Two...

Two days before my son was born, my mother called my home and told my husband to find a reason to leave the house in order to call her. She needed to tell him something she didn’t want me to hear about. Yet. My dad had died. I was on bed rest and, apparently, they were afraid the shock might do something to the baby or me. Shock because although death is a normal part of life, my dad was 47 and I had not even been told he was so ill death was in the picture. There is nothing normal about a 47-year-old dying. His death certificate, I discovered years later, says “natural causes” under cause of death. I have never understood that. I guess it’s because he didn’t die of a gunshot wound or drown or something clearly unnatural. I suspect his alcoholism and smoking finally caught up to him although he had stopped both almost a year prior…perhaps coinciding with finding out he was finally going to be a grandpa.

Minutes after my son was born, the doctor – considered callous and thoughtless by every nurse in the hospital thereafter – said, “Oh, by the way, your husband and your mom didn’t know how to tell you, but your dad died two days ago.”

So the most beautiful moment of my life, the birth of our son, was dimmed by the death of my father.

Or, was the despair death inspires softened by my son’s birth?

My mother wrote a lovely poem about the souls of my father and my son meeting as one left this world and the other joined it. I like that image. I used to tell myself that my dad had had such a sad life, perhaps God gave him a chance at a happier one in my son. I like that thought – especially as I watch my son not only pursue his passions but also work hard to inspire others to do the same. To be the best version of themselves that they can be. Beaten down by family, friends and society, my dad drowned his aspirations over the course of his 47 years, too late realizing he did have something for which – for whom – life was worth living if he could not do so for himself. I love that my son tries to help people live fully, joyfully, so that they never regret what they didn’t do.

I still grieve for my father. I never got to say goodbye. He never got to know the grandchild he was requesting on our wedding day – “When are you going to give me a grandson?” Two years were a few days too many for him to wait.

Despite the grief, a lesson was learned in my hospital room as tears of joy merged with those of sorrow: Life goes on.