Would it be worth it?

If you haven’t experienced a similar situation you may find these thoughts to be selfish or offensive in some way. All I can say is, you don’t know what I’ve been through, you haven’t walked in my shoes. You can’t possibly imagine the thoughts that run through your mind in such a situation. I found myself questioning my mother’s decision. He could still be here. I grieved anew.

The next day, my eyes still swollen and blurry from the tears, I found myself on Google researching some new thought that had come to mind. I randomly landed on a news site that had posted an article of a woman kept alive for years on an iron lung. What a coincidence.

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/022002/hea_0220020028.shtml

After seeing the picture of how this woman lives her life I cried again, this time tears of gratitude that my father was spared this fate. He led an active life, there was no way living on an iron lung indefinitely was a viable option for him. I am thankful for synchronicities like this that let me know I am truly always connected to the Divine Source. I truly see this as a message from the Universe letting me know that all is as it should be.

All that matters is that my Daddy is at peace, and I’ve learned how to forgive and adapt.