It’s been nearly seven years now since I lost my dad to lung cancer. When I left for Iraq in March 2005, he was seemingly fine. He had surgery about a year later and the doctors thought he was cured. Almost another year passed and he relapsed. Chemotherapy and radiation didn’t work and we lost him in November 2007.
All these years later I still have the occasional urge to pick up the phone and call him, especially when it’s something about the girls. He never met either of them, but I imagine he would be pretty crazy about their blue eyes.
Lessons
Despite the pain associated with that period, I am forever grateful for it. We knew time was getting small, an understanding that can be both a blessing and a curse. Dad wasn’t very coherent much of the last two weeks of his life due to the pain medicine, but every now and then the true man would break though the fogginess and rejoin us for a few minutes.
What I wouldn’t give for another moment like that, to talk to my Dad as I knew him, to tell him how much I love and respect him, to ask him questions that I’ve thought of over the years. I just want to be with him, to be his son again, even if only for a minute.
That experience taught me the power of a moment. This lesson has been seared into my being over the last year of battling cancer. The hundred goodbyes that I’ve said to my family have punctuated the pricelessness of each minute I spend with them. Sure, it’s very easy to take such things for granted again, but each subsequent departure or symptom seems to highlight this lesson once again.
What Really Matters
Just the other day I was home in the afternoon while Abrie was napping and Christi was exercising in the garage. Abrie is a real mommy’s girl these days; she will hardly even let me hold her. This particular afternoon she woke early from her nap. I went up and tried to console her and coax her back to sleep.
My best efforts didn’t work, but for about twenty minutes I rocked her in the chair as she laid her downy little head on my chest. That was the first time in months she’s let me hold her for any length of time. It was not lost on me how precious this time was and I prayed that it wouldn’t end. I couldn’t ignore the fact that I would be 1,100 miles away from her again in just a few days when I return to Houston.
What price do you place on such a moment? What would it be worth to talk to my Dad again, if for only a minute? What is the value of an hour? Ask my friend who just lost his wife to cancer. I’m sure he would go to any means necessary to have one more hour with her. What is the value of a year? Significantly more, I would say, when one has spent the previous one battling a deadly disease often apart from family and friends.
There is a wonderful song by Chris Rice entitled “The Power of a Moment” (1). In the second verse he sings,
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Spending fifteen minutes holding my daughter is what really matters. It’s a moment that no one will remember but me, and one day I might even forget it, but nonetheless it’s an eternal investment. What really matters is making sure your dad knows you love and respect him, and not just on Father’s Day. What really matters is not quitting in a moment of pain or despair, but pressing on because the next one may very well bring relief and peace. What really matters is living in the moment, as God leads you, and not taking for granted that there will be a next one.
1. Chris Rice. (1998) The Power of a Moment. On Past the Edges [CD]. Rocketown Records.
1. Chris Rice. (1998) The Power of a Moment. On Past the Edges [CD]. Rocketown Records.