Living in the Moment

Published January 2, 2011 by Crosstalkers 

I remember it like it was yesterday. My dad and mom came over for mother’s day. I had cooked “no carb” enchiladas. I was still on my Adkins “no carb” diet. (Not that I was overweight, but I was at that place in my life, still hopping on the scale every morning and letting the numbers on the scale rule my mood and my eating habits). My three children were at their dad’s for the weekend. (It seems silly now, but in keeping the peace, I had long since giving up on arguing with my ex-spouse on what weekends the kids got to stay with him). Rodger, my “boyfriend”, had joined us for the occasion. I don’t know if he was actually officially my “boyfriend”, but, by my definition this occasion definitely qualified as a date. So I could, preferably, call him the man I was dating, (Because frankly, a forty two year old woman calling a 51 year old man her “boyfriend” just doesn’t sit right with me). Announcing that I was dating was a big enough step for me anyway, as I had resolved my social life to large gatherings and shared ministry opportunities.

My parents had not yet met Rodger. The rarity of me having only one guest (and a male guest at that) led me to jokingly introduce Rodger as my fiancé. Mom and dad didn’t acknowledge what my joke. I felt suddenly like a stranger. It reminded me of awkwardness I had felt when people don’t quite “get”me and are hesitant to laugh at my jokes, or believe some incredibly dumb story I am telling for a laugh. There was this one time when I was returning with a group of young adults from a mission trip in Mexico. We were in the long line to use the first state side toilet. Anyone who has been to Tijuana knows the relief of finally being able to use a toilet and not have to stare at a trash bin full of used toilet paper. (In Mexico the plumbing do well with toilet paper, so the paper is thrown in a trash can beside the toilet) One of the young women from our group came out and laughed as she said that we could actually flush our toilet paper down the toilet now. Well, I jokingly said, “Oh cool! I’ve been waiting to get rid of this paper.” All eyes were suddenly on me. Looks of disgust were not hidden well, as they watched me reach into my pocket. When I pulled out nothing, and laughed, it took a few awkward moments for the crowd to join in. It was all really funny. And we all acknowledged how little we really knew about each other.

But my mom and dad did know me, and them not laughing at my tongue in cheek introduction left me feeling like a stranger. When we sat to eat, the table conversation was equally as strange. Normally, our meals were full of laughter, and silly talk. Meals at my house often resembled the imaginary dinner scene in the movie Hook (where the food fight is about to begin. Our dinners however, unlike that scene in Hookwere never about putting each other down, but they were about grousing each other out, or out doing a funny memory. But this mother’s day meal with my folks was serious. It left me feeling awkward and confused. I wondered if maybe they hated my date. What was it that was not being said?

We headed into the next room to watch the movie. I was glad. At least a movie would make up for the lack of interesting conversation. I had picked the movie, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”. It was a movie about a man who wants to believe that at his death he finally made a difference in the world. He had grown to believe e that he had lived an unimportant, non eventful life. He ends up finding that the events he believed were so unimportant had affected many more people than he ever could have imagined.

I guess I had picked the movie because my dad had recently been diagnosed with heart failure and was given only months to live. I wanted him to see how this man in the movie experienced Heaven. How he felt instantly young, and had forgotten how weak and in pain he had been in his aged body.

I still hadn’t accepted just how seriously my dad’s health had declined until, a certain event knocked me into reality. Actually it would be more precise to say sent me crashing into reality. I can remember as a teenager that same kind of crashing into the present reality at a cousin funeral. The funeral itself had seemed surreal up until I heard the sounds of gunshots. He was died in the army and was receiving a ceremonial gun salute. The loudness of the guns broke through the fog in my brain and the surprise startled me into feeling the emotions that were buried deep in my denial. I cried.

This time it was not a gun going off. But rather, “crash” My dad dropped a full cup of coffee. Coffee splattered on the wall. The ceramic mug bounced across the floor tiles. My dad looked out of sorts. A normal reaction would have been for me to say, “Dad, are you all right?” But instead as the slow motion sped to normal speed in my mind, I said, “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll clean it up. It’s ok. Go ahead and start the movie.”

I stayed behind to clean up as if it was a normal everyday occurrence to drop a full cup of coffee. The ceramic cup suffered no more than a minor chip. (I still have that cup).

It was then that I glanced over at my dad. Dad had chosen to sit on a straight back chair. I see now that he was trying to control his tendency to fall asleep now that his heart was so overworked to get oxygen to his brain. He was tilting off the chair and fighting a losing battle.

It makes me sad even now but the best description of how I felt then was as if someone had slowed down time to force me to focus on the truth. It was like a snap shot of my dad as he really was, not as I wanted to see him.

I often catch myself experiencing that same kind of awakening with my kids. I will be “doing life’ and one day I see a photograph of them and realize they are young adults. Or I would find myself sitting across the table from one of them talking about their opinions or their ideas about life. I have to stop a moment and refocus wondering, ‘wow, when did I miss her becoming a young woman?” Or I think, as one of my sons opens the door for me, “How long has he been so tall and handsome?”

So this was that moment for me as daddy’s little girl. I saw him. He was no longer the strong and confident, funny and even sarcastic man who had watched me grow up. The man I had loved to cook for and who loved good food, and more so loved to brag about how much he could eat, could now only apologize for not being able to finish his food. He explained how food was tasteless. His once strong body was now flesh against bones, his skin was grey and saggy. He had no energy and wasn’t aware of much that was going on. When had he gotten so sick? How could anyone become so old so suddenly?

I was married not long after that day. My dad couldn’t give me away. But he did come and later when I showed him the pictures, he told me how beautiful I looked. Not many days after my wedding day, Dad died.

I would like to say, I have learned to stop and see. That say that I have learned not just to capture those moments of time but to live continually in the moment with those I love. But still I catch myself being surprised,

“Wow! Where has the time gone?”

 

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Tagged: death, denial, funeral, personal, reflections, relationships, wedding

Posted in: raw, thoughts