The last 3 years have been hard on us. It started like a TV
show, in the middle of the night, at precisely 2:59 AM. The door
bell rings. As you climb your way out of sleep, wondering if you really
heard the doorbell, it rings again. Who on earth could that be? It
Can’t be good. I quickly pushed on Mike, who only groaned and rolled
over, so I decided to brave it on my own. Looking through the peep hole I see
two men in uniforms. It’s the police. Maybe it was a break-in?
"Is there someone else home with you? You should go
get them."
Now I know this really "can’t be
good!" As I go get Mike, thoughts run through my head.
"Who do we know that the police would come to us for?
My Mom? No, they would phone Mark, not me, ..... "
Then the officer begins to talk, "Is Wade Davis your
father"
More thoughts race in my head "oh, no, Dad! Is he ok, sick,
no police don’t come for that, hurt, was it...."
My thoughts are interrupted by, "I'm sorry to
inform you, he was involved in a car accident, .... he didnt survive."
How the breathe just leaves you in that moment. "How?
Where?" He tells us some of the details. Phrases like, flipped multiple
times, thrown from the car, caught on fire..... Horrific..... I feel the need
to sit. The kind policeman leaves. Nausea sets in. At this point there aren’t
any tears, just shock. Until I think of waking the boys, and telling them their
Grandpa has died. All the things he was bursting to teach them, he won’t get
the chance to do that now. That’s when then the tears came.
The shock of a sudden death is numbing. I couldn’t
even think of what to put in my suitcase. What do people pack? Wandering
aimlessly in the bedroom looking at drawers blankly. Then driving up island at
5:00 to go to the police station for his things. Vastly out of the norm. What
followed was even more numbing.
5 weeks later my Grandma died. It was at her memorial that I
picked up my Dads ashes. Too close, far too close.
Besides the emotional fallout that has come from my Dad's
death, which has been huge, his property was a nightmare to deal with. Nothing
goes smoothly it seems. Let me get out my list, the list of lamentations.....
He was partly renovating the house at the time so things needed to be done,
there wasn't even a furnace, we needed a new roof on the garage, the hot water
tank went within just a week of his death, we had hassles with the ex over
RRSP's, a problem with the ownership of some of the property, even a threat to
sue his estate! Not to mention the sheer mountains of stuff. And its not the kind
of stuff you can just throw in the dumpster either. My Dad was a mechanic
and an antique collector. We didn't even know what some of it was.
It took us 3 years just to get the bulk of it sold and straitened away. And
don’t forget, we still had our own lives to live, our own business to run. I
barely had a moment to grieve. And then, plopped down in the midst of it all, 6
months after my Dad was gone, ……… I got my first melanoma……….Then another………..
then another………then a recurrence scare. This is where I am now. 3 1/2
years later. Forever changed.
I was always an eternal optimist, with an idealistic view on
life. I tried to see the good in everything, no matter how hard it was. I could
find the rainbow in just about anyone or anything. But life in the past 3 years
has altered that. It turned me into more of a realist, something I never
dreamed I was capable of! I mourn the loss of my internal optimist. But it got
broken. Every time I started to feel my optimism breaking forth from its cage,
a new trouble would come and beat it into submission. So sadly, I just began
assuming things wouldn’t go well, I’d kinda gotten used to it. If it can go
wrong, it seems to go wrong round here. Just a grey cloud hanging over our
lives. I began to accept the cloud’s presence. But in the strangest way, the
acceptance of becoming a realist, also felt enlightening. Like a right of
passage into adulthood.
All of these trials have taught me about survival, the
ability to find joy, genuine inner joy, from giving of yourself, despite your
own circumstances. It showed me who I am deep down inside. That who I have
tried to be and thought I was all these years, is really there,
not just in my head. For in adversity you show who you truly are. What your
strengths, are. I found out, that in the face of any obstacle, I am never going
to back down. I will not let that lion win. I will not turn inward, and become
selfish. The harder he pushes the more I push back. And I have done so without
losing my integrity. That isn’t to say I haven’t had my moments of shame, I
have, but on the whole, I have maintained my integrity and been true to myself
and my moral compass. That is an inner joy that can never be taken away from
me.
I now know the true meaning of these words: “Nothing can
separate us from God. Who will separate us from the love of the Christ? Will
tribulation or distress or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or
sword?...... For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor
angels, nor governments, nor things now here,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creation, will be able to separate us from God’s love….” Rom
8:35,38,39
The story of Job doesn’t seem as farfetched now. I am
feeling a bit Job-like. He suffered as a good man. I hope to at least aspire to
do the same. Even if I lose my life, I am not really losing it, as long as I
keep my integrity as he did. This system will never break my desire to help
others, and be there for my friends. It will never stop me from sharing my
knowledge and spiritual understanding with others. By giving, I have found
solace. In my darkest days I have found peace in teaching others the beauty and
hope for the future. Things will not always be this way. There will come a day
when no resident will say I am sick. My studies were truly a gift from God that
helped me survive. I thank him for them often. They have helped me become
stronger spiritually than I have ever been before. And I can thank adversity
for giving me that. I have been broken, but I am blessed. And so I guess I am
still an optimist, just a different kind than I used to be.
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