December 1, 2014
On the local news tonight I watched the broken father of a teenage boy—a talented 17-year-old killed alongside 3 friends in a truck crash in a neighboring town—tearfully attempt to confront the remaining shards of life without his son. I saw his bravery facing the cameras from the bottom of the cliff of this most abominable grief. He acknowledged how he longed to wake up from what he hoped was a horrific dream; and then he thanked God for the years they had together as he admitted there was no waking from this loss.
I watched this news report from the hospital room of my almost-75-year-old father. We watched it together, actually. My strong Dad is fighting the demands of his heart’s cantankerous life. It’s giving him some fits, even though every other parcel of his being is looking at that heart like the weak kiddo in PE class whom everyone picks last: all the other players are ready and able to kick some ass, but this one kid might hold them all back. One difference in this scenario, however, is that Dad’s heart had never been the weak link in his many decades of being the “first-picked.” So this is new. And it sucks.
Tonight I watched my father fighting his heart’s confusing misbehavior. Together we watched this younger grieving father face an excruciating reality without his son. One truth became quite clear: Life is defined by loss. It’s obvious, brutal, real. It is also what makes precious what we stupidly take for granted.
You see, I was watching my dad watch a father who lost his baby. Dad teetered on that cliff when I was quite small, and the fear changed him forever. Without going into the particulars, in one night Dad lost a wife and almost lost his only two children. But we made it when Mom didn’t. While this moment tonight was unspoken between us, I would be stunned if Dad didn’t look into the horror of that poor devastated father and not see what could have fully claimed him nearly 40 years ago.
Losing the dad who almost lost me is crushing and eventually (and prayerfully, long from now) inevitable. Then I look into the faces of my own children and I don’t know how mamas and daddies who lose their babies ever open their eyes again and try to find the sun. The pundits would say we must learn to make the most of every moment and cherish the ones we love and support those in the midst of loss. All those things are true. Tonight, though, I just had to process the juxtaposition of these dads in this same world on this same night. I have great hope for both. I thank God for that.
