The Space to Start
I decided about a month ago, wholeheartedly, that there is no good place to start this type of thing. So, today, here I am, starting.
Cliche sayings are cliche because, well, they’re true. Well here is my cliche for today: “Every ending is a new beginning.”
My dad is dying. I’m sitting here next to him, and he is so peaceful. He has been giving us steady signs of his passing since last Thursday. Some days we accept it; other days we do not. Every day, he turns inward more. Every day, less and less communication, yet every day, space to find it again.
This whole process is the most difficult thing I have ever done. It’s such a confusing time too. How can so many things that are seemingly contradictory exist together all at once? It’s amazing to me that there is not one thing I can or cannot say that is not labeled “normal.” I’m angry: normal. I actually feel ok: normal. I don’t know how to answer your question: normal. It feels good to laugh: normal. I only want to cry in private: normal. I’m not hungry: normal. Actually, I want McDonalds’s chicken nuggets (I’m vegetarian): normal. I think I’ll buy these jean leggings from Wegman’s: NORMAL. So, here is my experience. Every day, I am not disillusioned to the reality of the situation, and every day I have hope. Every single day, there is something to be happy about.
My first day, my happiness was the joke my dad cracked about my brother’s hair. The second, it was meeting Noah, son of Phil in room 32. Meeting him was the first minute I stopped feeling alone. There was a day that Dad smiled and gave a thumbs up to nurse Diane. The day he told us it was “excellent” that we were taking his Red Sox tickets and the next day when he said it again after we told them they won. There was the day we watched “The Dog Whisperer” together for the whole 30 minutes. The day he nodded his head yes when the physical therapist arrived. Yesterday, it was the most fantastic 5 seconds where he opened his eyes and I told him how much I loved him, right after I kissed his cheek. The day before, it was the moment when I held his hand and felt a surge of his energy shoot straight up my left arm.
Every single day of this experience, the most sorrowful of my life, I have truly felt that there is space to have positivity. There is space for hope. What changes is the time at which the hope comes and the space in which the positivity takes form. For a while there, my favorite time of day, was leaving the hospital. Dad would be comfortable and usually sleeping in his hospital bed. And, I pictured him that way the whole night. I slept the whole night with a positivity that left space for miracles. Right now, my favorite time of day is sitting right here next to Dad.
Even where we are now, there is space for miracles. There is hope. What has changed is the idea of how the miracles arrive, and how the hope manifests.
Today, on this day that my dad is the most inward, the least connected, I have received many moments of miracles and of positivity. Clearly, the biggest miracle is being able to sit next to Dad and write this. Another is knowing that nurse Marc, the most compassionate man working with us so far, is assigned to us again today. Another was the 15 minutes when nurse Diane (who is not assigned to Dad today), stopped by just to say hi to Dad. We talked about how it’s ok to tell Dad about the Red Sox loss from last night. He knows loss is part of the game. Besides, let’s get real here: Red Sox fans don’t care. I mean, we had 80-some-odd years of not winning.
Social worker Amanda, what a gift she was today. She came in and sat with us for maybe 30 minutes. It was so nice to talk about something other than breathing patterns and Dad’s comfort level. Instead, we talked about how confusing and how liberating it is to feel sorrow, love, grief, support, joy and devastation all at the same time. It reminded me of the movie Inside Out. We talked about how Sadness has just as big a role in our life memories as Joy, and how memories can hold more than one emotion and those emotions can change over time. It was only a few days ago that I actually experienced looking back on a memory and having it take on a new hue. I have this memory of when I was young and I told my dad I wanted to quit soccer. All these years, I thought of it as a memory in which I was sad and disappointed in myself. Now, I hold it as a memory in which my Dad fully and truly supported me and allowed space for me to be exactly who I wanted to be.
Throughout this whole life event, my wedding mantra carries me through peacefully. Weddings are another one of those times filled with contradictory emotions such as joy, sadness, grief, loss, love, excitement, miracles and hope. In preparation for our wedding day, we heard it over and over: “nothing can be perfect,” “something will go wrong,” “you can’t control everything,” (Dad says, “perfect is the enemy of the good.”) So I created a wedding mantra to carry me: Everything is exactly as is: there is space to enjoy it.
It holds true even more so now. When the guilt comes up about what else we could have done for Dad or what other solutions we could have checked for, I remind myself, there is not one thing we could have done to stop us from being exactly where we are right now. This is exactly where we are. Everything is exactly as is. And there is space to enjoy it. In all this sadness, we still laugh. We feel sorrow and gratitude. I have never felt more complete as a family, more supported and loved. And, we are truly blessed. We get this time with Dad, and have jobs that support us being here, and friends who check in. I hold my dad’s hand and I tell him I love him. We are sincerely blessed.
My emotions shift all day. My relationship with Dad shifts hourly. And, there is space for all of it.
