(Glendalough National Park, Co Wicklow, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)
Another long hard day.
Today promises to be much the same as there are to be more tests and scans
in the early hours of the day.
We sat side by side in an exam room at the Oncologist’s office.
The pleasantries all neatly said and done,
the facts were placed before us in not so easily digested wording.
Dad sat slummed in the wheelchair as he wrung his hands nervously round and round.
Frail and feeble I thought I was looking at my grandmother 30 years prior.
I wonder when his skin became so thin and translucent…
The doctor excuses himself to go check on the latest scan reports…
The air now thick and heavy in the exam room as we wait,
with the unspoken words of what will be…
Dad turns to me and asks…
“Reckon where we go when we die”
Sirens go off in my head as this question of skepticism is
percolating up from somewhere deep inside a Baptist turned Episcopalian…
as a lump forms heavy in my throat…
“We go to heaven Dad”
“How do you know?”
“Because He said so Dad.
“Who”
“God…Jesus…”
“Where do you think we go Dad?”
“Maybe it’s like you were never born…
you just aren’t any more…”
“No Dad, we go to Heaven,
Cause He said so”
“Well….I guess I can see Ed…”
(my brother who committed suicide almost 25 years ago…
“And I guess I can see MaryAnn
(my mom who died from cancer 30 years ago, today would have been her 83rd birthday)”
“Yes Dad, you can…
(and here’s where I know we need to lighten this train of thought)
but I think Mother may ask you what’s up with this Gloria business…”
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that should I?”
“No Dad, probably not but it’s a little late to think about that now…”
And so went the course of the day…
Heavy thoughts hanging over our heads…
We went from one doctor today to another…
Then I cried the whole way…
driving back home as I sat in and out of a sea of cars…
And I have to be back at 8:30 taking him for more testing.
It’s all bad and yet it’s all good.
It could be worse, yet it could certainly be better…
It’s hard and will not be easy…
Yet as hard as it is,
I know…
without a doubt
He knows
and He hears,
and He sees…
And He is in our midsts….
and that a better place and time awaits….
For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—
and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God…
Ephesians 2:8
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