Ordinary things

I don’t remember my dad’s last words to me or mine to him but I remember the last time that I saw him alive. It was a Sunday night. I had been home for the weekend and I was getting ready to head back to college for the week. He was about to go to the shower and to bed. He lived diligently by the old adage of early to bed and early to rise. 

It was just an ordinary moment. 

I’m guessing I was telling him goodbye. But I can’t remember the words. Because I didn’t know they were the last I would ever speak to him. I can just see him standing there. 

It was just an ordinary moment. 

Earlier in the day he had been teasing me because I had gone to the cemetery to take photos for a project for the photography class I was taking. Why would you want to go to the cemetery, he asked me. There’s nothing but dead people there. I would remember those words after I had gone back to school after his funeral. As I was developing the film and the photos for the project. They would haunt me and I would wonder if he knew what was to come. 

It was just an ordinary day. 

I was at my apartment that Tuesday night when the call came in. I think I was actually on the phone when the call broke through from my brother, Mike. He told me that dad had suffered a heart attack and he was at the hospital and he and my sister-in-law Debra were on their way to pick me up. I remember the first words out of my mouth were, Are you joking with me, or are you kidding, or something to that effect. Because this was my dad. He was bigger than life. He was my rock. He couldn’t be fighting for his life.

I struggled to try to think of what I needed to do. To think of what I needed to pack to take with me. I didn’t know how long I would be at my parent’s house but I thought it would probably be a couple of days, so I gathered a few basic things together. It would be just a day or two later that I would ask my friend Dina to go to my apartment and to get me a dress and dress shoes for the funeral, because those weren’t things I had thought I would need.

It was just an ordinary day.

I was prepared to leave when my brother got there and so we turned and started the hour drive to the hospital. On the way, Mike filled me in on what had happened to get us to this point and the plans to transport my dad to a larger hospital. I don’t remember if I prayed or if I just repeated, come on, come on, come on, inside my head over and over again. About halfway there, Mike’s pager went off. We stopped at the closest gas station to use the phone. I couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end, but when Mike’s face collapsed, I knew. He was gone. My dad, my rock, my protector, was gone.

It was just an ordinary day.

I don’t remember crying that night. I don’t think that I knew how. I think the shock and the questions and the disbelief outweighed all else. We went to the hospital when we got to town, and I wanted to see him. But my uncle Paul told me that I shouldn’t. That I should wait until the funeral home had done their job, because I wouldn’t want to remember the way that I saw him. I lay in bed that night with my mom, both of us silent, but neither of us slept. All I could think was what are we going to do now. How do we go on now? My dad had taken care of everything. I didn’t know what life would look like without him.

It was just an ordinary life.

I allowed myself silent tears in the days to come. The ones that roll out of the eyes and down the cheeks with no sound. I wanted to fall apart. But I didn’t know how. I thought I needed to be strong for my mom. And she thought the same for me. We planned a funeral. We picked out clothes for him to wear for the final time. I chose the tie I had always teased him was his red power tie. He was a blue collar worker and always had been so a suit and tie were a rare wardrobe choice outside church. I thought it would’ve been more appropriate to see him in his much loved and much worn red windbreaker than in the suit. The funeral home returned the clothes he was wearing when he died, his normal attire of short sleeved plaid shirt and polyester pants. I sat on his bed and I held them and I smelled them, hoping for a last scent of him. And I wanted to die along with him.

It was just an ordinary life.

It hurt me so to see him in the casket, looking so unnaturally still and cold. I wanted to touch him but I was afraid of how he would feel. Finally my uncle David encouraged me to do so while I could, and so I touched his hand. And it was so cold and so hard and so still. And I got the courage to kiss his face. It was then that I noticed how long his eyelashes were. All my life I had known my father’s face and I had never noticed his eyelashes. I told him I loved him and I wondered if he had known that when he was alive.

It was just an ordinary life.

The funeral was that Friday after his death on Tuesday. I went back to school that next Monday. And I wondered how it was that people had gone on with their lives as if mine had not ended. How could they laugh and eat and study and play when I could barely breathe. How could I go on with school and my previous plans to graduate and to go to law school. How could I possibly make all these adult decisions without my father there to advise me and guide my way.

I was just an ordinary girl.

And he was just an ordinary man.

But he was so much more to me. He was my dad. He was my rock. He was my mainstay. He was my safe place. He was my trusted advisor. And his death left a hole in me that will never be filled, no matter how many other blessings my life holds. And I miss him every day. And the first person I want to see in heaven after my Jesus is my dad. Because of all the ordinary moments that we shared, there are so many extraordinary ones that he missed. And I can’t wait for 1000 years of “Did you know? Did you see? Did you hear?” conversations with him.

It’s just an ordinary wish.

And an extraordinary love.