The House That Grief Built

It’s been three years since I stood behind him as he tied that gray ribbon around a fragile branch of the hope tree. The anniversaries never get easier.

“Don’t come back.” He said before the surgery. “Finish your vacation.”

We left the Happiest Place on Earth a day early and drove home to Phoenix to be with him.

“I am going to do this with you. We’re going to see this all the way through.” I whispered to him, his hand clutching mine.

The smile on his face couldn’t cover the fear, and the grip he had on my hand spoke more than his welling eyes could. We were all afraid, but he was most of all. The man who held us all up, through all our struggles, who was there for every breakup, every crisis, every failure, and every success. The giant, who carried us on his shoulders when we were little, who did power lifting, who always had the strongest hug, the loudest laugh, and the best advice. It was his turn to be lifted up. To finally just worry about himself and lean on someone else.

I stayed with him the night they opened his skull and took a tumor from his brain, replaced the skull and stitched him back together. I knew when he awoke because his breathing changed. Our eyes met and we gave each other a thumbs up.

I kept my promise.

Three months later he took his last breath. I stayed with his body until the mortuary wrapped him up, bent his stiff arms across his chest and shuttled him, covered, into the back of their van.

The sun was rising when they took him away. The most terrible, peaceful sunrise I had ever seen.

I learned more from him in his dying than I could have learned in all the years before.

I learned that guiding someone through the end of their life is the greatest and most sacred privilege that can be bestowed on us. Especially a parent. To be the focal point of strength, love, unwavering support through the treatments, the pain, the nausea, the sleeplessness, the terrifying reality that the only way our lives will turn out is to die. I shut off my own tears so I could hold him while he cried. The man I would have turned to for support in such a time as that was the man who needed me to be brave and strong for him. I was terrified. I was so strong. I was all the good he had seen in me all these years. I had the courage he told me I would find. In the end, everything he said about me to build me up when times were darkest were the very qualities I got to show when he died.

I learned that at the end of life, no one says
“I wish I had joined one more Teams call.”
“I wish I had answered one more email, or worked a few more hours of overtime.”
“I wish I had mowed the lawn more often.”
“I wish I had spent more time at work.”

They say
“I wish I had gone after that woman I loved.”
“I wish I could make up for concerts and games I missed when you were young.”
“I want to know I mattered.”
“I want you to understand the love of God when I am gone.”
“I wish I had more time.”

I learned there are few times that bring out a person’s true nature quite like watching a loved one slowly slip away from brain cancer. Who we really are rises to the top in times of crisis. My dad would be so proud of what rose to the top in me, in my siblings, in his sisters. It also brought out the selfishness and cruelty in others, and may their punishment be to experienced being treated the same way at the end of their lives.

I learned more about Glioblastoma Multiforme than I ever wanted to know. And I learned that the doctors are going to recommend chemo and radiation because people faced with terminal brain cancer need some sense of control. We must do something about this, after all. And I learned that if I ever have the horror of being diagnosed with that specific type of cancer, I will refuse all treatments because they only accelerate the inevitable. That quality of life without a cure is more important than quantity of life. The chemo and radiation destroyed his kidneys and he slowly starved to death. I wish I had known that night he woke up from surgery, before the oncology consults and false hope and sad smiles from doctors and nurses who all knew our time was limited and all they could do was offer hope in the form of poison. I would skip all the time in hospitals and bring him home to drink his morning coffee and listen to the birds sing, to hug on his grandkids and sleep as late as he wanted.

I learned that in the end, this life is such a beautifully absurd dream. That the most decent, good people in this world can spend their final months suffering and that all life is laced with a little bit of tragedy.

And I learned that all that matters is the time we have, so live it well and forget about the nonsense. Your job will replace you in a week, the bank will still want their cut of the estate. All the money, possessions, and status in the world will not save any of us from death, and in the end those will be the things that matter least. What matters is how you made people feel and how well you showed them the face of God in the way you chose to live.

As Dad would say: I love you, always.