Desolation & Silence - My Dad has heart problems

“I was talking to a priest today….do you want to hear what a priest said?” – Helen Girardi
“Was it a handsome priest?” – Will Girardi
“Not as handsome as you” – Helen
“Well in that case go ahead.” - Will
“He said that we go through times of consolation and desolation. Consolation is when things are flowing & everything makes sense & you feel connected & you’re aware that God is present & has plans for you, maybe even likes you a little bit… You remember that?” - Helen
“Sometimes…” - Will
“Desolation is the other thing. When you are scared & confused & alone & out of step & your cell phone doesn’t work & your daughter gets sick & the cops come to the door & say there’s been an accident…. God retreats & you’re left with your own thoughts & those thoughts are…dark… there are answers there, he told me, & strength” - Helen
“How long does desolation last?” - Will
“As long as it needs to….” – Helen

- From “Silence”, Joan of Arcadia Season 1

Last Friday I phoned my mom. I was happy, excited, cheerful… excited about life. I’d had a productive week at work & felt good about that & about life in general & I phoned my mom to ask some questions for gift ideas & was all excited and… from the tone in her voice I knew something was wrong.

My dad’s been having trouble sleeping for a while now. He wakes up feeling like he’s suffocating, like he can’t breathe and so he jerks awake gasping for air. He finally went to the doctor to get it checked out & they did an x-ray & found water on his lungs & started throwing around works like ‘congenitive heart failure’ (which I don’t know what that is, just the ‘heart failure’ thing sounds pretty bad). And so that’s started our little journey. That was a week ago. This week has been a battery of tests & they figure that he had a small heart attack (possibly disguised as one of the bad acid reflux/heartburn things that are common with the males in my family) & the damage has been done. Today he found out that the ‘return’ in his heart isn’t working right – there’s some kind of blockage. They told him that if there’s a return rate of 40 that that’s really serious & his return rate is 30 (worse). So the doctor’s basically ordered him into immediate retirement… my dad’s a carpenter…and only 60 – which sometimes seems old, but now seems way, way too young to be dealing with this kind of thing….

And so…. Well, that’s really the big question now. So? The world changes now. My indestructible, tough as nails, work-horse dad is now supposed to not work & keep himself entertained (i.e. keep from going crazy) with what? How bad is this? Does this mean his time on planet is really limited? Will he die? How many years do we get with him (please, God, let it be years)? It’s all unknowns & the unknowns are driving me crazy.

I’m a fantastic worrier. If I could have it as a marketable skill I’m sure I’d be the CEO of Worry Corp… One of the gifts of being a creative is a great imaginiation, but it’s times like these where the imagination runs amuck… Last week I’d planned the rest of my life out… dad would die, I’d move home to look after my mom, try to find some job in Castor with a skill set completely unsuited for life in Castor… I’d eke out a meagre existence, try to pay the bills, would likely sell the house in Calgary. I’d never marry ‘cause I’d likely never meet anyone out here. And since I usually end up with whatever health issues Dad faces about 20 years after he gets them, well, I knew how I’d die, too…. Too early, very alone….

..and yeah, lots of selfish ‘me’ thoughts, but yeah, those are easier to think than to really contemplate what life would be like without my dad. When I was in my teens/early 20’s I had some rough go’s with my dad. Mostly me trying to grow into myself & that conflicted with Dad’s image of who I was & so we’d fight & I desperately, desperately just wanted him to like me, to be proud of me, to say that he trusted my judgement (he could still think I was crazy, but so long as he was confident that I’d figure it out, that was OK). But we’ve worked through all that stuff & now I’ve been able to enjoy a wonderful friendship with my dad. I really admire & love him & he’s such a great guy & yeah,… yeah… I’m not sure exactly how I’d cope with the emptiness that would be left if he was gone….

…I mean I know we all have to die, but yeah, I just wasn’t ready for it, not so soon….

And so the praying begins. I haven’t really prayed in any official, “real” praying-ish capacity for some time now. Conversations with God are simple or something. For a long time now, it’s mostly been just contemplation stuff, trying to understand Him, or it’s been little random “thank you’s” when I realize how wonderful He is or how rich & wonderful a life I’ve been given… Sometimes it’s quick prayers for help – mostly help for others, sometimes for me… but yeah, lots of little moment conversation stuff when I remember He’s there – which maybe doesn’t happen lots, but the moments of ‘awareness’ (or close to awareness) have been good ones & cherished when they happen…..

…but now, now I don’t know how to pray. Most of the prayers have been fuelled by the worries…. They become random, quick, almost chanty prayers. “God help my dad. Help him be OK. Keep his heart going.. heal him.” And the same sets of word repeat over & over like some broken record… I try to find creative ways to say the same thing to God…. Again it’s driven by fear… maybe if I pray it a bunch of times God will listen & hear… maybe out of my persistence, maybe out of His annoyance…. Maybe it’s out of wanting some sense of control… if I’m ‘busy’ ‘praying’ about it, then maybe that’ll give me the sense of control back that I lost….

Then I start bargaining – begging God like he’s some dark pagan deity to take me & spare my dad. “Kill me, my life’s not that big of a deal – just don’t take my dad….not yet anyhow…”. And yeah, I’ve started to wonder whether those kinds of prayers are praying to God or to the devil….

But really it comes down to my understanding of God….. I’ve encountered my share of desolation… maybe it’s ‘cause I’m a wimp & can’t handle the average curve balls that life throws you. Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m a feeler & overly melodramatic & I let stuff affect me more than the other ‘sane’ people out there. But I know that I’ve tasted desolation… I know what it feels like for God to be silent, to be quiet, to be ‘absent’…. I know what it feels like to pray & beg & plead & watch the answer to your prayers be “no”…..and I’ve learned. I’ve learned that in desolation, God feels absent ‘cause He’s so close – He comes right inside your skin so He can feel everything you feel, take every blow, every hurt & pain that you receive. He dwells in you so He can cry your tears, so His lungs can feel your sobbing, so His shoulders can sink with the weight that bears down on you…and, as we are unaware of the skin we wear or the air we breathe, so too we become unaware of Him, not because He is gone, but because He just feels like He’s gone…

I’ve learned, after much hindsight, the lessons that desolation teaches – most of all that God is good & that He can be trusted. This is said only after hindsight. In the middle of the heat (or rather the cold) of desolation, when you’re in the heart of the beast & drowning in sorrow & despair, it doesn’t feel like He’s right or good or trustworthy…. All you can see is your own pain, see all the ways you’re ‘disappointed’ by Him ‘cause He’s ‘let you down’ by not doing what you wanted him to do…. But, after sometimes years, you see the beauty of what the desolation brought. You see the forest that has sprung up after the fire, the wildflowers & meadows that spring up after the flood…. You see, in the end, that all the stuff that God did was the right thing, was the best thing, and that, in the end you have grown, love has grown & you’ve learned how to love, learned how to trust & all in all the world has been made a warmer & better place because you & those around you have learned the lessons of compassion – to suffer with…..

In Song of Solomon chapter 5 it talks about the dark night of the soul & how God sometimes ‘removes’ Himself to help mature our love. Too often we fall in love for how it makes us feel & our ‘love’ is really all about us, all about what we can ‘get’ from the relationship…. But real love is all about giving, about pouring yourself out like water for another…. If a parent spends all their money in order to save their kid from cancer, if they ruin themselves for the sake of their child being ‘saved’, it’s not some sacrifice they really think about & agonized over – it’s that they’d do anything for the one they love – willingly, gladly – and this is the hallmark of love…. It’s the love pictured by Jesus dying on the cross for the bride that He loved, for the humanity that He loves…. And it’s the times of desolation, the times where there is nothing for us to ‘get’, where there is nothing we feel good about, that teach us what love really is…. Where we find ourselves saying in one breath, “I’m sick of love!!!” and in the next breath we say, “This is my beloved & this is my friend”…. This is where we start to understand what love is all about – where someone becomes so valuable to us that everything else in the world becomes like chaff, like dust,….

This is the kind of love that is holding my parents together right now, that has mom all planning on how to make sure Dad’s OK, that has the two of them sharing a bed even though dad my wake up gasping or need to flush out the fluids the pills are draining from his lungs…. It’s where you gladly trade a bad nights sleep for a chance to be there, to be present for the one you love, so they don’t feel like they’re facing this alone….

…and yeah, so it’s hard to pray with God… I know that He’s good & that He’ll do the right thing… but the ‘right’ thing scares me. I don’t want to walk the path of desolation that involved losing a parent…not yet anyhow… I don’t want my dad to die, I don’t want him to have heart problems. I want him well. I want him without worries & fears & having to wonder what he can do/not do to not strain himself…..

…and I’m afraid to pray… afraid to give the whiny prayers that tell God how to run the show…. Partly it’s the residual fear/mistrust that goes, “I’ve prayed for stuff in the past & God’s just taken these things away & left me desolate, so if I pray for my dad to stay, God’ll take him away just to… to… to hurt me… to teach me another ‘lesson’…..” and yeah, I’m trying not to think like that. The flip side of that though is that if it’s God’s ‘will’, his ‘plan’ to take my dad from this planet early, then I can’t argue with God. I can’t fight the throne. No matter how much begging & pleading I do, God will still do what He wants to do…. And yes, I know in the long run whatever that is will be the ‘best’ for all of us, but yeah, it sure wouldn’t feel like the best if the ‘best’ is taking dad.

So instead, my prayers revert to the simplest of all prayer…. ‘Oh, God…..” is where it starts & then it all trails off into a flood of emotions that choke the words… there are no words to express the overflow of the heart… the mixture of sadness & longing & fear & hope…and he knows what those emotions mean, He knows the words that I cannot find voice to speak….

…but yeah, like Will, I ask, “how long does desolation last?”… I watched this episode last night & yeah… I was left doing my weird sob/shriek-y thing when Will asked that… How long, God? How long does it have to last? How much hurt do we have to experience here? Why do the good times always feel so short & like they’re over too soon…

and yeah, I guess I’ve learned, too, that God answers me the way that I have to pray….In the “Oh, God…” prayers, there are no words to express what I need to say & in God’s ‘silence’ there is really no words to express the things we need to hear, want to hear… and so all He does is wait there, in silence, waiting to listen, to hold us, like a lover or a dedicated parent… the answers don’t help in desolation… knowing won’t make it any better & won’t make the desolation go away any quicker. What is needed in desolation is love & that’s what He waits to give us, and show us, in the silence…..