Sometimes there are moments in life where something really sticks out to you.  Maybe it is a phrase, a picture, a song…it just catches hold of you even though you may not understand why.  I find those moments worth trying to remember even though I might not glean, at that instant, why it is standing out to me.  Some call them “God moments”, but often I do not truly see the God part until later when either a better understanding presents itself to me or a gentle peace arises when several moments come together knitted carefully with a purpose.

I stood at this window many days and nights in August.  It is in a hallway on the 5th floor of Domatilla 5D at St. Mary’s hospital in Rochester, Minnesota.  The window was just a stone’s throw from my dad’s hospital room and looked out at our hotel.  In the distance, you can see the nun’s seminary over on a distant hill.  This window and another became a refuge for me in the storm of my dad’s recurrent cancer as we met with a slew of doctors, tests and watched him endure waiting, testing, and difficulties that we couldn’t have imagined.  There I would step away–sometimes to place phone calls to concerned family and friends. And sometimes, just sometimes, to look out…

As we learned the news that my dad’s cancer had returned, the pain that we all felt was immense.  We had been told by Mayo in the beginning of his treatment, that if it came back, his life would end quickly.  Inwardly for myself, it was as if someone had placed a grip around my heart.  My chest had tightened, my stomach was nauseous and at times, it hurt to breathe.   For the first couple of nights, I didn’t want to close my eyes not knowing how long I would be able to “see” my dad.  I knew there would be a physical reaction to the news as well as an emotional one, but the pain was astounding to me.  As with all pain, sometimes we want to flee from it.  It was in that moment, standing near this window, that a series of things passed before me as I was pleading with God not to lose my dad.

There was a good reason for the pain.  Really?  What came to mind was several of the women I know…close friends…who have had a lifetime of no father or very little memory of one.  As the pain gripped me harder, it was as if I heard God whisper, “You hurt because you have deeply loved and are loved deeply; you are blessed to have this pain.”  The next day I listened to one of those friends try to console me and I felt empathy for her struggle with the right words.  While I knew that she was sorry for me, that she was truly seeing me in pain, I also knew that I was feeling something she couldn’t and strangely, I found my heart hurting moreso for her.  Later that evening, another close friend shared with me that she felt exactly what God had laid on my heart (before I told her)–and that she had a bit of envy of my pain for in her life she knew she wouldn’t feel that kind of pain with her dad.  That revelation gave me a new perspective on my pain and a different way to see it.

As my dad’s life came to an end, we were blessed to all be by his side as he took his last breath.  For those who haven’t been present at another person’s passing, it can be an unsettling experience.  Over the next couple of days, I listened to my siblings try to process through what was disturbing to each of them.  In one case, it was the breathing…the shallow, raspy, intermittent breathing that draws one’s life to a close and let’s the others know that the end is near.  When I pondered this, I found myself not upset by my dad’s breathing, but by his eye.

You see, my father became more aware the night before he passed.  He was able to talk a little with all of us.  He was even able to respond with a murmured “I love you” when I told him that I loved him.  The night progressed in a way we weren’t expecting.  He broke into a very high fever and his IV line broke flooding his working lung with more fluid than it could handle.  At 3:00am, we phoned hospice to tell them something was wrong and while I was on the phone with the nurse, I told her that my dad’s left eye was remaining open even though the other had shut.  She said it was common and suggested that I take a damp cloth and close it.  The thought horrified me in a way that strongly resonated with me.  I couldn’t close the one window to this world that remained for my dad.

As the next morning came, we all knew the end was near…much nearer.  We were all in and out of my parents’ bedroom multiple times throughout the day, and I kept seeing something different about his eye, which was still open.  Finally at noon, I told my siblings that I felt strongly my dad was still there.  I wasn’t sure why but I was pretty sure I had seen him looking out.  At this point, my dad had lost all control over his body and was not responding anymore to touch.  Later as I sat down near his bedside, I understood what I was seeing.  My dad’s pupil was just above his eye lid, so most of the time you could only see his iris.  What I was observing was him bringing down his pupil and looking out.  It was a painful realization and one I found myself grappling with days later.  The torment of being trapped in your body, the inability to move anything to signal that you are there.  And worse in a way, nothing I could do to help him.  For a brief moment, my heart sank but I believe God brings things to our attention for a reason and I found myself readjusting how I was responding to my dad…that no matter how I had quietly wished he was gone for his own peace, he was very much there.

Around 1:30pm that afternoon, I came into my dad’s room and bent down.  Despite his pain, I put my arms around his shoulders and layed my head on top of his head.  I told him how sorry I was for his pain and how much I loved him.  Then I sat down.  To my surprise, a tear had formed in his eye and I realized he was crying.  My heart broke and I immediately hopped back up and hugged him again only to see more tears flowing from that eye.  I started to cry too as did my brother and sister who were near the foot of the bed.  To this day, I am not sure if they realized what had happened.

And that became my question to God…my struggle.  Why?  Why did he have to be in that condition?  Why did he have to feel that pain…that level of physical pain?  How hard it must have been for him to see all of us in pain and the sadness on our faces that he could no longer comfort.  The pain that he could no longer mend for us as our father.  The desire to stay even though you have to go, even though you want to go. How incredibly hard it is to say good-bye.  My dad’s eye became my struggle.  It represented so much of what I couldn’t understand.

Three weeks later, I stood in my kitchen listening to the song “Any Other Way”.  I knew it was the song I wanted to share with you all in my post “It’s Not Okay”, but as I stood listening to it one more time, all of a sudden one of their refrains jumped out of me…”I won’t close My eyes”.  In the midst of this song about God wanting our pain, not only wanting us to share it with Him, but that we needed to…were these four lines “I won’t close My eyes.”  It was then that all the dots connected.  God wasn’t closing His eyes to my pain.  It was as if He was telling me that He indeed knew my question, and in a way, He was helping me to understand why my dad’s eye stayed open.

My dad didn’t want to close his eye.  He could have closed it as there were long moments when his pupil wasn’t looking out.  He could have shut out our pain.  He could have gone inward and far away, but he chose to stay.  In reality, he could have given up the fight long before the cancer finally took him.  But he wanted to be with us, even in our hurt; in a way, he needed our pain to understand how truly he was loved.  We had walked this road with him the whole way, even to the point of death.  Would he leave us one moment before Jesus called him home?  And what I felt God saying was that the pain I felt so deeply in losing him was the love He wanted him to know.  That pain, though exactly that–physical and emotional pain, was actually for the good.  And my dad’s eye being open was sacrificial love that was willing to be with us through our pain for as long as he was able.  Knowing the depth of his love and his strength of his perseverance to be with us to the very end…that is truly a gift.

And in case you are wondering what happened to his eye?  Was there some chance it was locked open?  Did he really have the ability to shut it?  How can I be sure that he wanted to stay?  As we walked my dad home with warm encouragement, quiet tears, a little laughter, lots of love and assurances that we would be together again, my dad took his last breath and headed home, gently closing his eye all on his own…I remember being joyful at that very moment that I hadn’t taken their advice and shut it.  Trusting God and the nudges to pay attention, I now understand…it wouldn’t have been love any other way…

“Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is the devil–and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”  Hebrews 2:14-15