Tag: Grace

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Dad

My dad died peacefully last week. I miss him terribly. His death, and indeed his entire life, is a powerful testament to the Words for the Weary spirit of “lighthearted stories about everyday things”.

Two weeks ago we arrived at his home to find him in an armchair. He was connected to oxygen and wearing slippers shaped like hamburgers. He cheerily engaged with everyone while consuming vast amounts of ice cream. His faith and humor and grace remained intact despite the cancer. This was no stoic façade: it’s how dad was hardwired from a lifetime of love.

On one occasion during the ensuing days, as I reconnected his oxygen, he took a deep breath and said “Ah, oxygen. Great stuff. They should put more of it in the air…”.

After moving to narcotic pain medication he quipped “My first drug trip. So this is what all the fuss was about in the 1970s. I suppose I must be hip now with the younger generation.”

We returned one night from the hospital to find a neighbor’s note: “Tater-tot hot dish in the refrigerator”.  I love Midwestern neighbors. And I love tater-tots.

Dad was never strong on administration. His account passwords are kept on little yellow sticky notes that absolutely cover his desk. Each note contains a complex mathematical formula which, when solved, reveals a password. I asked him how I was ever to sort out his affairs. He smiled and suggested that if I took a step back and looked at the sticky notes with the correct perspective, they were artfully arranged in the shape of an iguana. Thanks dad.

We prayed together. When speech left him, we prayed for him. Or we simply held hands and gazed upon one another with such love that words were not required.

His decline was remarkably fast – a week before he died he was playing the piano. His final days and the moments of his death were profound. You could squeegee the love out of the air, it was so saturated with grace and light.  He died surrounded by his closest loved ones, utterly at peace with his life and with God.

He was the greatest man I have ever known. He also happened to be my dad. No amount of thanks seems sufficient for such a gift.

[This post is dedicated to my late father. His obituary, written by my sister late one night in just a few minutes, can be found here]

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Turning 50

My mid-life crisis happened when I was 36. It lasted about 45 minutes.

It happened as my wife and I were at a joint birthday party for a man turning 50 and his daughter turning 20. We realized during the party that (a) we were closer in age to the 50-year-old and (b) we preferred his company to the younger set. I turned to my wife and said, “Honey, WE are now officially the old people!” When we got home I processed this realization by listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water on repeat. That was it.

When I turned 50 this past weekend I experienced perhaps the opposite of a mid-life crisis. It began with the course I was on in Dublin, filled with meaning and blessing and delicious birthday cake. And then when the course ended, I headed for the nearest pub.

This was a genuine Irish neighborhood pub, straight out of a James Joyce novel. No tourists. I ordered a birthday whisky and sat at the bar with the locals watching rugby. The man beside me gazed upon his frothy Guinness with a tender mixture of reverence and lust.

My eye was drawn to a poster on the wall promoting the “Dublin Gospel Choir”. Their benefit concert was scheduled to begin within the hour at the nearby Dublin Rugby Club. Why not? I finished my whisky and headed for the concert.

The Dublin Rugby Club has all the charm of an old bowling alley. Featureless white walls are adorned with faded rugby pennants. Ancient floorboards reek from generations of spilled beer. The all-local crowd was packed in on lawn chairs. I stood in the back nursing a Guinness in gleeful expectation.

Before the choir began they took up a collection for the nearby Saint Francis Hospice. As they passed the donation bucket round, the choir director shared a heartfelt story of the hospice staff quietly sneaking whisky into her father’s room as he lay dying. When he finally died, they lovingly slipped a bottle into his casket to “ease him over the threshold”.  God bless Ireland.

Then the choir began. The Dublin Gospel Choir is, without doubt, the whitest soul group I have ever seen. But man can they sing. They delivered a moving mix of spirituals and modern classics as the audience swayed along. Beer was spilled on the floor. Then the choir launched into a gospel version of…Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Hearing that song moved me to tears of joy. I would like to think it was the effect of whisky and Guinness. But in truth the tears flowed in happy nostalgia for my life long ago and gratitude for the present; for the touching humanity of the hospice staff; in remembrance of a facility across the ocean in which my own infirm mother is so well cared for. Unlocked by the familiar song, I glimpsed a small fraction of the overwhelming grace in my life. In all our lives.

I walked back through dark streets and warm Irish rain. I came upon an empty church. I wandered in. I lit a votive candle and sat in silence, reflecting on the choir’s unexpected birthday gift. Then I said “thank you” over and over and over again.

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

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Love – 12/03/2018

Dementia is horrific not only because it robs loved ones of their faculties, but because the rest of us watch loved ones fade away in slow motion. But even in such darkness there can be light and laughter. Such is the case with my father.

The care that he has provided for my mother for over a decade, and the tender constancy with which he has done so, is simply awe inspiring. The doctors, home care, facilities, paperwork and expenses are relentless. He honors birthdays and anniversaries that mom can no longer recall. He participates in care facility activities with unselfconscious enthusiasm, even when she is asleep.

There are, of course, moments of exasperation, fear, despair, and exhaustion. But not once, in all this time, has he ever complained. On the contrary. He maintains that caring for my mother has been the privilege of a lifetime. Awe. Inspiring. Grace.

Of course, being the family that we are, we also treasure the moments of absurdity as they come along.

One such occasion took place one winter morning. Dad was making coffee. My mother has mild hearing loss, so dad asked her in a rather loud voice if SHE WANTED ANY COFFEE? In her state of confusion, she was indignant at being addressed in an inappropriately loud voice. Uncharacteristically, she threatened to walk out (!). Dad just smiled and went into the kitchen to fetch the coffee. But when he returned to the living room, she was gone. The front door was open and there was mom, steaming down the street in her flannel night gown and bathrobe.

Dad took off after her in hot pursuit in his own night clothes that consist of: two slippers shaped like moose paddling a canoe, red flannel pants, and a t-shirt several sizes too small bearing the skyline of his hometown and the tagline: “Des Moines: Let us Exceed Your Already Low Expectations”.

He caught up with her. She was of course totally surprised to see him. He casually asked if she would like to join him at home for some coffee. Of course she was happy to. And so back they went, arm in arm, through a winter’s morning in all their flannel glory.

 

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

[Image credit to Slifka Sales Co].

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Special Christmas Advent Appeal – 4/12/2017

Africa: December, 2003.

They thought she was dead when they first found her, half-buried in the excrement at the bottom of the outhouse.  Certainly that had been the intent. Born unwanted in the night and lowered into the latrine by a desperate African mother, probably herself barely more than a child. She was a day old at most, lying silent in the filth, vermin crawling from her nose and ears.

But she was not dead. Someone fished her out, cleaned her up, and took her to The Babies Home.

Even the most seasoned hands at the orphanage were shocked by this little one’s circumstances. A staff member there remarked that the child was not alone in the tragic nature of her arrival. They noted that Christ himself had likewise been born into this world by way of a dung-heap, long ago arriving into the filth of a barn floor, care of an impoverished mother who was herself barely more than a child.

I found this statement to be cold comfort at the time. Its meaning has become more dear to me with each passing December. I think of that little girl as each Christmas approaches. I wonder what has become of her, and of the amazing things she may have done with the gift of her life.

Befitting the season, the orphanage named her Grace.

This true story is dedicated to BeadforLife. Founded in 2003, the year that Grace was born, BFL is the most effective organization I know of helping African women to permanently lift themselves and their families out of poverty – 46,000 individuals to date and counting. Please consider visiting the BeadforLife web site this holiday season and sharing this story with others. With our support, BeadforLife can help even more women like Grace and her mother to transform their lives, forever.