Oh, The Drama

I've got nothing against God. I think He has good intentions and in the end She is who we believe Them to be. I may not believe in the miracles you're thinking of. But I believe in coincidences so strong, patterns so perfect, Occam's Razor demands a designer.

I never ask my Dad what he thinks about God. He's a deacon at the church we grew up in, so I assume he's a loyal follower, but my brothers and I suspect he only joined for our Mom, and only stays for the promise of seeing her again one day.

Despite him teaching me how to build, fix cars, think for myself, stand up for myself, and how to love everyone, we don't agree on much as adults. But I love him for the dangerously generous, stubbornly brilliant, pun-slinging, drama-loving man that he is. And five years ago, I was, at thirty-five, still Daddy's girl.

He finds out I'm pregnant, and my Dad brings me a dozen long-stemmed red roses, walking straight into the after-school Drama Club where I'm teaching, and without a word, gives me a huge, sniffly, teary hug. I say, "Thanks Dad," touched, but I'm more concerned about revealing my pregnancy to all my teenage students while still in the first trimester.

I tell my students the roses are for Valentine's Day, and one girl said, "I wish my dad got me flowers." When I tell my Dad this, he goes out the next day and buys my students the biggest box of chocolates I've ever seen in my life. We had to turn it sideways to get it through the door. That's the kind of man, the kind of Dad he is.

At 37 weeks, he makes sure he's in town, ready to do anything and everything for his baby girl and her baby. He does his best, but he's seventy, and he's spent the last six years racing to his death, to be with Mom. Cracking jokes, making dinner, running this way and that, always helping someone. But by week 39, he's the one who needs help. "Dad, you've had that headache for three days now, how bad is it? I think you should see a doctor."

"Oh, it's not too bad, maybe an 11 out of 10. I saw the doctor, she gave me some ibuprofen."

"Is it working?"

"No, not really."

"Do you want to go to the hospital?"

"Maybe tomorrow."

The next day, he drives himself to his doctor, who calls and tells me to come right away and take him to the hospital. I squeeze my pumpkin sized belly behind the wheel and drive my Dad's van to the hospital. He holds his eye from the pain and gives me advice on the best side roads to take for the most scenic route.

After days of back and forth, of no answers, just more pain, they finally do a scan of his brain. A stroke. Possibly a bunch of strokes, with his cholesterol levels so high they don't know how he's standing, let alone walking. They can't believe he's talking coherently, he should be in incomprehensible pain. My due date comes and goes and he says, "Hey, maybe you could get a room next to mine."

I visit, and every day he's getting worse. I tell my brothers to get here as soon as they can. My husband brings him my Auntie Estelle's coffee, and he's so grateful he promises half of all he owns as a dowery along with my hand in marriage.

He's talking about the pretty nurses, and I ask if he's seeing someone. "No, whenever I think about another woman, I hear your Mom's voice scolding me. I've been thinking about her a lot." My older brother is supposed to be here by now, but through a series of unfortunate events, an anti-miracle if you will, he won't get to the hospital until the next morning. Dad's getting tired. It's harder for him to get his words out. He rallies briefly, "Tell Aedan I just want him to be happy. Tell Jackson to live in the moment." A moment. "You take good care of me." And he's ready to sleep.

I wake in the middle of the night, worried something might be wrong with the baby. I'm debating whether to call the midwife when the hospital calls me instead. "Your father had an aneurysm. He's unconscious. You should call in the family."

The family gathers around his bedside. We're here. He's not. His body lays there, lifeless but still alive. We talk to him, we sing, we touch him. My niece, Dad's firstborn's firstborn sits on his lap, too young to talk, she pokes him in the eye. He's supposed to make a funny face when she does that. He doesn't do anything. He's not wearing his glasses. He's not in there.

But I feel him. He's in the room with us. His love is so strong I can feel it, like a blanket across my shoulders. His soul feels joyous, light, it doesn't fit in this heavy, useless body, lying there broken. I know he'll never wake up again. I say my goodbyes. I love you, Dad.

This is the not the miracle you were hoping for.

My brothers, our extended family, his church family, surround his body with love every day when they move him to hospice. I'm not able to visit much, I'm almost a week overdue. And then the back pain starts and goes, and starts and goes. Contractions. It's my older brother's birthday. I distract myself by baking a cake, and we celebrate as much as we're able.

It's time to go to the birthing center, where I get benadryl, tylenol, and a pat on the back. I silently scream through a sleepless drugged night of agony, trying not to wake up my husband and mother-in-law, trying to let them sleep. When the sun comes up, I know I need help. We get to the hospital, and the pain is so great, so mind-consuming, I don't even feel the epidural go in. Blessedly, the pain eases, and I sleep. The next 24 hours, my niece's birthday, passes by in waves, waves of discomfort, pain increasing and easing, and then easing less and less. I speak with coherence. I don't scream. I don't cry. I think, I am my father's daughter.

It's been too long on the epidural, the catheter is on fire, it needs to come out, I spike a fever, I'm pushing the pain meds button every time I can. My first nurse is back on duty, and says, "We're doing this today". The baby spikes a fever, the nurse says, "We're going to have to take him to NICU when he's born."

And I start crying. Sobbing. Wailing. Immediately, there's a team of nurses, what's wrong? I can barely get it out, "You're... going... to.. take... my baby... away from me." It's the worse pain I could ever imagine, the thought of being separated from him. And they look at me like I'm crazy. So dramatic. It's about 9am and they induce me. I see my husband get a text, and I know something's happened with my Dad, but he can't tell me yet. I push when I'm told, bearing down, finally letting out some pent up rage, pain, fear.

His head is crowning, and I am being torn apart. All I can do is push. I push so hard I pop a rib. I push so hard my eyesight gets better for two days. My sweet child, eight days late, so big, he's already holding his head up on his own. His fingernails are so long they need to be trimmed. And he speaks, "Ef-wah, ef-wah, ef-wah." God, he is so precious, so perfect. I don't get enough time with him before they take him to be measured, weighed, 21 inches long, 9 and a half pounds.

He is a miracle, but there is more.

I learn it's not over. They reach in to detach the placenta that should have come out by now, they stitch up where he tore through me, and I can feel every stitch go in. They pull out the epidural that wasn't working anyway. I'm too exhausted to cry when my husband confirms what I knew. My Dad passed away, around the time they induced me.

Later, Jackson says, our Dad's soul must have passed my son's, one coming, one going. It's a beautiful image. Later, I'll joke, of course my Dad would take his exit in the most dramatic way possible. I sleep.

Life goes on. There's just so much pain, days of pain. Every minute I'm away from my child is torture, there's a string connecting my heart to his, and it threatens to pull my heart out. I can't walk without horrendous pain, but I must see my baby. He's a giant among the tiny premies, already wearing clothes for 3 month olds. I get kicked out of the hospital before he does, and I beg, I plead for them to let me stay a bit longer. They don't.

Slowly things get better, I learn how to be a mother while mourning my father. I grieve for the grandparents my son will never know. A month goes by. Almost a year.

Aedan is diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. I hear my Dad say, "Tell Aedan, I just want him to be happy."

Jackson marries the mother of his child. She's pregnant with their second. I hear my Dad say, "Tell Jackson to live in the moment."

Inside, I'm resentful, I think about my Dad's last words to me, "You take good care of me." Was it a question? A request? A statement? I've administered his estate, planned his memorial, tried to take care of my brothers. Have I fulfilled his dying wish?

The next day, we release my parents' ashes together, into the ocean near Hawaii, where they were born. As their ti leaf wrapped remains sink to the bottom of the ocean, I feel the threads of their souls unspooling from my chest. The anchor's chain tears out pieces of my heart as it sinks. A snap. And they're gone.

My son is my heart and soul outside my body. My joy and my light. He starts to laugh. It reminds me of my Dad. He starts to walk, and reach, and listen. I realize he's brilliantly and stubbornly intelligent. He starts to talk. He makes jokes, puns. That easy smile, that gentle spirit. It's a joy to raise him, protect him. Care for him.

It takes me years to see it. My Dad's spirit didn't leave us. He wasn't hanging on to life to meet my son. They didn't pass each other like ships in the night. He met my son in the before and after life, and decided to go another round. An old soul in a new baby. Eyes that already know too much. A different person, but the same spirit.

It was a prediction.

"You take good care of me."

A miracle.

(Names changed to protect identities)