The Way I Survived

I had planned to write about a medical topic this week, but my emotions are getting the better of me.

In less than three weeks, my kids leave for college, making my husband and me empty nesters for the first time.

Shortly after that, I turn 50.

Oddly enough, turning 50 doesn't bother me much. What it has done, though, is stir up an enormous amount of nostalgia.

Then comes September—a month that reminds me of the deaths of two people who were incredibly important to me.

Throw in work, insecurities, extreme humidity, and yes...of course I'm having random crying jags.

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So instead of a medical lesson this week, you get pure emotion.

When my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I knew.

I knew he was going to die from this horrible disease.

You could tell me I was being negative. You could say I never gave him a chance.

Maybe you're right.

But statistics gave him very little chance of survival, so who was I to argue?

I wanted hope.

I just couldn't manufacture it.

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I'd love to tell you that I became the perfect daughter.

That I sat beside him for hours listening to stories from his childhood.

That I asked him all the questions I wish I'd asked.

That I let him be vulnerable with me.

Even more, I'd like to tell you that I let myself be vulnerable with him.

But I can't tell you any of those things.

Because people grieve differently.

And I grieved the only way I knew how.

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So what did I do?

I became a really good doctor...

...to my dad.

I made sure he wasn't in pain.

I explained his lab work and CT scans.

I coordinated procedures.

I helped arrange doctor's appointments.

I translated medical jargon into plain English.

I did everything I knew how to do.

Within a very specific lane.

From a very safe emotional distance.

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This past weekend, my brother-in-law reshared a video he had made during the final year of my dad's life.

It was a collection of little interviews filmed while my dad rested in the hospital bed in my parents' living room.

"What was your favorite job?"

"Ice cream man."

"What advice would you give your daughters' husbands?"

"Don't argue."

There were videos of my niece and nephew crawling into bed beside their grandfather and my sister giggling in the background.

Everyone looked so...present.

And then I found myself asking the same question I've been asking for the past twelve years.

Where was I?

I wasn't there.

I was home.

Hiding.

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I remember that winter.

It was brutal.

I'd go outside to shovel snow and end up crying in the driveway.

I'd make excuses.

The kids had activities.

I had work.

We were busy.

One Sunday—I think it was the last Father's Day my dad was alive—everyone sat around the table eating falafel.

Instead of joining them, I sat on the living room floor scanning old family photographs into the computer.

I was preserving old memories instead of making new ones.

For the next ten years, I couldn't eat falafel.

It tasted like regret.

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Watching those videos this weekend, I realized something that hit me like a punch to the chest.

I lost eleven months with my dad.

Not because he died.

Because I left before he did.

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There isn't anything I can do to change that.

No do-over.

No rewind.

No second chance.

In life—and especially in death—you don't get those.

I know I did the best I could with the emotional capacity I had at the time.

I know that.

Intellectually.

But grief doesn't speak the language of logic.

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Today I have the video my brother-in-law made.

I have thousands of photographs that I scanned.

I have memories.

But if someone offered me one more minute with my dad...

I'd trade every scanned photograph in a heartbeat.

Looking back now, I realize I wasn't avoiding my dad.

I was avoiding the certainty that I was going to lose him.

My nervous system did exactly what nervous systems do when something feels unbearable.

It narrowed my world.

It found tasks instead of conversations.

Facts instead of feelings.

A doctor instead of a daughter.

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At the time, those choices weren't conscious. They were protective.

I can grieve the time I lost without condemning the person I was (but this is harder some days than others)

She was surviving the only way she knew how.

If this blog has a point, maybe it's this:

We spend so much of midlife looking backward, wishing we'd handled things differently.

But sometimes compassion isn't about forgiving someone else.

Sometimes it's about looking at an earlier version of ourselves and saying,

"You didn't do it perfectly. But you did the best you could with the emotional tools you had."

And some days that’s not enough. But some days it is.

Until then I’ll rewatch the part of the video where my dad looks into the camera with his advice:

“Just enjoy your life.”