Watching my dad die...

   Today I'm going to talk about deep things. Because I want to go there. And I want you to go there. I feel we've gotten to know each other well enough to go on this journey. And so today we talk about death. I want to tell you the story about how my dad died.
   I always had a special connection with my dad. It was the kind of connection that sweet little girls have. I remember sitting in his lap and watching t.v. with him. I remember sitting so long I didn't even know where I ended and he began. I would sit with him, and study him.  I remember rubbing his fingernails and looking at mine to see if they were the same. I remember his nails were flat as a pancake and his middle fingers were crooked just like mine. I remember he had a mole on his forehead that would fade over time. I remember his crooked teeth, and his smile, and his laugh. I remember that I loved him.
   I also remember that my love for him didn't change when he would go through seasons. The seasons.... of mental illness. The ups and downs of well to not well. Thinking clearly to paranoid. Chatty and laughy, to quiet and stern. Interested to distant. Good decisions to crazy decisions that would make my mom mad and hurt our family. Over....and over. Year after year. Through it all, the thing that remained constant, was that I always would love to sit in his lap. I was his little girl.
   When things started getting more tough and public with his illness, we would have him committed and taken away to the hospital. There he would be forced to get better and take his medicine for schizophrenia and we would watch him sleep for hours until he came out of it, somewhat able to be healthy. Somewhat himself, whatever that was. I watched as my mom emotionally deteriorated and started to not be able to deal with it. I started to wonder how much longer she could take it. After about ten years, the well times would be fewer and the sick times would be more. And my heart was sick all the time.
   Until one day. We were done. We just couldn't do it anymore. We left him. Not only as a family, but me. I left him. My heart needed a break. I wanted out. We sent him to go live alone, and we quickly found out that he couldn't handle that situation and other family members stepped up to the plate to take him in as they could handle it. He lived in Montana for a while and was far enough away that I didn't have to see him at all.

   This is the part in the story where we get to the crossroads. A place where I could go either way. This is where the backstory makes a big difference in the end of my fathers life. It's the part of how I entered back in, after I had decided to leave.

   Taking time gave me a chance to heal. Taking time allowed me to be angry that my dad wasn't the kind of dad that I really wanted. And boy was I angry. Taking time gave me a chance to run to Jesus and let him be the dad that I never had. Taking time let me see my dad..... Him. Not my expectations of what I wanted, but who God gave me. And what I found, was delightful. I found a man that was simple and brave and humble. I found a man that was quick to forgive and always assume the best of people. I found a man that was getting progressively tired, but was always willing to play ping pong with me. I found a man that was interested in others and wanted to help. I found a man that cared deeply about his children and also his ex wife. And even though she had married again, he was always willing to enter into that relationship as it was, with an open heart. He became my dad who struggled with schizophrenia, and not my schizophrenic dad. I saw clearly that he was a man who, even on medicine, would always have a radio of paranoid thoughts roaming through his head. They were never quiet...and that made me sad....not angry anymore.

   Being on antipsychotic drugs for a long long time ruins your body. I watched him deteriorate and I never knew what would happen to him. He just kept getting more tired and more tired, and more weak and more weak. You don't die of paranoid thoughts. His heart was strong. I remember asking people, "what is going to happen to him? What will the end look like?" I wanted to know. Not because I wanted him dead, but because I wanted to know how he would suffer and try to stop it. The answer was clear. The antipsychotic medicine was giving him induced parkinsons. We had a choice. To help him function mentally, and slowly kill his brains ability to move his muscles? Or let him live with the delusions and put others and himself in harms way? It was the kind of no brainer that feels like you have just stabbed yourself in the heart. We kept him on medicine that would eventually kill him....slowly.

   As my family grew and we would live far away from him, our visits would be sweet for me. I wasn't always great about calling but I remember spending hours a day listening to him when I would be in town. I loved to hear his thoughts, even if they were full of concerns about a crises that was coming and whether or not he was Jesus, Adam, and Moses all at the same time. We would often talk about the Bible which was near to my heart and he loved to pray. He would sometimes call me just because he heard a sermon and wanted to make sure that I had either accepted Christ with my whole heart, or not turned away. When I came to town we always went to church together and every time there was an alter call, he would stand up, yet again, to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior. That man was saved more than anyone else I know.
   My journey had taken me to a place where I finally hated to live so far away from him, and so when my auntie called and told me to come home because dad was weak with infection in the hospital, I knew it wasn't good. When I walked into his room he had that tight see through skin look and he was breathing hard with his mouth open. Maybe if I hadn't watched so many Mother Thereas video's I wouldn't have assumed he was dying. Maybe a daughter just knows. But I sat with him and loved all over him, despite the fact that he had MRSA bacterial infection. I had bought a one way plane ticket and I was staying. I was staying because I was born his. Then my heart left him. And then God brought me back to a place where he became mine and I wasn't leaving until my daddy didn't need me anymore.

   It was a Monday morning and I had told my brother to come and he was on his way. So when my dad looked me in the eye that same morning and said, "Okay. I'm ready to die now." I calmly said, "You are? Well.... that's okay dad, but you should know that Brian is coming. Do you want to wait so that you can see him again?" and his eyes lit up. "He is? Oh yes!"
   We spent three days with my brother and laughed and talked. Although my dad couldn't choose to swallow by himself, he was getting an IV and was seemingly quite perky since my brother had arrived. I wasn't sure he was dying after all, until I arrived on the Thursday morning and the nurse asked to talk to me. She said, "Wendy, he has made a decision. His body is shutting down. We don't know quite how long it will take, but he is dying." I nodded with resolve to let her know that I understood and went to the room. I wanted to yell, "Stop! Stop! You don't have to do this! I am not ready yet." I didn't though. I just cried and told him it was okay. That we would be okay. That he could go whenever he wanted to.
   During this time my brother and I began such a depth of discussion. In the end is when you think about life, and how you lived it, even if it isn't yours. My brother had wondered if he was a good son. He kept saying, "I should've called him more. I should've visited more. I didn't really do enough for him." I understood exactly what he was saying, because we all could've done more for him. He lived alone and suffered for so much of his life. Our whole family had abandoned him. And we all entered back in as we could and my brother had never reconciled how fully he entered back in because he had always compared himself to me. I was the one that would spend hours with dad in the rehab centers when he was weakening. I was the one that would come to town and stay with him a couple days. His guilt was so strong. It was the kind of guilt that had eaten him up and I could tell that there was a deeper question underneath it all. A question between a son and his dad. Where do I stand? Does he know that I love him? Does he forgive me that at times I ran from him? Does he love me?
   The last night, I stayed by my dad and waited with him. Sometimes he would come out of a sleep and look around and I reminded him that I was right there. As much as I wanted to be the one that could last to the end, I was exhausted in the morning and called my brother in for a shift and I sacked out. At 9:30 that same morning, my brother called crying, "Wendy....he's gone. He's dead." and I was filled with such humility and saw the grace my dad had for my brother. Even though I was the daughter that was always there for my dad when he was sick,my dad chose him. "Brian" I said, "he chose you. He could've died with either one of us, and he chose you. You don't have to wonder anymore how he felt about you." and it was perfect. Exactly as it should've been. He chose my brother because he loved him just as he loved me. At that moment it was very clear to me, and maybe I'm weird for this to be the first thought that came to mind at such an intense moment of my life... My thought went to the cross where Jesus was hanging, and as he hung there with all the people he knew best, his disciples, his mom, his brothers....I saw him and he was looking right at me. He chose me just as my dad had chosen my brother.
   That's why to this day, I remember the death of my dad during the week of Easter. I can't even tell you the month or day that he really did die. I can't separate the two because the image and the lesson was so clear. In the humble death of my dad, I understood that all of my questions were answered. Does Jesus know how much I love him? Does he know that even though I'm broken and have tried to come near that I've done my very best? Does he....love me? And in his eyes I see the yes. I see the care and tenderness that he was looking for me just as he looks for everyone.
   It was in my dad's death, that my understanding of mercy was truly born. Two new births that day.