It’s been said that life is what happens while you’re busy making plans. It’s also been said that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy. I can confirm the truth of these two maxims. The truth is that life comes at you fast, and if you don’t take a minute to reassess things every so often, it will pass before you even feel you’re out of the starting block. Sometimes we need something to joggle our arm to break target lock. At least, that has been the case for me.
In Fall of 2018, I had achieved the full flower of what we so lovingly call “middle age”. I had graduated a year earlier with an undergraduate degree, a journey I’d begun in 1987. To call me late to the party might be an understatement, but when I finally tucked in and completed my studies, I’d seen and tasted many of life’s delights. It felt like I was easing into a comfortable Autumn of life, and one of which I could feel proud.
Fall 2018 was also momentous for me because after a year of working on Master’s studies, I began student teaching as a Graduate Assistant. At Midwestern, I’d at last found a true sense of home and belonging, and made many friendships that I know will sustain me for the remainder of my days. This school was, for me, a true haven.
However, some little problem was nagging at the edge of my consciousness. This nag was a bit of physical discomfort that I could ignore at first, but seemed to bring a side-car of foreboding. The truth was the physical pain seemed like it might be a cardiac issue, and while I should have taken that more seriously, I prayed a bargaining prayer that if the Lord would spare me until Winter break, I’d Go To The Doctor and see what was going on . I was so busy teaching my first classes of Research Writing that it felt too overwhelming to add the idea of a major health crisis to my collection of plates spinning at the ends of all the sticks I was balancing. The one action I took was to purchase a life insurance policy. I reasoned that if I popped my clogs at any moment, at least there could be a little six-figure dividend to help my parents in their dotage if I was not around to do some heavy lifting for them.
So I made my daily hike from Bea Wood to Dillard for my classes, and sometimes I felt like I would fall over dead at any moment. Again, this was a serious health issue and I can, in hindsight, admit how risky and foolish it was for me to feel I could postpone resolving a possibly life-threatening issue. I will remind you, gentle listener (reader), that I was in a bargaining stage of denial.
It seemed I was going to make it through when in the very last weekend before finals, the pain had grown too tremendous to ignore. I went to the ER on Sunday night before finals.
They rushed me into a cubicle at the ER and did a quick battery of tests including bloodwork, and in came a nurse with big scanning contraption on a cart, and she proceeded to address my adbomen with an ultrasound machine.
“Can you see anything?”
Due to HIPAA patient rights laws, it is illegal for a nurse to give a patient a diagnosis, but I felt there was no harm in asking.
“Mm-hmm” came the response.
“So there’s something going on there?”
She said “The dr will have to tell you, but let’s just say I can see why you’re in pain. He’ll be right in.”
The doctor came in and gave me the good news, and they administered a painkiller that made everything tickety-boo again. Fortunately, my heart was not ruputuring, but the gallbladder was in an advanced stage of decline and wanted to get out at the next stop.
Flooded with relief, I said “Great! I have to give my students a final in 9 hours. Let me do the paperwork here and I’ll make an appointment with my doctor in the morning.”
He laughed and said “Oh, you’re not leaving the building with that gallbladder inside you. If it ruptures, it will kill you.”
Well, shoot.
I sent my apologies to appropriate parties in the English department, and two faculty members gallantly stepped in to proctor exams for my students. While my first class completed their finals, I was in the OR having the offending organ removed from my body by force. It was quite the ordeal, but at least it was over, and the pain was utterly gone. In fact, I felt better in days and weeks after the surgery than I had for many months prior. Problem solved, right?
The odd thing was that the sense of foreboding did not leave me. Where lightning has struck once, it is apt to strike again, and I felt that this relief of discomfort was temporary, and I felt more convinced than ever that my End was NIGH. I kept paying for that life insurance policy, because for the following handful of months, I felt certain I was about to die. I’m not kidding.
As I’d progressed with my studies, I found sometimes I would go 6 or 8 weeks without driving down to Dallas to see my parents. Life was busy, I had so many deadlines and responsibilities, and I knew my folks understood this. They were so proud of my work and studies, and I felt a great deal of pressure to do well in my studies and in my teaching. I knew, however, that I must make a major change. I thought if I fell over in a week or two or a month, it would be a shame if I didn’t spend more time with Mom and Dad, so I vowed to see them more often. The surgery was just a couple weeks before Christmas, and I’d start right away spending more time with them.
On Christmas morning, I felt sad because I’d be dead soon and this would be my last holiday with my sweet lovely parents. My uncle was coming by, and various family members would be in and out. I awoke to the glorious smells of Mom’s cooking, and my sister and I tucked into the few things that could use another quick cleaning before the guests arrived.
The narrative running through my brain was that this was wonderfully sweet and such a precious time, since I’d be dead soon. I should have felt sad and tragic, but instead I felt grateful that my heart wasn’t failing (yet), and that I had one more holiday with my beautiful family. I began to feel something like bliss as I cleaned. My sister Amy was sweeping in the hallway and I was doing a touchup in the bathroom, and I began to sing the ostinato of my favorite Bob Marley song.
“Doo doo doot da doot, da doot doot doot doot doo doo doo da doot.”
In the hallway my sister did that funny little musical phrase “weekee weekee weekee” and we were off to the races, singing a duet.
“Could you be loved and be loved?”
I broke into the harmony: “Could you be loved and be loved?”
I was filled with the milk of human kindness and the true Christmas spirit. I felt so grateful for the the life with which the Lord blessed me, and I was thankful for one more family holiday. I felt like I was not old, and I wanted to do more living and see more places— I’ve long dreamt of travel to Italy— if this was all I would have of life, would it be enough? It would have to be, because I was strapped into this rollercoaster and I’d be going wherever the track before me led.
The holiday was beautiful, beswagged as it was with great garlands of smiles and hugs and all to the soundtrack of laughter and funny stories of the previous year and old times gone by. This was a golden, happy Christmas, and one for which I was truly grateful, even in the moment. I savored that precious time, knowing it was the last one. Little did I know how wrong I was and how right I was.
When the new year came, I held to my vow to go see my folks more often, and I went to Dallas every week or two. After all: I was dying. Sure, the doctor said my bloodwork was good and whatnot, but that was a little difficult to believe, especially since I still had a sense of doom. I went about my life, and called Mom and Dad more often, and I kept up my life insurance payments.
Three months later at Spring Break, I spent time with Mom and Dad again. I showed Dad my surgical scars and told funny stories about the follow up appointments and such. We laughed a great deal, and I was so happy to see them again. I also remember before I left I told my parents that my sister was the best gift they’d ever given me. I was concerned about my folks, but that’s always the case with people we love, isn’t it? Mom’s had a persistent cough for many years, and Dad had been having what seemed like a digestive issue that the doctors had not been able to pinpoint. When I went home on Tuesday of Spring Break, it was with the knowledge that I’d be back with Mom and Dad again in about a week.
Three days later on Friday, I was on the phone with Mom. We chatted a bit, but Mom cut me off suddenly and said she had to go. This was irregular. We always end our calls with “I love you”s, but this time she said “bye” and then I heard her say “Are you sick?” It seemed a bit abrupt, but I went on to my next errand, which was a stop at the post office. I was in the post office for a long time, as there was a line. When I came out about 30 minutes later, my phone rang: Mom.
She told me that Dad had collapsed, and was in an ambulance on the way to Charlton Memorial, but that it didn’t look good, and to prepare myself. I rushed home, forgetting all else in the world, rushing to throw together a bag for travel. My own death I could handle, and I knew that would mean to be separate from my loved ones here until the roll is called up yonder, but this was not the order of operations I’d been so certain was inevitable. I was not ready to lose my Dad. The world is full of remarkable people, and could make do with one less of me, but Dad was too important to too many people for the world to lose.
Sadly, Mom’s words were prophetic. By the time I jumped in the car with an overladen suitcase with every shoe and dress I might possibly need, toiletries, phone charger, laptop, Mom called, and I sat in my running car, door open, in the driveway, while Mom told me the news that Dad was gone. I was not ready. I am still not ready.
The following days were a mad rush of making arrangements, writing a eulogy, sending thank you cards to our sweet family and friends who helped with food and flowers and every little thing. The frantic activity gave purpose to the minutes and hours that seemed to torture us with the hideous absence of the man who had been our Superman. How could the world ever be the same?
So, was that Christmas enough? Again I say, it would have to be. It felt like the wind was knocked out of me. How could things ever be good again? Why did the birds go on singing? I didn’t feel anger or bitterness, but I was tremendously sad, and I was sad for a long time.
A couple years after Dad had died, and after several more checkups wherein the doctor raved over my excellent bloodwork, I realized that my death had not been impending. I had to let go of the narrative that I’d told myself, that my life was over: life had more lessons to teach me. The transformative moment came when I recognized— a full two years later— what a tremendous gift my persnickety gallbladder had been: that crisis was a kick in the pants to help me refocus on the fleeting time with my dear family. I could pull my Master’s degree like taffy and make it last another semester or another year, but I would only have as much time with my family as we would all be alive. Yes, the monstrous organ had done me a massive favor, and the result was much more time with Dad than I would have had if I had continued sleepwalking from one deadline to the next.
Lessons are everywhere, and I believe we should all be lifelong learners. Honestly, if I could be in school the rest of my life as a student, I would be, but my season as a (formal) student has passed. I’m now about the business of getting on with life and of cherishing the time with loved ones. I’m also about the business of getting on with my own writing career. I’ve started a small publishing house with friends, and we’re working to revive the old tradition of the pulp serials ofthe 1930s that was such fertile ground for science fiction and fantasy literature. It is going well.
There’s been too many moments to count when I wanted to call Dad and tell him what’s going on. I can imagine how he’d be buttons-bursting proud to know about the time an anthology I edited got a #1 in category stamp on Amazon. I’d like to tell him once more how proud I am of him, how I won the Dad lottery, and that he was the best Dad ever, but I thank God for that loving relationship, and that I told him how I loved him while he was still here.
As we rush about our days and pick up the laundry from the cleaners and burn the meatloaf, and hand out candy at Halloween, it’s so important to remember life happening is not just routine - this is the life we get. Ultimately, every event is marked by treasure-laden potential. Nothing is routine, in fact. In the end, we only get as long as we get with our dear ones.
And that is enough.
