Dad. If you can hear me, what would you have me do?

It was when I heard my uncle’s voice crack that I knew it was time.

Days of deliberating, letting the stress of decision fatigue eat a hole in my stomach, were over. A new sort of hell was beginning. This wasn’t like all the other times my dad pulled through. It was time.

My uncle’s words rattled around in my head, “It doesn’t look good.” Pacing up and down the hallway of my house I couldn’t decide what feeling to feel: anger, frustration, fear, heartache. I felt like a zombie — too tired to be fully awake and too hungry to feel like eating.

Every 12 hours I’d get a text or a voice message relaying medical stats. Oxygen levels, white blood cell count, urine output. His kidneys were failing.

My dad lay in the ICU unaware of anything going on around him while on the other side of the world, I boarded an airplane. I tried to distract myself with movies, but I’d seen them four days ago when we’d left my dad’s house the first time.

Touching down at an airport for an 11 hour layover, I hunted for free wifi. A message from my uncle. “His lungs are filling with liquid. His vitals are touch and go.”

Removing Dad from life support had already been put on the table. Forms were being filled out for his organs to be donated, just like last time. I couldn’t tell if my desire to keep him alive was my own or his. 

My decision fatigue was a matter of life and death and I was flailing. I closed my eyes and tried to get the attention of my dad’s spirit.

“Dad. If you can hear me, what would you have me do? What do you want?”

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I pretended to sleep in the airport. Then, like an announcement over the intercom, I heard his voice, “let go.” 

We arrived at the hospital to the warm hugs of family and friends, and 24 hours later, my dad took his last breath. 

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The fallout of his unexpected death continues.

I haven’t been back to that town since we said goodbye. It’s been two years now since I stuffed as many childhood memories as I could into a storage unit before flying back across the world with a hole in my heart.

Now I stand on the threshold of yet another journey back to that same place, only it’s different. It feels hollow and scratchy, like a wool sweater against skin, equally uncomfortable and familiar at the same time. There will be no papers to fill out, no visits to the hospital.

It feels hollow and scratchy, like a wool sweater against skin, equally uncomfortable and familiar at the same time.

But there will also be no visits to the house. My dad won’t be waiting for us on the front porch.

He won’t need to hold his exuberant dog to keep her from jumping. There will be no sounds of his wheelchair bumping across doorways, and the crinkling of late night snacking will be those of my husband alone.

I’m not sure I’m ready for that sort of acknowledgment. To be so intimately present with his absence. It’s not unfamiliar, my mom died years ago, and in some ways it will be unremarkable. But for me it feels significant. It feels like I’m picking up a tragic novel after having to put it down years prior, only to realize it’s just as tragic as before.

Sometimes we have to go through tragedy, not because it makes us stronger or forces us to grow, but because tragedy is a part of the human landscape. 

As much as I dread returning, as much as I cry at the thought of driving past his road without stopping, there’s a larger purpose to agitating this wound. 

In times like these, when mustering up the courage to look my ghosts in the eye, it helps to remember what Kate DiCamillo wrote in her children’s book Tale of Desperaux.

There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman.

~ Kate DiCamillo

I intend to be a care-full craftsman, weaving my heart back together.

Enduring heartbreak can feel unbearable, but as DiCamillo reminds us, we can mend. When done with courage and clarity, there’s no need to worry about whether we’ll heal crooked. It doesn’t matter how broken we feel, or how painful the memories are. It doesn’t even matter if we were the ones who lost or the ones who did the taking. It matters what kind of craftsman we choose to be, how we choose to heal.

Our traumas become part of our stories, woven into the fabric of our lives. Sure, they can scar, adding dimension, texture, and nuance to life, but it’s important to remember that they won’t break us if we don’t let them.

Wish me luck, dear reader. I’m off to do some mending.

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