Sitting in the ER Thinking About Toast

I am sitting in the ER with my dad.

This is our third visit trying to figure out what’s going on.

I want to be clear. This isn’t a negative reflection on healthcare workers. Every person we’ve encountered has been personable, caring, and kind. My dad usually goes through the VA, and his primary care is there. But right now, the VA can’t provide some of the services he needs quickly enough, so the ER becomes the option unless you want to wait… and sometimes waiting just isn’t something you can do. But that’s beside the point.

I am sitting here looking at my dad, and I can feel we are approaching a shift in both our lives.

Soon, I will become the caregiver. It's a role my sisters and I have played before, but it does t make it any easier.

When my sisters and I helped care for our grandma, we had my mom leading us, and we were all together. When we cared for my mom, it was the three of us we rotated around the clock. We carried it together.

Now it’s just two of us.

My sister Jacque, the one Jolene and I always leaned on is gone. It’s been two years, and there are still moments it doesn’t feel real. It’s strange to go from a family of five… to four… to three… and now, maybe, signs of becoming two.

I find myself wondering about the day it becomes one.

What will that feel like for the one left alone.

The other night I watched the tv show, The Middle. There was a scene where Mike takes Sue on a college visit. He ends up asking her if he was a bad dad because he didn’t do the “big things” no sprinkle pancakes,no daddy daughter days.

Sue tells him he was the best dad.

She talked about the rocks he brought home because he thought she’d like them. Or, he was the one to pump up her bike tires.

She remembers him showing up.

Working hard and being reliable.

He was a good dad for her.

So I sit here, looking at my dad, and I ask myself the same question:

What made him a good dad? Are the reason I have different than my sisters?

Maybe dads are good in different ways.

Maybe they’re good in different stages of their lives and their children's lives.

Maybe sometimes it depends on what space they’re given, or what they know how to give.

I don’t remember my dad coming to many of my games. I remember my mom in the bleachers.

I don’t remember hearing “I love you” from my dad until I was almost 40.

I don’t remember a lot of vacations or road trips with him.

But I remember other things.

He always made sure to kiss my mom goodbye every time he left the house.

He was always awake and ready before me.

He made sure we went to bed. He was the one that announced "bedtime".

He killed the bats that got into the house at night.

He helped me learn how to ride a bike.

He never yelled.

He got the snowmobile unstuck every time I needed help and never was upset about it.

He was quiet.

He was frustrating sometimes.

He didn’t share his feelings.

But he came home every night.

He lived in a house with four women and never once complained.

And when my mom was gone some nights, he’d fry up potatoes and onions for us.

He never cut the crust off my toast, but he still made me toast until I learned how.

I guess my Dad and others can only give what they know how.

Love doesn't always look the way you expect it to. Sometimes it's not soft, it's not expressed with words or even shown by action.

Sometimes it's being steady. Quiet. Home every night.

Sometimes it's showing up every day even when you don't say much.

Sometimes it a fry pan with potatoes and onions.

Sometimes its the trusted hand on the bike seat holding steady.

Sometimes its never complaining about living in a house with four woman and one bathroom.

Showing love doesnt have to be cutting off the crust but going to work everyday to make sure there was bread to even make toast with.

He was a good dad to me.

People show their love in their own way and that just because I have a certain expectaion of how to show love. It doesn't mean someone hasn't lovedme the best that they could..

So i will just take what’s in front of me …

…and I will eat the crust.