A few hours later, "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole pumped through the sound system as we swayed back and forth. I clung to him, as if I was still a child, tears streaming down my face. He hummed sweetly in my ear. No words were spoken... such warm comfort I felt in his arms as we danced. I was fully aware of how public, how vulnerable the whole thing was. I just couldn't help my tears. I wanted to honor this moment by allowing my feelings to spill out from inside me. It was too important to hold in. Something so symbolic... so deep-seated, is this ritual of the father-daughter dance. I grieved for him. The man in my life. I grieved for my family, as I was "leaving them to become one flesh with my husband." We held tightly to each other, as we were letting go. Letting go/grieving and celebrating at the same time, the love that I had found.... the love that would grow our family, and bring us all such happiness.
I had my last conversation with my father, as he was fully-functioning, on October 9th, 2013. The day before his brain surgery (surgeries). He cried, as he told me that his heart was at peace. That he felt that God had spoken to him, telling him not to be afraid. Not to worry - that God would bring him home. It was another gift to my anxious heart, his peace that night. I knew I had to let him go... into the hands of the surgeon and the medical teams and into the uncertainty of the future.
I play these cherished moments over and over again in my mind this week. This week, one of the hardest of my life. This week, where my mother and my sisters and I are searching our souls, kneeling before God, holding each other up, and making the most difficult decisions we've ever had to make.
Things have not turned out the way we hoped. A journey of excruciating ups and downs, filled with fear, trauma, confusion, anger, sadness, hope, weariness, helplessness, guilt, and more. Complex and twisty and uncertain and inconsistent. The ground has shifted and rocked and quaked beneath our feet, and we have had to figure out how to stay standing. It's more than we ever thought we'd have to handle. My warrior mother, most of all.
After Dad had 3 brain surgeries and an emergency spinal surgery all in a week; after multiple unforeseen complications and sustaining permanent damage to his brain and spine, which has left him partially paralyzed from the waist down, unable to speak much, and at times largely unresponsive; after his body has been so weakened from spending 6.5 months in a medical bed; after suffering from a series of mini-strokes; after infection after inevitable infection and multiple rounds of anti-biotics; after becoming resistant to several anti-biotics; after his kidneys have begun to fail; after a very difficult meeting with his team of doctors at UVA, who feel that Dad is in his final weeks...
It is time to let him go, once again.
He has been a valiant fighter, and he has won some small victories along the way. But he's been through enough. As we honor his wishes, and honor him, the best way we know how... we are letting go of aggressive medicine and our hopes for his physical healing. Hospice care will ease his suffering and give him the best quality of life for the rest of his days.
He hasn't been home in 6.5 months. He hasn't seen those walls... those walls, that wood, those bricks... so familiar. He hasn't smelled those smells, sat in his favorite chair, or seen the fruits of his labors - in which he holds great pride. He hasn't seen the fabric of his love manifested, or been reminded of all the cherished memories in this place. Where there is more laughter than beeping machines, and more color than the white of walls and jackets. This safe place. His home.
It's time to bring him home.
It's time to let him go, and bring him home. To bring him home, to reconnect with all that is a part of him and his beautiful life. Before God brings him forever home.
We feel relief that his struggle will end. We are at peace, although we grieve deeply. We have grieved for some time. We will continue to grieve.
And I know in my heart, that although his body and his brain will not heal here on earth, that he will be whole again.
And we will dance.
"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break." ~William Shakespeare
