Signs

I think it started back in October when we put Dad on hospice. This feeling that something was shifting and I could feel it while it was happening, but I couldn’t name it. He was still doing okay at that point. He was eating and reacting and still had some good days. That little glimmer of hope always hung there even though after 4 years of this, I’d all but done away with that word hope. I mean, dementia can really steal that word away from a person. Dad has a good day and you think all is going to be well.

But he was sleeping more and the look in his eyes seemed different. He seemed to be withdrawing more. I could feel it in my bones and I shoved it way deep down in my heart because I knew. I knew Dad was preparing to die. He wrote about that; about how someone at the end of life can seem like they are selfishly pulling away from the people they love when in fact it is just the person withdrawing from life in preparation for death.

From Christmas into all of January I felt such a heaviness. Christmas was hard without Dad at the house and visiting him that day just felt heavy. I cried as the girls sang Silent Night and when we got to the line “sleep in heavenly peace” I remember thinking that it hurt so badly, but I was praying that as a prayer for Dad. To sleep in heavenly peace.

As the New Year came around, I wanted to start making plans for summer and yet every time I sat down to the calendar, something in me just couldn’t muster the energy to make plans. Something was shifting and I just couldn’t name it. I visited Dad a couple more times and I wrote about them. The song “My Girl” coming on the radio and remembering we danced to that for the Father Daughter dance. The lunch the girls and I had just days before…

And then as much as I thought after several years of grieving and watching the decline I would be prepared, it just wasn't possible. Mom called and I knew.

I kept looking for signs, grasping for something to assure me it would be okay and there have been moments.

For instance, the whole tale of the cardinal representing a loved one visiting you… As my family and I sat with Dad, we must have been talking about cardinals at one point and I mentioned how we used to have them in the backyard but pretty much all last year I didn’t see a one at our feeder. Until the morning of the day Dad died, I saw a bright red male and a female sitting on our feeder just as I was about to leave to go sit with him. In that fleeting moment I thought, maybe it was Grandpa and Grandma Scott coming to take Dad home. I haven’t seen any since.

The afternoon Dad died, Jon picked the girls up from school and they made their way over to see Dad one last time before they took his body. Jon told me that while the entire sky was so cloudy and overcast, there was one patch of open blue sky and it stayed right above the memory care facility the entire drive over. 

The night Dad died, I told Jon I just keep praying for God to give me a sign that it will be okay, that Dad is okay. The next morning, I dropped the girls off to school and as I turned down the road past the airport, an eagle swooped down in front of the car and flew in front of me the whole way down the road until my turnoff. (There was never a time where my Dad didn’t stop everything to admire an eagle flying in the sky.) All the while this song, I hadn’t yet heard, was playing on the radio:

Daddy, I'm afraid, won't you stay a little while?

I never thought I'd see the day I had to say goodbye

Daddy, please don't go, I can't do this on my own

There's no way that I can walk this road alone

Daddy grabbed my hand and said

Just 'cause I'm leavin'

It don't mean that I won't be right by your side

When you need me

And you can't see me in the middle of the night

Just close your eyes and say a prayer

It's okay, boy, I ain't scared

I won't be here, but I'll always be right there

Even though I'm leavin', I ain't goin' nowhere

I ain't goin' nowhere

(Even Though I'm Leaving - Luke Combs)

Then, this weekend I was boxing up the things from Dad’s memorial service and cleaning out my cedar chest to make room. I found this old email from my Dad. I know it was when I was in college and I must have been going through something. Looking back, it was probably something trivial, but he always knew exactly the right words to say. When I found the letter the other day I realized and believe he gave me those words back then so that I would have them for now. Here are snippets

“Living in the present time – all we have – is rarely easy. But if you can accept the fact that you are responsible for the effort (present moment), but that God is in charge of the outcome (the future), life becomes a little easier…

Things will be hard but never hopeless.

The hard part of growing up is realizing that you have to be able to tell yourself – and believe it – that even when things are the pits, you still have a promise from Someone who is more all-knowing and all-seeing than even Mom. It is a promise that in the end it will be much, much better than OK. 

It will be OK, Julia. Give joy a chance.

You will come through this time no less loved than before it began.”

That last line. I had forgotten that not long after Dad was diagnosed, I had pulled out some old letters and cards from him, this included. I began to repeat to him that last line as often as I could remember. I kept telling him that he was no less loved than he was before his diagnosis.

I almost didn't write about these signs because this skeptical, broken, hurting heart of mine tries to negate their validity. Part of me felt like no one would believe me when I spoke of these signs. Maybe part of me doesn’t want to believe them to be anything because that means I’d have to accept that Dad is gone. Maybe it’s because I’m angry and I don’t want to believe that it could be anything but coincidence.

Things are the pits right now. Things are hard right now. But I need hope; we all need hope when we’re sad. If that means finding it in a song, an eagle soaring high, or cardinals in the back yard, then do it and don't negate what they may mean. In the Bible, we read about how God gave signs to His people thousands of years ago. Why wouldn’t he do the same for us in this present day? I know my Dad wouldn’t have just shoved moments like these aside and I shouldn’t either. Remembering and feeling grateful today for signs.