It's 10am on Christmas Day. I haven't slept in my bed in days. I'm running on 30 minute naps that I get whenever I can. This doesn't feel like Christmas. We didn't wake up to breakfast and presents and stockings. We woke up to pain and suffering. Papa is pictured above holding my son with me by his side. He doesn't look particularly well in that picture but it was four months ago and he was a lot better then than he is now. He has been on hospice since June and we are told he most likely won't make it to Saturday.
I don't know why exactly I'm writing this blog. I think writing has always been my way of coping with what I am thinking and feeling and I really need any kind of relief I can get. Papa has been getting worse and worse since Monday. At this point, he has been bed bound since Tuesday. He can't move on his own. His body holds a constant fever. It's a struggle to breathe. He tries to mumble in response to what we say to him but ninety-eight percent of the time we cannot understand it. He hasn't eaten or drank anything in four or five days. Yesterday was the 63rd anniversary of when he married my grandmother, and now today is Christmas.
I never thought we would be saying goodbye to the man we love the most on Christmas. I don't think any of us did. A week ago he was mobile. Really, he needed our help to walk at all, but he could do it. He could mostly get to the bathroom on his own, what little he ate he could eat on his own, he was very coherent to be able to have conversations with us, and even hold our kids. Sunday night I laid in bed with him and we watched Misty Edwards preach on being yoked to Jesus. That's been our favorite thing to do the past couple of months. And then Monday morning he woke up and said that he felt "different". What does that even mean? Hospice told us that patients usually just know when it's the end. He spent Monday feeling terrible. We kept him on morphine and most of the time he was out of it, but he still managed to tell everyone in the family that came to see him goodbye. He took us all individually and said the last things he wanted us to know and what he wanted more than anything for our lives. That was the last day he could converse. I think he knew.
This past season has been a hard one for me. Full of sorrow and pain and struggling to hold on to my belief in an invisible G-d and a loving saviour. And now, the man that raised me, loved me, protected me, encouraged me, believed in me, held me, pushed me, took me in, and gave me his name to carry and pass on is dying on Christmas. That's hard in general, but it's even worse to feel like your world is concaving but on instagram and facebook everyone else's world is moving on normally. It makes me angry.
I honestly feel angry at G-d, too. Of all the times that we thought it was the end with papa, why now? Why is G-d calling him home on Christmas? He knows that it's going to take quite a long time for me to be able to function normally. I can't understand why. And now, days into his deathbed, I cannot comprehend why G-d is letting papa lay in this bed and suffer for so long. Why can't He just take him already? It will end the pain and papa will enter Glory. Why is He letting papa lie there while his muscles jerk uncontrollably and he runs a fever. While he struggles with hearing us but not being able to communicate back. When he can't eat or drink for days. I thought He was merciful. This doesn't look or feel like mercy at all.
I'm sitting here listening to the rain and watching the Christmas lights. There's no Christmas cookies baking, or Christmas feast for dinner. We bought a plethora of ready made food days ago in preparation knowing that during the last few hours of papa's life we wouldn't feel like cooking. We aren't playing Christmas music and there are no movies playing in the living room. There is no Christmas cheer. Only sorrow and mourning. All that's left to do is wait. Wait and pray.
My papa is the greatest man I have ever known and will ever know. He was a safe place for all he knew and loved. It's time to say goodbye.
For the first time in years we didn't read the Nativity. But I feel the weight of it. It's hard to know that Christ defeated death when you're staring this in the face, but I know in a few short hours papa will go from being the crippled man on the bed to an energetic man running through the fields to the horizon. Dancing with his wife, asking Jesus all the questions he's ever had, and finally feeling free. Free from what this world is. Free from congestive heart failure. Free from kidney failure. Free.
Papa, you'll be home for Christmas.
Sweet Freedom.
If you're reading this and you pray, pray for our family. My mother especially. We aren't going to take this well by any means. Yes, he will be in a better place. I believe that. But telling me that doesn't help. A hug is nice. I simply need my time to mourn. And that mourning will run so deep, I need G-d's grace to make it through it. We all do. That is how you can pray.
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