Reminiscing the Future

I drove over the bridge and heard my father’s voice from my childhood, “Margaret, don’t ever play in Coldwater creek. It’s got toxins in there that’ll make you sick.” It was years before the media made any noise about waste from “Project Manhattan”, but my dad worked at the airport, and he knew something about bad stuff in the ground water. We lived in the suburbs of St. Louis and did some hiking around Little Creek Wildlife area in Florissant. But we always stayed out of the water. My dad was always trying to keep us safe because that’s what dads do.

Often after hiking around Dunegant Park, we’d stop by Fritz’s for some frozen custard. We were usually sweaty and tired. And that sweet treat was a welcome delight. Those warm summer evenings are gone forever though they live on in my memory. Lightening bugs. Grass stains. Obnoxious little brothers and surprise rain showers couldn’t dampen our fun.

I remember watching my father play softball with the church men. I sat on the bleachers and read Garfield comic books and swatted mosquitoes. Those games seemed to last forever, long into the night. I remember being very bored watching them run around in gray polyester blend shorts, inning after inning. So how is it some 40 years have passed, and those long nights are distant memory? And now my dad is laying in a hospital bed recovering from quadruple bypass heart surgery.

We thank God for the reprieve. We thank God he didn’t have a heart attack or worse. We are so grateful for modern technology and good cardiologists and excellent nursing care. But its still surreal and an awful thing for a family to go through.

I read Psalm 33 and prayed steadily for a couple solid days. I found my steadfast anchor of soul in these words:

“The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.” – Psalm 33: 13-15

I knew the God I love and serve fashioned my father’s heart. I knew he was able to make it beat again once it had been stopped by the doctors. But there were no guarantees. And I had to consider all the men and women who weren’t so fortunate–whose families prayed just as long and hard and were disappointed. My father likes to joke, “no one ever makes it out of this world alive.” This time I had to wonder if I would be reciting that at his funeral.

But back to driving. On the road between St. Charles and Florissant, MO, I experienced memories like water balloons bursting on my brain. Things I hadn’t thought about in years came back. Driving with my dad in his old brown Ford truck. Him telling me about Jesus. Him falling asleep driving. Him timing the stoplight so he could zoom left and cut in front of the drivers across the intersection. Him taking me for walks to find toads under the streetlights in the subdivision. Him telling me he loved me. And out of nowhere a song popped into my mind I hadn’t heard in many years. It was a Billy Joel tune:

“These are the times to remember for they will not last forever. These are the days to hold onto ’cause we won’t although we’ll want to. These are the times, but time is gonna change. You’ve given me the best of you, but now I need the rest of you.”

And after looking the song up on Youtube and listening to it a few times, I realize again just how fleeting and precious today is. I feel like I say it all the time–every day is a gift, and you never know which one will be your last. I’m very intentional about living that way but listening to that song made me want to stop time–just for a minute–so I could breathe in today and just stay in this beautiful, happy moment where my dad survived open heart surgery.

We have some long, hard days ahead. Recovery will take time. And my dad is pretty uncomfortable even though he’s got plenty of pain meds. It was hard seeing him in the hospital with drainage tubes. I told him he looked like a Borg–a reference he could appreciate since he basically trained me in Star Trek as a child. Every time I watch an old rerun of The Next Generation, I can see him standing over my shoulder gazing intently at the television. I was always waiting for his reaction–the flicker of a smile on his lips, his intense concentration over scary moment, my mom interrupting to tell me to go get her another bowl of popcorn. Star Trek was our Sunday evening ritual.

Sometimes I try to hold my breath as if by stopping my lungs I could somehow stop time. But the heart keeps beating. And the breaths fight for freedom. And another moment is gone.

Today, like Billy Joel sings, “I’m warm from the memory of days to come.” Those words never felt more appropriate. Tomorrow will be fleeting too, but I’m going to try to live it just as well as I lived today. But the best and brightest memories are yet to come. I told my father before the surgery that no matter what happened, Heaven was ahead of us. We have that promise from God and ratified by Jesus. And that is something so joyful and wonderful, that words don’t do it justice.

I stood in the driveway tonight and watched the storm clouds roll in. Big, billowing clouds took over the skies and I thought about the maker, the Savior, the Creator, my Friend. I thought about the finger that formed the clouds and created the human heart. And I felt very safe and loved.

Me and my Dad