can we just talk about how incredible God is?
some of you personally know this God i'm talking about, some of you are talking with him but aren't ready to commit. others... well, you just don't know if there is one.
i'm here to tell you that this God of mine... He blows my mind.
since my dad's passing in 2009, summer has always been an emotional landmine for me. it's when my dad's journey went from being scary to a downright nightmare. so i often find myself rehashing some of the fond and not so fond memories of june and july. this summer was no different. as may turned to june i found myself going down that wormhole again, reliving parts of my dad's journey that can bring me to tears, even 4 years later. the treatment, the pain, the help or lack of help from healthcare professionals, the grief...
it wasn't until a few weeks ago that i remembered something else about my dad's stoic journey and a new path in my life began to take shape in front of me. i've remembered it periodically over the past four years... but it finally sank in this summer, and has left me with a peace that surpasses all understanding.
so let's start at the beginning, shall we?
after the initial diagnosis and shockwave, there was a lot of mind-numbing waiting before the treatment. it was terrible to live in such a state... not really knowing how bad it was, feeling as if each passing day without treatment the cancer was going to grow stronger. it was an awful limbo to be stuck inside of. during that time, my dad went for a PET scan to see where the cancer was in his body. he had to drive himself because we were all working at the time (and he was completely "normal" as it was during the beginning of everything). so we sent him off in his little black truck and awaited to hear what a PET scan was like.
after work i called my dad, as i always did, to see how everything went. i only remember two parts of our conversation. #1 - he had to drink a chalky substance so that the PET scan could pick up the cancer. #2 - he had to wait for it to settle into his body and so he sat in the waiting room. the thing is, as he was sitting in the waiting room, he saw a lot of very young people with their whole lives ahead of them sitting there too. he said he couldn't help but wonder what their diagnosis was or the fear they were all living in.
and here is where my dad got all stoic on us. he said, "i've lived a good life, i've seen my kids grow up, i couldn't ask for anything better... so on the way out to my truck, i prayed that if God was going to give me a miracle, that he'd go ahead and give it to a younger person with a family and their whole lives ahead of them."
i remember getting very upset with him and selfishly scolding him. i said, "DAD, DON'T say that!"
i know how God takes us seriously when we talk to Him... and i was petrified that my dad meant it and that God would just go ahead and do what He does best... listen.
i remember that my dad very gently told me that he loved us and he loved his life... but that there were many others who needed his miracle and he knew that it was right to ask God to pass him over for the sake of another.
i got a teensy bit hysterical on him.
i know how God is, you see. so, i cried.
the next several months were full of our ups and downs. my dad started treatment, which he went through with flying colors. he won over the hearts of the radiation girls... i have videos he made them take with his flip camera so we could all see what his treatment was like. i know they liked him because i went with him one day. they let me come back and watch the machine on tv screens outside of his radiation room.
after his month of radiation and chemo, we waited to see if he was a good candidate for surgery. during that time, my dad had some increasing pain in his back... which was strange because his cancer was in his esophagus. we would rub his back with this giant sharper image massager and he'd go for walks. he drank maalox like it was going out of style. it seemed worse in the evening. i tried to push that request that he made to God from my mind... and focus on the good. the doctors didn't see anything in his back, and the cancer in his esophagus had responded to the treatment well, so we had a glimmering moment of hope.
but his back pain just was too excruciating and deep down we all knew something wasn't right. it would come in waves and while it was happening, you stood by quietly wishing you could help, praying for a miracle... feeling totally inept and powerless. but when it subsided he seemed more like himself and we could go back to those feelings of hope.
the thing was, that the waves of pain increased until there was a week where it seemed constant. the pain got so unbearable (or the mental distress of not knowing when it would end) that one afternoon my dad called my youngest brother and asked him to remove all of the guns from the house. i think we all got a reality check then... even though the dr.'s were claiming that so far things looked good... we knew something was wrong.
finally, one afternoon in early june, my mom took my dad to the emergency room at st. lukes where they ran test after test. it was agonizing. after a couple of days waiting in the dark again, they found that his cancer had metastasized and wrapped around his spinal cord, causing him unbearable pain.
we didn't know, but we were on a final countdown with my dad to send him home.
the doctors told us he could live another 6 months to a year... he made it 6 more weeks.
this time of my dad's journey is always hard to talk or write about. out of all of the members of my family, my mom and i probably talk about it the most. sometimes our eyes tear up. sometimes we smile. because of the pain medication, my dad wasn't himself at most times... but sometimes we had the pleasure of seeing his old self again. for those of you who knew him, you knew he had the ability to light up the room and make anyone laugh. kjaer and i still giggle about when he got up to go to the bathroom and he playfully looked over his shoulder as he wrapped his hospital gown against him and told us not to look at his "peaches." there was also the time i had sat through a dinner with kjaer's family and thought about nothing else except that i wanted to be with my dad. kjaer and his mom could sense my desperation, i think, so they offered to stop by the hospital on the way home. i was so glad to see my dad, i climbed right into the hospital bed with him and snuggled up under the nook in his arm. later that week, when my mom was having a hard time, he gently patted the bed and said, "if monica can find a way, you can." and she climbed into the hospital bed with him.
the weeks in the hospital can only be described as numbing with a terrible side of helplessness. i wanted to be there 24 hours a day, watching over him. but when i was there, i'd realize there was nothing i could really do but sit and feel useless. it was brutal. sickness and death have a way of making you feel that way. it reminds us that we aren't really in control. no matter how many nights i slept next to my dad's bedside, death was coming and i couldn't stop it. i couldn't make his pain go away either... the only thing i could do was make sure he wasn't alone.
one thing that i can say is that through it all, i had an indescribable peace. even though it felt like i was living someone else's terrible nightmare, i knew God had a plan.
my dad did too.
during my dad's stay in the hospital, we learned of another family down the hall; a woman my age that had just been diagnosed with leukemia. it was a rapid growing kind. she had a daughter barely over the age of 1. i knew she was exactly the kind of person my dad was talking about months prior. a young woman who may not get the opportunity to see her baby grow up. my mom spoke briefly with her husband in the patient lounge, and mom came back to dad's room carrying her story on her heart. though we were consumed with worry about my dad, it was a great reminder that we were not alone in this world as we lifted her up in our prayers too.
i have to admit... i wondered if at that moment my dad's request flashed through his head... because it went through mine. but the scariness of uncertainty pushed it to the back as my dad fought to stay with us.
i remember after my dad passed away, telling God that i wished i could meet whoever got his miracle while on this earth. i'm not sure if i told God that out of innocent wonder, or if i was demanding some sort of explanation. when i expressed this request to my mom, she said we may never know until we get to heaven.
i knew she was right.
i knew she was right.
some of you might think it a bit presumptuous to believe that my dad even had a miracle stored up for him. i suppose only God knows. over the next 4 years i've often found myself wondering if God meant to take my dad home all along, or if my dad really did bless the life of another with a miracle that had his name on it.
so as june began again, and the flood of memories came pushing past the walls I unconsciously built, i sat down to write a depressing post about cancer and all of the woes it brought us. about halfway through this tedious and dark post, a friend of mine since grade school, Whitney, posted a celebratory comment on facebook about how she couldn't believe 4 years had gone by since she had first been diagnosed with leukemia and how blessed she was to be here living such a wonderful life.
as i read it a light bulb went off. the story of the woman in the hospital came back to me... as did my dad's humble request to God. i filled kjaer in on the backstory and asked him if he thought it would be totally inappropriate of me to write her years later and ask if she was staying at St. Lukes for her treatment. kjaer and i talked about it and we decided it would be ok. i kept saying to kjaer... "if she writes me back and says yes... she's the one."
so i sent a very brief email via facebook and got a response 5 minutes later.
it was her... she was the woman down the hall from us. the one we prayed for.
i sat at my computer and cried. not because i was sad. but i was so floored with the awesomeness of God. not only did he grant my outlandish wish to meet the person who my dad gave his miracle to, but it was a childhood friend of mine as well. i sat and cried out of joy because my dad's pain and suffering wasn't for nothing. God had a plan and a purpose.
whitney and i met a couple of weeks later to catch up (since we hadn't really spoken in over 15 years) and tell our stories. i went to see her thinking i wouldn't say anything about my dad's prayer request from the parking lot, just because i didn't think it was very appropriate to say, "hey! i think my dad gave his miracle to you!" but as the night was wrapping up it came out of my mouth so naturally (i'm thinking God wanted me to say it) and whitney confirmed what i had been thinking all along. we found ourselves overwhelmed by the goodness of God because she is a living, breathing, walking miracle...
some could say that whitney's story and mine aren't really this entwined. that my dad was probably destined to die from the first day he was diagnosed and she was destined to live. but whitney and i think something bigger might be going on here... and we are amazed to the point of speechlessness by the God we serve.
after i met with whitney i came home to kjaer knowing that God had blessed me beyond what i deserve. he had taken my broken heart, where i had begged for there to be some purpose for all of the pain four years ago, and had mended it with a miracle beyond all reason. and as the anniversary of my daddy's homecoming rolls by this year, i find myself not only thankful for the life my daddy lived but for the miracle that is whitney.
and i know beyond a doubt that on july 5, 2009, when Jesus came to collect my daddy's spirit from his broken body next to my mom in that quiet hospice room... my dad sat up excitedly to meet him. and as Jesus extended his hand towards him to take him home... he lovingly threw an arm over his shoulder he said something to my dad like, "well done, my good and faithful servant. well done."
