Father's Day

On this Father's Day, my Daddy is in the hospital on the other side of the world.  He's heavily sedated and ventilators are breathing for him.  He had a heart attack a week ago and double bypass surgery on Friday.  The surgery went really well but he had an allergic reaction to a medication and that has meant extra time on the ventilators to allow his lungs time to recover and return to normal.  The prognosis is good. It will take a few extra days, but he'll be okay - this is what the doctors and surgeons and nurses say. He has a long road to recovery, but he's still a healthy, strong guy.  And stubborn, to boot, which will serve him well in the days and weeks ahead.

It has been so hard to be here when I want to be there.  I can't tell you how hard.  I might as well be on another planet right now and I'm not going to lie, my heart is breaking that I'm not there to hold Dad's hand or  stand in my place beside my sister during meetings with doctors and surgeons or make my Mom take a break.  I'm grateful for modern technology - I am kept fully informed and in the loop in real-time thanks to cell phones and Skype.  Still, it's just hard.

My Dad, the Mountain Man.

I've been thinking about my Dad a lot lately.  When you almost lose somebody, you tend to do that. One memory that keeps popping into my head is of a time when I was a young girl.  Dad used to take me fishing all the time and one of his favorite spots required a major hike down and back up a steep mountain slope.  The fishing was always good there.  To be honest, I couldn't have cared less about the fish - or the cool gear he had bought for us to try and definitely not the hard hiking - but I adored my Daddy and I loved those fishing trips just because it meant I got to be with him.

On that particular trip, I was really struggling to keep up with Dad as he hiked up that hill back to the truck.  To my little legs, that steep climb was just too long and arduous and it was a hot day.  Dad shimmied up the hill like nobody's business and was out of sight before I'd even made it halfway up.  He didn't stop to wait for me.  I think he knew that coddling me wasn't going to teach me half as much as making me just do the hard work myself.

I remember looking up at that steep hill above that I had yet to climb and feeling a little hopeless.  How was I ever going to make it?  It was too hard.  Too hot.  But just as I was ready to sit down and give up, Dad's face reappeared at the top of the hill.  He was grinning ear to ear and he held up an ice-cold six pack of Barq's root beer enticingly.  "Lookee what I found in the truck!" he said. "I got a nice cold root beer for ya!  Come on, now, better get it while it's still cold!"

Dad plopped himself down at the top of the hill and popped open a can of root beer, slurping and draining the whole thing in one gulp, followed by a loud, exaggerated "ahhhh!"  (He has a way of making any beverage sound like heavenly nectar when he does that.)

I made it up the hill that day, giggling at my goofy Dad as he wriggled the remaining cans of root beer above me like a man dangling a carrot in front of a lazy horse.  At the top of the hill I was rewarded with an ice cold drink and a slightly melted Snickers bar bought just for our fishing trip.  Dad's eyes twinkled with pride and I felt myself standing a little taller for making it all the way up that hill by myself.

I learned a lot that day - about myself and about my Dad.  I learned that anything worth doing is usually hard.  I learned that my Dad believed in me.  I learned that my Dad is really good at bribery creative encouragement.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!  I love you!