Sweet Hour of Prayer

Just over one year ago, my father had his first stroke. It was the morning before Bryan's and my 7th Wedding Anniversary. We had spent the night before playing mini-golf and eating hot wings (well, I ate hot wings, Bryan had chicken with "Hello Kitty" sauce because Bryan is a wuss). When the phone rang in the middle of the night several hours after we'd returned home and had gone to bed, I knew it wouldn't be good. Because the phone doesn't ring that early in the morning with good news. It just doesn't.

We made the drive to Michigan one day later, on our anniversary. When we got to the hospital the Tuesday after his stroke, I took one look at my dad and wanted to run away. He looked horrible. Here was my dad. The man who encouraged me, who made me laugh, who made me so angry I could spit, who grounded me, who neglected to tell me I no longer had a curfew, who performed our wedding ceremony and made everyone with a pulse cry or at least mist up, and who was one of my staunchest supporters. He looked horrible, and weak, and miserable. He was scared. For him, yes, but mainly for my mother. Her health is not so great, to say it mildly. What would happen to Susan? How would he continue to take care of her? I didn't know that there were worries that had existed in him for years, job and family related, that most likely caused the stroke that would eventually take him from us, from being Hannah's Grampa (this was my dad's preferred spelling of his grandfatherly title), from being my dad. He never told me. I never knew the struggles he was going through. I never knew how absolutely frustrated he was with the way things were. I had an inkling things weren't great, I'm not completely self-centered (in the words of a blogger I adore, Shut Up!). But, in the way that parents do, he shielded me from the worst of it. He also knew I have a temper and it will flare and burn and I will set things on fire with my words. Perhaps he held back for that reason, too.

Over the next two months, he had multiple surgeries, laid on his back in a hospital bed and thought and worried, wore a funny helmet because they'd removed a large section of his skull (I'm still a little irked I never got to decorate it with cool stickers), missed and begged for sips of Diet Coke, and in his way comforted people. I've heard several stories about him from during this time, and all of them have an aspect of him putting others at ease, not that others went to him for help, but my dad's very nature was soothing (except when I was a bratty teenager), comforting, and companionable. Oh, and he managed to get after me one last time while he was at it.

He spent the last three weeks of his life in a nursing home. While there, he developed bed sores. Bed sores that come from an understaffed nursing home. Bed sores that come from too much work, too many patients, and a patient's paralysis. I am in no way saying that the staff at the nursing home weren't caring. They were, but the bed sores still happened. A breakdown of the flesh that occurs from too much time spent in one position where the bone forces its way through to the other side or when a patient is not moved 100% perfectly. And they are painful. And they get infected. And my dad had them.

During our last visit with my dad, we all trooped into his room to look at our feet for a while and to feel uncomfortable and sad and to not discuss the things that needed discussing. Bryan was wheeling my mom in the home's borrowed wheelchair, I had Hannah, and a couple bags worth of stuff. When we got into his room, I wanted to put everything down so I could get over and kiss my dad hello. My mom wanted to be wheeled closer. I asked her to wait a moment so I could get everything down and out of the way. My dad told me, "Don't make your mother wait." As much as I wanted to roar, "She can wait for a minute and it won't kill her! I have stuff and things I need and want to do, too!" I refrained, and dutifully got my mom closer.

I slowly burnt for a long time. I had been taking care of my mother as best I could all week. I had been dealing with her health issues and her depression issues and her fears and her frustrations all week. I had gone to the lawyer's offices. I had gone to the doctor's offices. I had driven her here and there. I had done the shopping. I had been a wife to Bryan and a mother to Hannah and a co-worker and an employee (who was literally hours from being laid off) all week. I had worked all week. I was DONE. I was done being nice. I was done being patient. I was done being a good daughter. But, then I wasn't. And these days, whenever I feel myself getting overwhelmed with what needs to be done, I hear my father's slurred and weakened voice tell me, "Don't make your mother wait." and I find my patience seeping back and my attitude shifting back into place and I do what needs to be done.

My dad died on November 1, 2008. He was 59 years old.

That Saturday morning started out pretty well. My friend was coming over for breakfast, Halloween had been successful and Hannah had a pretty good pile of candy that we would be stealing from, the weather was chilly, but still pretty nice considering it was November, and we were going to have a relaxing day. And then the phone rang at 7:30 am. And I knew it wouldn't be good. Because the phone doesn't ring that early in the morning with good news. It just doesn't.

I can laugh about this now, and in fact I could laugh about this while it was happening. The nurse who called had a speech impediment when she encountered stressful situations (I don't laugh at people with speech impediments, that's just rude and mean. Just getting that out there lest you think I'm a rude, insensitive beeyatch who laughs at the difficulties of others). And she stuttered on the letter "P". And she told me that my father, "had been discovered with no pulse and no blood pressure". And then a bit later she called back to tell me that my father had, "passed away". I remember thinking, "This is going to be really funny someday." And you know what, it is. A bit bittersweet, but it does make me chuckle.

The next two weeks (and more) were hell. Not hell on wheels, which might have been kinda neato, but stuck in crap and mud hell. And there were so many lovely, thoughtful, loving people who were there and that are still there. And I still owe most of them a thank you note. Some of those notes have been written and not sent. Some have not been written at all but exist in my head. The thanks is in my heart and it will always be there, but getting this thanks down on paper is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Thank you for sending lovely flowers to my father's funeral. Thank you for arranging for food right after my father's death. Thank you for watching my little girl while we eulogized her Grampa. Thank you for helping me clear out 37 + years of junk and memories from the first house my parents had ever bought. Thank you for cleaning this house before we arrived so my baby wouldn't accidentally find and eat a lost pill that slid into a corner of the kitchen after my mom tried to kill herself. Thank you for the beers, the food, the time out when I wanted to crawl under a rock and cry but had to keep on keeping on. Thank you for helping me because all I wanted to do was walk away from all of it, including my mother. Thank you for supporting me, loving my family, and just....just Thank you.

The title of this post has very little to do with what I've written. I started this thinking I would go one way, but I've ended here and not there. And, that's okay. I've been working through a lot over the past year and I'm not through. I have many things to start thinking about and many things to wrap up. I have rage in me that I still can't let go of, but manage to only dwell on when alone or with that friend who ate the chocolate chip pancakes I made the morning I found out my dad had died. And of course there's Bryan. Amazing, wonderful, non-hot wing-eating Bryan. But you see, he loved my dad, too. Not in the same way I did, because Bryan's dad is still very much alive and an important part of our lives. And is even more important to me now than he used to be. And I haven't told him that and I don't know if I will ever speak those words to him, but when I see him, I want to cry and have my daddy-by-marriage hug me. And that's probably not fair to him, but it is what it is.

But Bryan, he hurts, too. And he's a bit angry by what happened, too. And he knows the truth, well our side of the truth, about what my dad was dealing with, too. And he knows the crap my dad was up against and kept inside, too. And Bryan can feel the heat of my anger and probably knows it's not best to discuss it. Even though he has been, can be, and will be the wall I fling my hurt, sorrow, frustration, and fury at. Even though he knows it's not aimed at him and we're on the same team. Friendly fire can hurt and kill. So, we limit how far we will discuss the bad, and we remember the good together, as much as my rawness will allow.

And eventually, someday, somehow, at some point in the future, I hope that all I will think of when I think of my dad is the love, the silliness, the support, the fun, the lessons, and the care he gave to me, to Bryan, to Hannah, and to almost everyone he encountered.

The hymn Sweet Hour of Prayer was what my dad was listening to on his CD player just a couple of days before he died. It was on repeat and my father listened and listened and listened to this song. And I thank Richard for being there to witness that last Wednesday's sunset with my dad, and for sharing his memories about a man he is so very similar to, and for his words on the Sunday morning after my father died.

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known.
In seasons of distress and grief,
My soul has often found relief,
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare,
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
The joys I feel, the bliss I share,
Of those whose anxious spirits burn
With strong desires for thy return!
With such I hasten to the place
Where God my Savior shows His face,
And gladly take my station there,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
Thy wings shall my petition bear
To Him whose truth and faithfulness
Engage the waiting soul to bless.
And since He bids me seek His face,
Believe His Word and trust His grace,
I’ll cast on Him my every care,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
May I thy consolation share,
Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height,
I view my home and take my flight.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”