Father's Day Blues

Father's Day can be tough for me. Father's Day Gifts are on prominent display in department stores. Father's Day Cards infiltrate the Hallmark section at the drugstore. "Gifts for Dad!" screams the magazine I received in the mail. See, Father's Day always reminds this Daddy's girl that she doesn't have a father.

Ever since my father had a stroke, which rendered him paralyzed, he'd been in and out of the hospital for one thing or another. But even as his health failed, his mind remained sharp. He was the same dad that I remembered growing up, and this had always been a blessing. But this time he was admitted into the hospital, he wasn't going to leave. The dreaded words "hospice care" and "advance directive" had been uttered. My time with him was indeterminate.

I jumped in Dad's little blue truck and drove to the big hospital on the hill. There had been other trucks throughout my childhood -- the big red '55 Chevy, the white truck that was always on its last leg. Always American-made. The little blue Ford was the last truck Dad would buy. The past 48 hours had been a blur of confusion -- the phone call at work, the frenetic rush to my parents' nearby town. When I saw my father, I was shaken. The man in the hospital bed with the sunken cheeks, yellow pallor, and tubes emerging from his mouth and nose bore no resemblance to the strong daddy who hung my tire swing those many years ago. His breath was quick and labored, as though he'd been running. Dad was still fighting.

Doctors came into his room, speaking of his inevitable demise with candor. I wanted to scream, "Shut up, you idiots, don't you know that he hears what you're saying?" I didn't want to leave the hospital room, not for a second. Dad drifted in and out of shallow dreams. Nearby in an uncomfortable hospital chair, I slept just as fitfully. Every shift of his body, every violent bout of coughing startled me back into awareness. One thing no one tells you when a person is taken off life support is that it takes a while for the body to shut down. Sometimes days. I held onto faint strands of hope. I held out for a miracle.

On the popular ABC show, Grey's Anatomy, one of the most popular episodes in that in which Christina comforts George, a fellow intern, after his father dies: "There's a club. The Dead Dads Club. And you can't be in it until you're in it. You can try to understand, you can sympathize. But until you feel that loss ..." Feeling the loss for a person responsible for giving you life is indeed impossible to grasp until you join the Dead Dads Club. In college, some of my friends lost parents, and I listened sympathetically as they described their fear, their sorrow, and their pain. But there is no lexicon to convey those emotions. None at all.

On the last morning I drove Dad's little blue truck to the hospital, I'd stopped praying for a miracle and instead started praying that Dad would have the courage to let go of the mortal coil that bound him. This would be the last time I see him; I sensed it as surely as I did hunger or pain. Daddy's girls, we know these things.

I am reading to him now, my hand on his shoulder, from his favorite Country magazine -- an article about swimming holes. Perhaps through the morphine haze, his mind has formed an image of the creek on the old homestead where he and his brother and sisters used to swim as kids. There is sun there, and children's laughter. Eternal summer. My voice cracks and wavers, but I have to be strong. I sense a disturbance in the field. Dad's awake. He's looks at me with resignation, and I know. I gaze once more into eyes faded to the color of January skies and see his 81 years on this earth waning. One more glance, and they close forever. Two short breaths, then stillness. The energy of his life moves through me almost undetectably, like a curtain stirring in a breeze.

I always thought that I'd run away from this moment. But love gives you the strength to do amazing things. Never doubt it.

Father's Day is still a difficult day for me, and even if I live to be 100, I don't think that will change. I find comfort in my appreciation for his life. On Father's Day, I usually play some of the songs Dad loved. One of the last times I saw him, he cued up an old standard on the c.d. player, "Dear Heart" -- the song is pure schmaltz no matter who sings it, but Dad preferred the original Andy Williams version:

Dear heart, wish you were here to warm this night
My dear heart, seems like a year since you've been out of my sight
A single room, a table for one
It's a lonesome town all right ...

Like me, many of you have lost parents. Some of you have lost your precious dads. Father's Day can be a cutting reminder of that loss. Or it can be a time to give thanks for your own life; for this is the biggest gift a father can give.

Here's to you, my sweet, brave daddy. I will miss you until I draw my last breath. Until then, I will breathe for you.