Stay awake

My dad can’t hear me. He served in the Army in Germany and came home in 1961 with most of his hearing gone, and at 91 even the hearing aids don’t help anymore. So, when I sit with him now, I don’t say much. The oxygen concentrator hums. The ceiling fan slowly turns. I hold his hand, rub his legs, watch his chest rise and fall.

This is a holy place, but I didn’t always see it that way.

For a long time, I carried a quiet impatience, an eagerness to get on with my life. It lived alongside love, not instead of it, but there was always an internal conflict. Somewhere in these last few months, it left me, and I know that the moment he is gone, I will want him back. The life I wanted to get on with is right here; I’m living it at this very moment. I want to be here now, in this chair, beside him.

This is a rare place. Holding the hand of someone as they cross over into eternity is beautiful and holy, and I don’t want to miss a minute of it.

It is not without pain. But through the pain, I am surrounded by so much love. My dear friend, Monsignor Cesar, came to our home to anoint my father, a man who isn’t even Catholic. My beloved co-workers have watched the unit stay quiet, and that quiet has given me time with him I never expected. My dad’s caregivers show up for him. My adult children are all rearranging their lives to come down.

This is God’s staggering generosity. Every place I have fallen short, He has provided. Not the minimum, but abundance. Every way others have blessed my father and me would never have happened otherwise.

I am held. I am provided for. I want to be here.

I have spent nearly thirty years at the very beginning of life. In the NICU, no baby ever dies alone in a crib. They die in someone’s arms, and many times those arms were mine. I don’t think I honored those moments enough. I need time to take in the enormity of some things, and there was never any time.

Now there is.

I have watched the whole arc of my father’s decline. He moved from Chicago to Fort Myers on his own, eager to make new friends, maybe even find a girlfriend. In 2022 I moved to Florida and he came to live with me. He could still walk outside, down five houses and back. Then he needed a wheelchair to get to the car. Now he barely manages the few steps from his chair to the bathroom.

Will he ever walk the extra steps to the kitchen table again? Did I know his last doctor’s appointment would be his last car ride? I didn’t. We almost never do.

Nearly twenty years ago, I carried my toddler daughter in my arms for the last time. I didn’t know it was the last time, so I didn’t honor it, but I still think of it. I even sometimes grieve it for my lack of appreciation.

That may be the hidden gift inside anticipatory grief. The lasts are coming slower now, more deliberate. I have the chance I didn’t have in the NICU or with my daughter, or so many other holy moments I didn’t recognize.

In the Garden, Jesus didn’t ask His friends to solve anything. “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here and watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38)

Remain. Watch. With me. That was the whole request. And they fell asleep. I’ve done that too, but as much as I have prayed for a quick death for my dad, this way I have had time to stay awake. 

My dad can’t hear me. I’ve stopped needing him to. Remain here, and watch with me. That, I can do.