Calm underfire

You know who you are: My father passed away in January 2017.

My sister’s grief story in book form, Hope in the Mourning… was from her husband’s passing in 2011.

I’ve mentioned many times previously that I take issue with the “shoulds” and this is an example of what I mean.

When my father passed away, there was lots going on in our lives. We have 4 boys, of which I am the youngest, and my sister is 7 years younger than myself. My parents handled their end of days in a difficult manner. That’s a long story… so I’ll tell it another time. Actually, I look for it in my blog pages, and send it to you LOL

But the one part I want to recall to you, is that when he passed away, I was quite calm and resolute. Perfunctory, I think its called. But I already know that one of my skills and/or talents is that in a crisis I am calm, and clear thinker. My emotions seem to wait until after the crisis has been dealt with. Its makes me a good bus driver when emergencies happen. It makes me look like a heartless horrible man when my loved ones need attention. Like when Ashton was 18 months old, and had to have emergency brain surgery after a fall in our backyard. Somebody in the emergency waiting room reported me to Social Services for something they didn’t understand.

Ashton had been walking around in our back yard, concrete patio, in some flipflops… and had fallen over. He cried for a bit, but settled down. He’d hit his head. I wasn’t worried, cuz my first 4 kids had had much worse falls, and to no worry.

About 4-5 hours later, he was crying unconsolably. In trying to figure out what to do to comfort him, my wife had him in the bed beside her. She said some life changing kinda words,

“I’m so glad you know what to do!”

I fell apart! She placed the whole weight on me! I turned and told God that I had no idea what to do! Yes, I’d raised 4 children. And, oh by the way, I taught First Aid, and had a pre-career as a lifeguard. So, I know it was God who told me to go look in that book we’d just received called the BC Health Guide. I looked up head injuries, looked down the list, yes, he needed to get to a hospital.

We drove him to the nearby Lions Gate Emergency, and the waiting room was full. In triage, they looked at Ashton. And to our delight, they saw to him right away. But that’s not a good thing in one particular way. His situation was dire.

They did a MRI and on the way to doing that his left pupil blew, and he went unconscious. The next thing we knew 10 health care professionals were stabilizing him for transport, and an ambulance driver was walking around the room, talking quite firmly to somebody about something.

They needed to start an IV but they couldn’t do it, so they had to access by putting into the still green bone of his shin. When they put the needle in Ashton woke up and cried out. I rose up out of my chair and shouted, “Atta Boy Ashton! Stay with us!”

They closed down the centre lane of the Lions Gate Bridge, and got him to children’s. The staff made us sign a waiver allowing the brain surgeon to drill a hole to drain the blood from his skull. When we saw him in recovery, his whole head was bandaged like a turban. The surgeon told us, she quit fussing around, and just cut the side of his skull off, not really knowing what was going on. All of the above saved his life. First Responders don’t like to be called Ambulance Drivers, but that’s cuz they don’t know my story. A first responder, that also knows the challenges of traffic is 2x expert. And both need to be noted!

I tangent a lot… LOL

So back to my Dad. I’d been called to his bedside. I was taking my break in Metrotown Mall as a 49^th Avenue driver. My brother told me there wasn’t much time. Dad was passing away.

I caught the next plane to Winnipeg, and found a ride south to the Rural Regional Hospital he was in. They were already at the stage of “comfort” and I was with him when he passed.

When he passed I was calm.

I went to stay with friends who lived nearby. My sister Diana’s in-laws actually. They leant me a car then next day to drive into Winnipeg, where I went to pick up my sister, who’d flown in from Calgary. I felt no emotion. No loss. But then, as I turned off the Perimeter Highway, onto Portage Avenue, my old neighborhood where I’d grown up, I realized this was exactly where I once sat beside my father, in the passenger side, on our way back from dropping my older brother off at Bible College, not far from the hospital I just described. I looked at him, as he drove along, silently. My Mum and I always talked, we talked heart to heart, we fought head to head, but my Dad? Well, I prayed, I longed all those years ago, to know my Dad’s heart, and suddenly there in that inert state, I realized that God had answered that prayer. I remembered that prayer then and there. I cried with gushes of tears, from deep down inside, they were grateful tears. For I had indeed had a chance to get to know my father’s heart.

The experience of my earthly father’s relationship with me, shaped my heavenly father’s relationship with me. See Hebrews 11:6. He rewards those that diligently seek him.

Laurence