Lessons from Dad and a Happy Anniversary

After my recent post about my mom, I thought it only fair that I say a few things about my dad too. But what to say about him? His example of patience and endurance, the relationship I had with him, the lessons he taught me...there are so many things that my dad was to me. One of the things I miss most was our nightly routine. For several years after my mission, my sister and I would help put my dad to bed every night. The three of us had it down pat and every night at nine, we knew where we would be and what we would be doing. One of my favorite things to do was to tell dad stories or jokes that would make him laugh. Getting him to laugh was a small success every time. It was because of my nightly comedy routine for dad that my mom thought I should try out to be a stand-up comedian. But seriously; my dad is one of the few people who got my jokes, so the comedy route just wouldn't work out.    

I didn't know my dad when he was a young dad. He was 49 when I was born in 1986, but what was neat, is that when my sisters and I were writing his life sketch, we were able to read through the life history he had written over the past several years. It think that my favorite part about that was realizing that he had been someone just like me at one time. He had outrageous dreams, like playing as catcher for the New York Yankees, and he had fears too, life providing for his wife and family after he had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.  

All these things about my dad are important things for you to know, but last Saturday, September 12th was their 58th wedding anniversary and so I thought I'd tell you a little love story.

I don't know all the details, I know they met on a blind date in October of 1956. I know that dad called mom for a second date, but it wasn't until later that she found out that he had been too terrified to call her and he had asked his friend to call, pretend he was Bob and ask mom out for that second date. They dated that whole winter (Mom said her grade in math that year when from an A, to a B, to a C and a D) And then on Mom's 18th birthday and graduation day, the two were engaged and set the wedding for that fall.

The years that followed brought more schooling, kids, job hunting, moving to another country, a MS diagnosis, grand kids and a million other life experiences they shared together.

Dad's health was one thing that he dealt with for many years. In 1999, dad suffered a heart attack and had triple bi-pass surgery, with his MS, any infection could send him to the hospital. Medications were a delicate balance at times, because with one thing off, it could be another trip to the hospital. In 2010, my dad wasn't doing well and we ended up taking him to the hospital in the middle of the night. My one sister, Karen, and I were with dad in the emergency room that night when the Docter, serious and blunt, but also kind and gentle told us and my dad that due to an infection, his heart was out of rhythm and was slowing down. Which meant there was the risk of it slowing down and then stopping, or that blood clots would form and cause a stroke, both cases would likely be fatal and not to far distant given the current condition of his heart. Dad had a decision to make. He could continue living as he was and let his heart alone with a small amount of time left, or he could go to a specialist and have a pacemaker put in, greatly reducing the risks he currently dealt with.

We let dad make that decision, and he was quiet for a long moment before he looked back up at the doctor and told him that he wanted to have the pacemaker put in. That pacemaker gave him four more years with mom and the family and so I consider it worth it. But there was a greater cost I will come back to, something I didn't consider until four years later.

Those four years were not easy, the included many more hospital trips and a stroke in 2013. My dad did not complain though. He never regretted, or at least he never expressed regret, at his decision for that pacemaker because he was with my mom and with our family.

When my mom got her terminal diagnosis with brain cancer in March of last year, we took dad to the hospital to see her that day. In that room, he looked at her in her hospital bed and said, shaking his head, "This isn't how it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to go first."

Mom in her typical fashion looked at him and said, "well, maybe you still will."

Despite the how hard and tiring the daily trips to the hospital and care center were for my dad, he wanted to visit mom every day. He wanted to be there for her, to hold her hand when it was hard for him to talk, and to make sure she wasn't alone and that us kids were doing our part to take care of her.

In those few weeks, he had his own doctors and hospital visits as his his was finally winning the war it had waged on him for so many decades. When we took him to the hospital for the second time, dad never work up and he passed away on April 12th, 2014.

It was then, that I realized the significance of the decision he had made four years earlier to get the pacemaker. We don't get to decide when we are going to leave this world, but I believe that my dad was given a lot of say in that matter. His life with MS was not easy, it was not comfortable, and it was very limiting. When I think back on all the times dad could have left us;  when he had his heart attack several years earlier, when he needed the pacemaker, when he had his stroke, and many other times when infection or MS raged through his body. He chose to do what he needed to do to say here because he wanted to be there for his wife.

He had reached the point though, where he could no long be there for her in a way that he wanted to and so he left so that he could be there on the other side to comfort her at night when she needed comfort. To be there to greet her when she left this world just 63 days later. When I wrote about mom, I wrote about her love of people and her gift of happiness. My dad, he loved my mom. 

Every love story is different, I recognize that clearly, but I also recognize that my dad loved my mom, and so even when it's hard that they aren't here, I'm grateful that they are together for 58 years now and an eternity to come.