Tuesday's with Dad

I read a book called Tuesday's with Morrie a few years ago. Some of you may have read it. It is a story about an older man dying from cancer. He was a college professor at one time. He invited a previous student to share time with him every Tuesdays. This is a wonderful book about life, death. I highly recommend it. You will laugh and cry but most importantly you will understand the process of dying. I know that dying scares some people. However, the fundamental fear of every human being is dying. Death is truly and unknow for us humans. It is sort of a last frontier so to speak. No matter how ready you are there most be a small part of us that fears the unknown.



As I talk with my dad tonight I hear such thankfulness for a full life. I hear of life with a great wife (fantastic mother too!) and kids he is proud of. He is not bitter about the fast approaching end. He is greatful that for 80 years he was in excellent health. The peace he seems to embrace like he embraces my mother is comforting to us all. The process of dying can be an undignified event in our lifes.

My dad is patiently enduring the loss of freedom we all take for granted. He like me is a very private and modest person. He has always been a strong and independent person. So, it with humbleness and grace that he accepts along with his sentence of death the loss of freedom to go to the bathroom or change his clothes. This is hard for me to watch and to think about but he continues to teach me dignity and grace in the face life's most difficult challengs.



My relationship with my dad was based more on fear then of respect as a child growing up. I witnessed and experience some difficult things as a child. I don't remember having a really close relationship with dad growing up. What I remember most was that my dad traveled for work so he was gone a lot. I bonded with my mother who by the way is the best mother a child could have on anyone's scale. I didn't feel this way about my dad for a large part of my life. However, the last 20 years he has been the dad I never knew I always wanted.



All day today our conversation drifted from iminence of death to the Cowboys and Sooners and back to dying. I know my dad trusts me with his feelings because he speaks with me as an equal telling me the hard things along with sharing his lifes blessing.



I knew from the moment I heard that he would not be with us for much longer that my life would be changed. I will no longer be the same...

The Truth

For everything there is a season, And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted
A time to kill, and a time to heal
A time to break down, and a time to build up
A time to weep, and a time to laugh
A time to mourn, and a time to dance
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing
A time to seek, and a time to lose
A time to keep, and a time to throw away
A time to tear, and a time to sew
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak
A time to love, and a time to hate,A time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

This is my familes time to weep, mourn, and embrace ...

It is said that "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free". On July 29, 2009 my family learned the truth that my 80 year old father will soon die from complications of Pancreatic Cancer. Pancreatic Cancer is a ruthless and silent killer. This blog is not about Pancreatic Cancer. It is about life. Death is part of living.

I found out about the "truth" from my heart broken mother on the phone while at work. I new right away that I needed to go. The short trip from Fort Worth to Tulsa is a familiar one for me and my family. However, the circumstances this time are unlike any for my family. My family has been spared of any real loss of an immediate family member. We have not been touched by cancer like so many families have until today. Lisa and I (my beautiful wife of 33 years) and I talked and cried on our 4.5 hour trip. I felt that time was standing still. Though I had quickly accepted the outcome I found myself wanting the trip to take longer. I new that once I saw my mom and sister and stepped into that hospital room the "Truth" would become life's "final answer" to quote a line from a popular game show. This was a truth my family must accept but does not readily embrace.

This cold truth was quickly melted by a warming smile from my father. I learned today that death is not the truth. It is life that is the truth. I realized that the time was quickly coming that I would no longer see his welcoming smile and feel his strong embrace.

My mom, sister and wife stared down the poor Doctor as we interrogated her. It was dance of hesitant partners. She was not aware that we had not been told that he has a short time to live. She spoke the truth in love has she delivered life's most difficult message. As I stood next to mom it was like she had been punched in the stomach. I felt the urge to be strong for her but I could not contain my tears. And so the process of accepting the "truth" begins...

I stayed with my dad until he took his sleeping pill and peacefully drifted off to sleep. This is not the end. It is only the beginning.