Today's post is from my daughter-in-law Lauren. She is amazing and I love her words in this piece. You can read more about her work here. Thanks for reading!
New Years Eve, four years ago.It was 9 days before my dad died, but we didn't know that then. Cancer doesn't give you a timeline. It just kind of chooses to detonate in weird increments - it progresses quickly when it wants to and chills when it wants to. All we knew was that the doctors started sending over hospice nurses and we had reached a point where they no longer could help his body, but just give morphine to help while his body drowned.
New Year's Eve was never a crazy important holiday to us, but it was still a holiday. And something about holidays sort of illuminates the cracks of your life, the good and the bad. I remember reading people's Facebook statuses of "this year was blah blah blah". Be it good or bad, I couldn't read what people were saying without comparing it to my current misfortune. I was angry that good things could continue while he was suffering and I was mad when people talked about how they had a hard year because their car broke down. Get over it. And then I'd feel wildly aware of my selfishness. It was a horrible cycle.
We knew the upcoming year brought death. It brought dread and we knew it. We didn't know when exactly or what it was going to look like, but we knew it was coming. So to survive, my heart changed its syncopation with time. I switched from the typical "new year" grandiose thoughts and dreams and wishes of the upcoming year to thoughts and dreams and wishes for the next minute. The next hour. Looming death bends time a little bit like that. It makes you despise and cherish purgatory.
My dad was watching TV and I was watching my mom watch him. We both saw the space between his spirit and his body getting bigger and bigger. I was receiving texts from friends and family asking "how are you doing, Lauren?". Well, I'm watching the coolest dude on earth suffer slowly and I know I'm not very emotionally articulate right now but like, I'm really f&%ing mad. And helpless.
This cocktail of emotions would start small as a pit in my stomach and then it would slowly overwhelm my entire body until I couldn't breathe. I couldn't be in the room for another second. I wasn't okay with it.
So. I forced my husband (God bless him) to make up a "New Year's Eve show" with me to perform for my dad. Just like I had done when I was young, except with more alcohol this time. We slaved over this performance (honestly, "performance" is giving us way too much credit, but we really tried). My mom would come out and ask what was happening and I'd tell her to go back because she was ruining the surprise and I'd catch her making "I'm so sorry" looks to my husband. When we went in for the "performance", I was legit nervous. I wanted to make my dad laugh and I wanted to take the weight off of the night and off of his chest. We stumbled through it. It was bad and we started over so many times but my parents watched like they had always watched for my entire life. God bless them, too. That's A LOT of questionable performances they had to endure. At the end, my dad turned to my mom and earnestly asked her "Did I miss something? Was that it?" The four of us erupted in laughter. What I wouldn't give, to be back there in that small Arizona room, cackling with the three of them.
And then the ball dropped and my dad reached over and kissed my mom at midnight. I remember wondering if he didn't move all day so that he could reserve enough energy so that when it came time, he could kiss his wife at midnight. I remember the sheer gratefulness that he made it to midnight. That my mom didn't have to be alone for it.
I'm trying to focus on that feeling. I know a lot of people are scared for the upcoming year. There's a lot of dread and fear surrounding general humanity, not to mention political changes happening. I get it and I feel it. And we can't ignore it. That's ignorant and irresponsible.
But I also think we can incorporate other feelings that come with choosing to live in the moment and being open to the small gifts of the moment. And we have to love each other and have sympathy for all pain, however big or small the world tells us it is. Selfishly choosing insecurity of how to handle and acknowledge our neighbors' pain, over empathy, is barbaric.
Anyways, happy 2017 - I hope that we are able to find the silver linings in the dark and gratitude in the now.
