Dear Dad, part 1

The longest day of my life.

On Tuesday I had you on the phone, chit-chatting about the convertible you were driving. You were in and out of range but you didn’t know it, and you talked even when I told you I couldn’t hear you. You said you would call me back later, when you had better service, when I wasn’t busy.

But you didn’t. And on Friday at work, when Paul tells me my dad is on the phone, I think, “about time he called,” and simultaneously, “that’s not good.” If you were on the phone, if you had taken the time to figure out Border’s phone number to tell me something, it had to be bad. But it wasn’t you, and it was bad. It was grandpa, barely able to talk, then it was grandma, telling me you were in the hospital in Colorado, and it wasn’t good. Colorado? How was I supposed to get to Colorado? But that’s all I wanted to do. I went home and cried and heaved all day trying to figure out how I could get to you.

To my podpot and the one who I told my class had been my best friend in high school. My advocate. My daddy. It’s more important to me that I be near you than anything else, and when I told you about the dream where I was headed to the black hills to come see you but had to turn around because I had to get to work on time, you laughed, but I wish it hadn’t been a dream and I wish I had just picked up and come and seen you.

Grandma and grandpa bought the tickets, and they flew me out. I had a choice – one of those choices that reminds you that you are a human and you have to make the choice that your rational self doesn’t want you to make. I will be abroad for half of this month, so in order to pay rent for next month, I would need to work this week. But instead, I’m in Colorado, and even though I’ve been here all day, I still haven’t seen your eyes. But that is the choice I am glad I made. I’d rather be here, in this strange town where I don’t know anyone, with my family, waiting to see the eyes that you and I share.

I know that God will provide me with the money I need to pay for rent. Grandma and Aunt Cindy sat and were talking about how the bible says we aren’t supposed to worry. I had to remind myself that I needn’t worry about how the rent will be paid. It will be paid and it will be because God provided for me once again.

I held your hand and Aunt Cindy held your other. Your puffy face, you looked so upset in your slumber, like you knew you were not in control. My adventurous spirit comes from you, and you are trapped in your own body. Here we are, the mountains to the west, in a town you would love to take me on a vacation to, and you are stuck sleeping in the ICU. I’d give everything I own, even Bailey, for you to hop out of bed and go white-water rafting with me. But Id give even more for you just to wake up and be able to talk to me. I need my daddy and I have to keep screaming to myself, “DON’T THINK, DON’T THINK DON’T THINK” when I stand next to you and hold your hand because my thoughts take me to places I certainly can’t be when I stand beside you and wish you would open your eyes. Aunt Cindy said that Leland and I were here, and you nodded and squeezed my hand. Maybe the best moment of my life so far. I wonder if the people walking out of the maternity wing with their infants know that when they are ushering life into the world, you are fighting for yours three stories up.