In Which I Am Orphaned

Anyone who reads this (you few, you brave) will know by now that I lost my remaining parent last week. It wasn't at all unexpected, but still, it was as wrench. When I got the call to come quickly (not a real possibility, since I lived 90 minutes away), I got out of bed, packed a small bag, and ran for the car. As I was putting my little bag in the back seat, my favorite verse from Psalm 119 popped into my head, so I took it as a message and turned it into a prayer: "God, You are good, and what You do is good". It was a comforting message to have received, and oh so true. Sure enough, I was only half-way there when another call came, this time to say that Dad was gone. And there it was--my status as a parentless child come to pass.

It's an odd feeling. I'm suddenly a member of the oldest generation in my family, and in another week there will be no old home to go back to. The dining room table and blue-trimmed dishes will move into my own house, and every day I feel more and more like I must be my own mother, because look! Here are her things! Those are her blue-veined little hands stirring the batter! And those are her white hairs on my head! Stability, nostalgia, family history, and the old homestead will be where *I* am. As I said, it's an odd feeling.

I'm generally okay with this turn of events. Dad had not been himself for about a year and a half, and after his stroke just after the New Year things had gone downhill with regularity. Dad had no concentration for reading, watching television, or even extended conversations, and his frustration at not being able to do anything, even putting on his own clothing unaided, was difficult to watch--because there was nothing I could do about it. He had been increasingly depressed since Mom died nearly four years ago, anxious about the constant dialysis, and just not having any fun. Quality of life was gone, and I couldn't restore it, not for all the wishing in the world. Heaven knows I tried, but some things are just beyond us.

So when he took that last gasping breath, what did I feel? I was sad, of course, but I was also tremendously relieved that he no longer had to suffer physically or emotionally. And I felt horribly, deeply guilty for feeling relieved! I'm supposed to want him to live, but he was so miserable I just wanted him to be all better--even if that meant death.

It catches up with me at odd times, like when we cleaned out his mailbox and found the Father's Day card that I had sent, but it didn't arrive until half a day after he had gone into the hospital for that final 24 hours. And at dinnertime on Saturday, because I had called my parents every Saturday night for decades. I suddenly had no one to call. And every time something amusing or wonderful happens and I go to file it away in that corner of my brain labeled "Things To Remember To Tell Dad Because He Would Enjoy It" and I am brought up short by the realization that I can let that corner be renovated into something else now.

So I am likely to cry buckets when my kids graduate, and when Emily gets married, and especially if/when she has children, because my parents won't be here to witness these things that they would have so loved to see. That's a lonely feeling. Fortunately, I have a tendency to weep at things anyway, so Emily won't think a thing about it except "There goes Mom again". Mom the family weeper, that's me.

But I am sure of one thing: God IS good, and what He does is good, and I will see my parents again. We are not meant to live forever on this earth, and there is a time to let go and be transformed into something new. I can't begrudge my parents that, only be glad that someday I'll go there too. Not soon, I hope, because I am vain enough to think that my own children need this particular parent for some time yet. So I weep when I can't help it, and then sit up straight and go on with life, and rejoice in all the moments that are ours together, and all the moments to come.

Love, Spud