It's time

It's been a year.

May 14, 2017 was Mother's Day. Our family gathered at Dad's house on Henry Court, as we did for pretty much every holiday we observed. And yeah, we observed Mother's Day even without Mom. Sometimes we'd go out, but last year ... last year, Dad was so tired.

He'd been tired for months. He muscled through as best he could, but going out to dinner would have been asking a bit much. So we gathered at the house we grew up in, and we had dinner together. If memory serves, that was the last time we were all together under one roof.

He was so tired.

Too tired.

And so, rather off the cuff, I said hey ... lemme take tomorrow off, Dad. Let me stay in town overnight, and come over first thing in the morning. Let me get Mike ready. Let me go with you to the doctor. Let me help.

The man was not much for accepting help, and so you knew that his acceptance of that offer meant he was feeling really pretty low, indeed.

And in that moment, everything changed.

Like life tends to do when you're not looking, mine turned on a dime. In a lot of ways, I found myself in the weeks that would come after that. I found patience, I found the heart of a caregiver, and gratitude I'd never before felt. My priorities became crystal clear. My dad, and my brother. Everything else was secondary.

I knew it would be temporary, but I thought that was because Dad would get better and we'd return to our regularly scheduled programming. Instead, a few weeks later Dad was gone.

At the time, I kept referring to the beauty in the pain. How even though the grief was at times excruciating, there was poetry in it. I kept saying, eventually I would write about it. Eventually, I will be able to process how losing Dad carried with it a measure of grace we could not possibly deserve.

It's time to tell the stories.