Dearest
Dad,
Yesterday,
Father’s Day 2013, I gave you a store-bought card expressing this prayer for my
father: that God would bless everything you do. Nowadays that is blowing your
drippy nose, shooting the wadded tissue into the wastebasket (two points!),
rotating your wrists to the beat of whatever music is playing in the Alzheimer’s
wing, smiling during wheelchair exercise class, pawing through the contents of
your nightstand drawers, and dozing outside the nurses’ station with your chin
resting on your chest—and kissing your wife of 65 years.
Since
Father’s Day 2012, God has blessed your jigsaw puzzle and limited
conversational abilities and your ability to see beauty in the hallways and
courtyards of the nursing home. “This is very beautiful,” you’d say as I
wheeled you around. You used to have words to tell Mom she’s beautiful, too,
though now you say it with your tired eyes perking up to smile in her
direction. A year ago you rarely took your love-blazing eyes off Mom; yesterday
you dozed a bit during your Father’s Day party, didn’t say much, and didn’t
light up when Mom read your cards to you. Last year you read all your cards
aloud to us.
This
past year, God has gradually gathered more of you to Himself. I feel deep loss
as the father I knew slips away from me. I don’t know when our heavenly Father
will enfold you in His arms forever. But I know He has blessed us with your kind,
cheerful, gentlemanly presence, even as your faculties have diminished. As your
fading fatherhood retreats from me, God’s fatherhood comes more clearly into
focus. That is yet another blessing.
I no
longer have you to practice eye-hand coordination with me in the yard and on
the tennis court, to help me with my homework, especially those doggone math
story problems. But I notice myself more often seeing God’s fingerprints on my
education—like putting 2 and 2 together (Aha!) as I study the bible or French
or storytelling techniques, and giving me more opportunities to forgive, for
example, when He’s teaching me relational skills. God’s fathering has been
there all along, but I appreciate it more now, I think.
Dad,
you won’t be there to hold my hand next time I’m scared. Remember when you came
with me to sign my first mortgage? Sitting at that loan officer’s big mahogany
desk, though I was nearly 30, I think I literally clung to your big hand. No,
you can’t possibly remember that day—or your funny, perfect, housewarming gift.
You bought me a whole set of apple-green plastic hangers to match my new condo’s
unbelievably garish apple-green and mirror-silver wallpaper. Probably only God
and I, and maybe Mom, remember those things. By now, I have signed more mortgages than you and Mom have, but other things still scare me: when I
speak in public, or know I need to confront someone in love, or make a big
decision. I take comfort in knowing my Father God has gone before me in
everything; He has prepared my way, will hold my hand, and provide whatever
courage and comfort I need. God surprises me with good gifts, too, just as you
did.
One
last word. My mind’s eye sees you running barefoot across the den to the tall
wooden stand cradling your much explored unabridged dictionary. You loved words
and wordplay. When I stood at the door, you’d invite me in, “Join us; we’ll
come apart if you don’t.” After one of your explosive signature sneezes, you’d
quip, “Long noses run in our family.” Though I’m not quick-witted enough to
wear your punster shoes, I have inherited your word-loving legacy. That
Alzheimer’s disease has stolen your words is a cruelty I can hardly bear. As I
age and more often search in vain for words to complete sentences, I fear this
same thief might have commandeered my brain. So as I thank God for you and pray
His blessings on everything you do, my dear sweet father, I also pray that our
Father of the fatherless will carry me into the future.
Psalm 68:5 A father to the
fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his
holy dwelling.
