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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Tonight, my dad and I left...

Tonight, my dad and I left church early to take a meal to a family who's husband/father is dying of cancer.  


He is not an old man.  


It is sad.  


Right now, the only word I can think of is sorrow. 


Sorrow.  


I got in the car and I yelled.  And I never yell in front of my dad.  It was not I-am-so-mad-at-you-right-now-yelling.  


It was life-is-not-fair yelling.  


Tonight, I felt very much like life is about being born and paying taxes and co-existing with lima beans and surviving 38-degree-weather-even-though-your-calender-says-next-month-is-April.  


And falling in love with people and then them dying in sad and sorrowful ways.  


And then my dad said maybe we should go for a drive.  


So we drove for a long time.  And he started talking about farmland, I think to keep me from doing more yelling.  We drove by the land Tim's family my family owns (where I want to build our dog farm). 


We were late for choir and it felt a lot like we were skipping school together.  


On the way back, we saw two Very Little Girls playing in someone's living room window.  


And then my dad said it reminded him of me and my sister.  


Then he asked about my car because he always asks about my car.  We picked it out together (her name is Roxanne).  And he says the thing he always says which is, "It turned out to be a good little car..."  


123,000 some odd miles, thank you very much.  


And I said, "Yea...we make a pretty good team..." and nudged his elbow with my elbow because, like I said, we picked it out together. 


And I'm pretty sure that even though tonight was sad and I used the word sorrow and there was yelling, I'm pretty sure that when my dad is the one who is Sick or Old & Leaving, this trip will be one of my favorite memories.  


I don't know why these things happen.  I don't.  


Sometimes, life is horrible.  It is Tragic.  It is Devastating.  


But I also know that sometimes, it is good.  It is very, very good.  


And that just in the nick of time, God shows up.  


In the past 4 months, five or six* of my good-good friends have had babies.  On nights like these, it helps to think of Briggs and Ephram and Vala and Levi and Lucy.  


Sometimes, life is good.  


Love and my friends picked out cool names for their babies, 
H.  


*I said six because I'm terribly afraid I'm forgetting someone.  My apologies.  

3 comments:

Mrs. Werginz said...

Great post. It is ok to be sad for that famiyl btu I am glad you made a great memory with your dad!

Unknown said...

Baby

Lorraine said...

Your dad seems like an amazing, wise man. This was a beautiful post. Thank you for sharing.

Lor