See You Later

          

I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.

I got a call telling me I needed to get home as my father was ill.  I was a little confused, being mentally ill and sectioned surely wasn't life threatening.  It turns out he was in a “normal” hospital, whatever normal may be. He hadn't been ill or anything but now they were telling me he was critical.

My plane ride home was agonising; imagine being alone on a plane, isolated, entertaining thoughts of uncertainty and despair not fully understanding the situation but praying for a miracle anyway. Terror grips you, the torture of “what if” torments you.  I panicked, the fear he wouldn't hold on, the fear that I wouldn't see him breathe, the fear of darkness, the fear of pain, the fear of the unknown….

The fear period!

I was taken straight to the hospital when I arrived, he was unconscious but I sensed he knew I was there. I had willed him to hold on, I had prayed for him to hold on and he had.

I had never seen my father look so frail, look so ill but also look so peaceful.  I remember being desperate for him to be right with God, this may not be important to others but it was important to me.  I prayed with him and asked him to give me a sign if he agreed with me. I saw the slightest of smiles, his smile gave me hope.  This was his way of saying to me its ok chick- I get my cheekiness from my father.

I remember looking around the room and being slightly aware that I had an aunt huddled in a combination of fear and panic in a corner holding  the largest praying beads I had ever seen in my life!  That memory is forever imprinted in my story about my father and for some reason in the midst of the sadness that memory makes me crack up and laugh hysterically.

 See you later

I was only with him for a few hours when his breathing changed, became slightly laboured.  In one moment I saw him breathe in, I waited, and I waited!  I remember being filled with a sense of panic that he would suffocate if he didn't exhale.

It never came.

God tapped me on the shoulders that night and said “pardon me”; Eternity interrupted time and said “excuse me, this one’s mine!”

Just like that my father stepped from this side of time into the next; just like that they moved from referring to “him” to referring to “the body”.

Someone switched off the lights in my world that day, my heart broke, somebody pulled it out of my chest cavity stomped on it and tossed it out the window!  I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to punch somebody.  To me, what had just happened in that moment? that wasn't right, it wasn't fair - Come on God!

My Dad died, that’s my “tag line” when people ask me about him. It sums up all the information they need.  But for me, it carries a greater reality I felt when he died that day– that I will never be the same.  I will never be the same as I was before.  

In some ways, I see life as a puzzle, every experience you have forms a piece of your unique puzzle. When combined, they form the entire picture of your life. My Dad took a piece of my puzzle with him, a piece that will never return. I am incomplete without it, I am incomplete without him.

I have learnt that it doesn't matter how badly your heart is broken, the world doesn't stop for your grief.  How can it? The world can’t, no matter how badly it wants to stop.