Waiting...

The man I love most in the world has lain in a hospital bed for 3 weeks.  My rock, my constant, my 100%-reliable, my definition of love personified... my dad.  We have been tossed and turned in waves, on a roller-coaster, pick your metaphor.  We don't know which way is up and which is down anymore.  Is there a prognosis?  Is it a good one?  A bad one?  Last night, I asked, what are we waiting for?  Are we waiting for him to die?  Are we waiting for him to fully wake up?  Are we waiting for a certain amount of time to pass before we do something else? 

My mum used the word "weary" the other day, for how she is feeling.  Weary seems a much more succinct word for how I'm feeling, than just "tired".  How does a person explain that it's more than just their body that is tired?  My brain, my heart, my very soul, feel so incredibly weary. 

People's parents get sick.  They die.  It happens to most everyone on the planet.  And we are here in this place, and it feels like no one has ever felt this much pain.  How can they have?  How can you feel this much pain and keep living? 

And the unknown.  How long can one go without knowing anything?  Without knowing which breath will be the last, or if he'll suddenly wake up, or if he'll even be himself, or if this is something that will go on for weeks and weeks? 

We know all the "self-care" talks.  Everyone tells us to take care of ourselves.  I think we're doing that pretty well, as well as we can.  But you cannot completely replenish yourself out of grief and pain.  Grief and pain must run their course.  If you don't let them, they will find other ways to run their course, as a waterfall will push through rock to make its way.  We cannot avoid this pain and grief.  "Better out than in", I always tell my kids, when it comes to illness, tears, emotions, (gas?!).  So we do what we can to get it out.  To process. 

Some days, like today, I don't even know what I'm processing.  All I know is that my dad, who has been 1/2 of the most faithful people in my life, is lying in a hospital bed.  And even as I sit beside him, I feel him loving me, loving us.  It is impossible to stop loving, even if it can't be expressed or said out loud.  We know his love for us because of how he has lived for 79 years.  He taught me, not so much in words, but in how he loved, that life is the greatest gift, that life is meant to be lived abundantly and joyfully.  He taught me the "infinite" as this beautiful song expresses.  I'm trying to "write it down", but it can hardly be articulated.  It can only be felt. 

I know it when I'm with him.  I will know it my whole life, and then my children will know it their whole lives because he is a star in their universe.  His love will someday be expressed to their family and friends and loved ones because our dad and grandpa loved us with such fullness and abandon.  What is life, except to give life and love to others?  My dad embodied that.  He still does, even lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by only unknowns.  I am living in that love today.  The way I've been loved by this man sustains me today, and if that is all I can hold onto, then hold onto it I will. 

"...how rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist..." even in the waiting...