My niece Nicole is spending
some time in Panama
with my ailing Father. For all purposes,
he is Nicole’s Dad too, so seeing him in such debilitated condition is taking a
toll in her soul. As with all who knew
my Father for longer than the past year, Nicole is facing the once unthinkable
reality of seeing my Dad not in full control of himself and unable to function
at full capacity.
All his life he has been a
strong tower, a fortress of strength. He
has provided a sense of safety and stability to those who knew him, specially
his girls, starting with my late Mom, my sister, myself and of course, Nicole. As a little girl I remember never being afraid
of something harming me, because my Dad was always around. I vividly remember the first time that I ever
felt an earthquake. I was in elementary
school. My Mom and Dad were visiting my
Grandma, as they always did every evening until the day she passed away. Then, something crazy happened! The earth started to shake! At first, I just didn’t know what was going
on. I was home with Rosa
and I began to cry for my Dad uncontrollably. After the quake stopped, Rosa
quickly called my Grandma’s house and begged my parents to come home for she
didn’t know how to comfort me. There
were several aftershocks, but my Dad had already made it home by then. As soon as he entered the house, he held me in
his strong arms and paced with me back and forth, quietly and gently brushing
his big hands on my head again and again. We had to go outside as a safety measure, but
he never let go of me. Needless to say,
I immediately calmed down feeling completely safe in his arms.
Now that the world is
up-side-down and it is up to his girls to make sure he is safe and taken care
of, we don’t know how to deal with it. “He
wanted to continue chatting, but I just needed to get out,” Nicole told me on
the phone as she was recounting a long conversation she had with him in his
bedroom, while he laid frail in his bed.
“He wanted to talk, and even though he took long pauses to formulate his
thoughts before the words slowly came out of his mouth, he was very lucid at
the moment,” Nicole continued. “But
after a while, I just needed to get out of the room…”
There was deep sadness and
frustrations in her voice as she confessed the reality of her feelings at the
moment, but I knew exactly what she was going through. The same thing happened to me a month ago
when I was there, in that same room, listening to the paused words slowly
dripping out of my Father’s once eloquent mouth. I remember not wanting to be there. I remember not wanting to see him that way. I remember burying my head in a book so I
wouldn’t have to witness his daily decay. I too just wanted to get out.
The tower of strength is
crumbling. There isn’t much left of the
fortress that he once was. But I do know
that my real Tower
of Strength is keeping
His merciful eye on my earthly Father during his last days in this valley of
tears. I know the One and only Fortress will
be there to receive him and give him a place to rest under His shadow. And I know that when the time comes, my
strength will be and my help will come, as always, from the Lord, the Maker of
Heaven and Earth. (Psalm 121)
Today, only the love
remains. However, the same way I
remember wanting to burst out of his room not to see my Father in his current
condition, I remember laying my head on his chest as he gently brushed it with
his shaky hand again and again. The
memory of those moments when he pulled me toward himself and made me lean on
him so he could embrace me and run his bony fingers through my hair as if to
comfort me, as if guessing the agony in my heart, would live with me forever. I would cherish the memories of the moments
when, though wanting to run as far away as I could, I stayed in his room to
enjoy his embrace even if for only one last time.
The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run
to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10
you're in my prayers
ReplyDeleteKeeping you, your dad and your family in my thoughts and prayers....
ReplyDeleteThank you so much.
ReplyDeleteYou are so blessed to have had your father take such a strong, comforting role in your life, Gisela. My prayers and thoughts are with you and your father as he goes through this hard time in his life. May our Heavenly father comfort you.
ReplyDelete