Excerpt: Leader of the Band

An excerpt from 7 Days:

My father’s thin, stubbled face sheepishly grinned through his intubation. His kind, strong hand held mine tight, and for the first time since we found out about his cancer, I looked my father in the eye and did not turn away until our moment was finished. This was the first morning I saw him in the ICU. Just seven days before I would hold his hand for the last time. 

His eyes were soft and clear: “I’m sorry.”  

My father was sorry. Sorry he didn't take better care of himself. Sorry he didn't have anything but debt to leave me. Sorry he had to leave so soon. Sorry he was making me an orphan. Sorry I didn't see Jesus the way he did. Sorry he wasted so much of his life putting things off that he'd never be able to do now. Sorry he didn't spend more time with me. Sorry I had to watch him die.

And somewhere in all of that, my father was also grateful. Grateful that I took care of him. Grateful for the softball games he got to watch me play. Grateful for the birthdays he got to spend with me. Grateful for the Christmases and Thanksgivings we got to share together. Grateful for the talks we'd had over the past month. Grateful that I loved him after all the angst of my childhood. Grateful that I was with him at the end to help him let go. Grateful that I was strong enough to tell him it was okay to let go. 

If pictures are worth a thousand words, the moment I realized my father's gratitude for me was worth Encyclopedia Britannica. The moments we shared at the end of his life are a gift I will never be able to repay. 

I used to think so much about missing my mother that I forgot about my father. I don't mean that I didn't realize he was there. It just took years for it to occur to me that not only did I learn from my father, but also that the lessons I learned from him were far healthier than much of what I learned from my mother. I realized that the point in this realization is not that Jerry was a better father than Jayme a mother, but that being aware of what both had to offer, of what both had actually given me—of the fact that both had actually contributed to all that I am—allowed me to make educated decisions on what worked and what didn't in my life. The awareness that there were things I picked up from each of them was the paradigm shift I needed to grow past their deaths.

This was one of my mother's favorite songs, but it sums up a great deal of the relationship between my father and I, as it turns out: