I always figured my father was going to live forever, but last year he had an incident where his heart began to beat irregularly. One day in the middle of summer he fell to a knee, in no pain, and blacked out.
Immediately my mind went through a type of fact sheet. "He's a big guy, he's had other health issues. This could be his time."
I called my family. It turned out my dad would be fine for now. I spoke to him, just to hear his thoughts about his health, life and so on.
"Hey pop, I heard you had a little scare."
"I didn't, everyone else did."
A pause.
"What do you mean, dad?"
"My only thought was that if it ended right now, I was finally going to see God."
My heart was in my throat. Potentially his final thought and it was not lined with sadness or fright. Rather a release, a final goodbye to his earthly body and the chains that force us to die.
"I think that death is the last thing we have to do before we die and get to see God. I don't see it as scary, I think it is a good thing."
It may have been the most important thing I've ever heard. It's been more than a year since that conversation, where mortality pricked my psyche, my heart, saying: I am here, know and fear me.
I ignored this little beckoning. My father survived, if anything it was as if I was jumping in a lake and holding my breathe for a few seconds longer than I should. Nothing to be afraid about.
Last week my father was going in for a check up and he was immediately admitted into the hospital. A quadruple bi-pass was in order. Essentially, sawing a man open and cutting his heart to make it work. Ancient Greeks would think we were barbarians and Vikings would be proud.
Again, this little beckoning came over me. I visited my father in the hospital. I prayed the hour-and-change car ride it takes to get home that God wouldn't take him yet. What did I learn from my last experience with my father? Only that the ones who are left behind are frightened the most.
I don't know what I expected to see in the hospital, but pipes and IVs were involved. I arrived at the nearly vacant hospitals cardiovascular ward and laid eyes upon my dad, watching some infomercial on his room TV, he was in a gown. He looked bored as a dog in a kennel. Only one IV in his hard, nothing else.
Again we talked, there at a precipice of life and death and what did we speak about? Knowing your enemy, the Cuban missile crisis, and the fairness of communists putting nuclear arms so close to the US. (To be clear, my father is not a communist...) All in all, this was not a conversation out of the ordinary for us.
Yet this time, I felt the true themes of what he was saying to me; be fair - don't take advantage of questionable times, rather know the enemy - who is Satan. Understand he will take advantage of you any chance he has.
My father wasn't different acting in fear and dread at the idea of death. As a matter of fact the one thing he did say about being in the hospital was he didn't want to pay such a big bill for a hotel room with crappy TV channels.
The surgery went well. He's recovering and I am going to see him this weekend. Though I often wish circumstances like this wouldn't bring me home to see my parents, it is often this sort of catalyst that brings us home.
A week after my fathers surgery my mother was admitted to the hospital. She had a small cut in her leg that somehow became infected. She has had diabetes for a while, and because of complications of this disease the doctors scheduled an emergency surgery.
You can only imagine my fear when I heard this happened. First, my father now my mother.
Again, this surgery went well. Both mom and dad are recovering. But my mind has been traveling to a place of reconciliation. Death is here. We need to see it. We live our lives and only recognize death when someone dies. Oh, what a dreadful mistake. In the moments when we see it's potential for sadness, we can see its true potential for happiness. If we know our loved ones are in Christ, we have nothing to fear. It is the final threshold we all must pass before we head into eternity. Our own personal crescendo that began with God's curse on man. It is a beautiful thing to see this personally.
My father and mother both love Jesus. For the last 20 years they have dedicated themselves to taking care of orphans and children - including myself. I've always thought it sounded like something out of James 1, the way my parents live and work. It is good to know they are rescued from a true death. The one that encompasses fully and does not end. That is where fear can rise. If our loved ones, or if we aren't friends of God.
Death can be a terrifying thing, but it doesn't have to be the end. Death can be a beautiful, somber reckoning with life, our loved ones, and God. I think there is something beautiful about thinking about the inter-connectivity of life and death for humans. We recognize it is not right. Death was never originally intended, but now it is a necessity.
However, it cannot deter us from living.
Introspect.
Breath.
Learn.
And keep moving.
