When I was 28 years old my father died. It was a terrible time in my life. I was living in California when he passed, knowing he was sick, putting off getting back home. I always thought there'd be time. Time to say everything I wanted to say. Time to watch him gracefully lose his battle with cancer. Time to hold hands. But I didn't get the timing right. My father passed away in Maine. I received the phone call in California. I rushed home, sobbing in the airport, was at his house by nightfall. I remember crawling into his bed, the bed he slept in the night before. Overwhelmed. I had never felt that deep, cavernous grief before. My heart was just so overcome with sadness. Sadness and guilt. Why was I not there? Why was I not physically there to show my dear, sweet father how much I loved him?
Through the years I've healed much, but it has taken time and I'm changed because of it. I'm okay now. I've integrated that grief into my life. It has morphed into gratitude for the great dad he was, and sometimes it is a very sad moment of reflection. But always there has been guilt. The wish to go back in time and BE THERE.
So when my aunt (father's sister) emailed me that my Grandma was sick, very sick, it was with every piece of my being that I knew I had to see her. I am not very close to my dad's mother. She lives in Montana and we just don't talk much; we never have. But I learned a lesson from my father in the importance of seizing a moment. I wanted her to meet my daughter, my daughter that never got to meet my dad. I knew that staring at the face of the woman that gave birth to my dad would bring up some ghosts, and it did. I missed those ghosts. I missed the uncanny maneurisms and facial structures shared by both my father and grandma. It made me remember him.
I was impressed with how well the last minute trip to Bozeman, Montana worked out. I received the email around midnight and by the next day at noon me, Mike and Ellie were driving the Subaru north, excused from work to go take care of what needed to be done. The smooth transition only supported my notions that we were doing the right thing by making the emergency trip.
My Grandma is doing (surprisingly) better. She is quite sick but a recent course of antibiotics has helped her rally. She started on hospice and I was able to meet with her hospice nurse. I was able to spend some quality time with my Grandma and my aunt. I was able to relate to these two important people as not only the daughter of John, but as an adult who has worked her own way in the world. It filled me up to watch my Grandma's fascination with Ellie. With my aunt it was like reconnecting with an old sister. We have so much in common from our very unique hair types to the things that we love to do and that fill us up. We watched old videos. We shared stories. We laughed. We fought back tears as my aunt and I remembered stories about my dad. Our families connected. For me I felt like I was plugged back into the life of my father.
I can't go back and change the events of the past. But I can hold hands with the lessons that I've learned. Life is short and unexpected. You can't count on tomorrow so don't wait for it. BE THERE. These past few days I feel like I got part of my family back. And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it would have made my father immensely happy.
