My Spiritual Autobiography - Part X

The return to active parenting was a sweet one. Yet, it somehow wasn't about getting back to "the way things used to be". That might seem like it goes without saying, but I had gotten it into my mind that's what it would be. I discovered I was wrong. Having another child to parent didn't erase what had happened to Theresa. It didn't take away the loss. But it was a tremendous infusion of hope. During the first few months of our new life with 'Boo we heard through some friends that one of their adult siblings had lost a child very suddenly (as had been the case with Theresa). I went to the wake for this child and when I was introduced to the father he asked me, with tears in his eyes, "Does it get any better?". Recognizing that this wasn't the right question to ask, but sensitive to where he was at, I just said "It's still worth living". And so it is.

It wasn't long after 'Boo came home that we conceived again and had the sense that God had answered our prayer, which had been "for a child either by adoption or pregnancy", instead by granting one of each. The pregnancy was a little scary - my wife began to bleed considerably around week twelve. Another miscarriage seemed imminent. I was reminded of why I married this woman when, on the day the bleeding started, I came home and found her lying on the couch (per the doctors recommendation) listening to praise and worship music and singing the praise of God through the tears of her fear of losing the child. But it wasn't to be a miscarriage this time. The bleeding stopped and the pregnancy continued.

The 20-week ultrasound always seems like a huge milestone for us - it's the point at which I, as the father, have a chance to really "meet" the baby and I always look forward to it. We have been blessed to have "Level II" ultra-sounds, which are in higher resolution (meaning greater detail) and I cannot remain unmoved by the sight of the baby's face - moving in real-time. There are only two things we pray for at the ultra-sound - that the baby is viable and that we don't (accidentally) find out the sex. We don't want to know until birthday.

Our 20-week ultrasound in this case was scheduled for April 28th, 2005 (three-years ago today!) in the afternoon. I had a very peaceful feeling about it. I really felt that God wanted us to parent this child in this life. About 10 A.M., I received a unexpected phone call from my sister. My father had died suddenly that morning. It was another one of those surreal experiences. We went to the ultrasound and I met the baby all the while thinking about my mom, alone in Florida (where they had gone after dad retired) dealing with my dad's death.

A little more backstory - My dad was one of those dads that just wasn't into a lot of intimacy. I knew he loved me and I knew he would always be there for me. But there was a lot about him I didn't understand. One thing that had really blind-sided me was that as I had my conversion and began to embrace my Catholicism more, my dad became stand-offish as though he was threatened by this.

It got a little out of hand. There was a point where we couldn't seem to talk about anything for very long before my dad would be making some remark about the Catholic Church. I remember being non-plussed when, at the end of a fairly long session, my dad nodded his head toward me and said, looking over his glasses like he always did when in tended to make a "father"-type point, "I raised you to be a good person, not a Roman Catholic."

I knew that my dad had had some tough "run-ins" with the church, but he tended to be elusive about the particulars - something a priest allegedly said to him (i.e. "You need to toughen up boy" or something) as his mother was dying of cancer and receiving the last rites in front of him in a rural hospital in Indiana when he was sixteen - another relative who had taken his own life (with an arguable case of mental illness) and was denied burial in the church cemetery causing my dad's mother to remark "He's going in the ground like a dog". These discussions were intense - my wife would sit next to me and have her hand on my leg to keep me calm as my dad would say one provocative thing after another. By the grace of God, we never once shouted at each other.

I remarked to my friend Dan that I felt as though I had been in a process of digging down into a deep grave and was now standing on top of a casket that had been buried long ago and was full of rot and decay. On one side was my dad saying - "Don't open it, I don't want to talk about it" and on the other side was Jesus saying "Open the casket". At the time my dad and I had just had another disagreement and I was confiding to Dan that the state of my relationship with my dad was a problem. We both recognized that we only had a limited amount of time left with our dads and we each made a New Year's resolution that we would try to cultivate those relationships sooner rather than later. I made a list of things I wanted to do with my Dad - stuff he would be interested in. I also wrote a really long card thanking him for all the things I felt he had done for me. The key line from that card was this "I consider it my greatest gift that for so long I was able to be ignorant of the reality of so many failed fatherhoods in our society. In my ignorance, I just thought everybody had a dad as consistent, faithful and loyal as you."

In a twist irony, the words I had written and intended to send to him on Father's Day became the eulogy I delivered at his wake. An interesting "rite of passage" happened for me on the trip to Florida to bury my dad. My father's authority and protection had always been subconsciously symbolized to me in his signature. His signature was definitive for me, it made things happen and I could count on it. While it may not necessarily always have been so, I always pictured my Dad's signature in black ink and mine in blue. In the course of making the funeral preparations for my dad, it was necessary for me to sign many papers and in this I felt his authority as patriarch of the family pass to my shoulders. I signed in black ink.

Two small anecdotes that followed: My mother remarked to me that a few days before his death my Dad had come to my Mom and told her he was going to the sacrament of reconciliation. It wasn't that my dad didn't go to confession, but he normally did this at the usual "special" times of the year - Lent and just before Christmas. For dad to just go "out of the blue", and entirely at his discretion, was pretty unusual - maybe unprecedented. I am so thankful for that grace. While I'm not one to read a lot into dreams, I had a particularly vivid one shortly after his death. In my dream, I was back at the University again walking somewhere when I realized I had dropped my briefcase. I turned around and ran back to find it. I saw it and ran up to it and when I got there, I realized it was sitting at someone's feet. I looked up and saw my dad standing there looking as he did when he was younger. He smiled and picked up the briefcase and handed it to me. I said "You look good Dad, you look strong". He didn't say anything, but instead smiled and shrugged his shoulders. I took the briefcase, turned around and walked away.

My dad had always spoken plainly about his own death "When I'm gone, don't worry about me, just take care of your mother." In one more pesky Roman Catholic act of disobedience I only followed half of his instructions. I'll take care of Mom, Dad, but I'll never stop praying for you.