My Dad had been dying for five months. Each day I wondered: “Will this be the day?” Each day I dealt with the guilt of praying for his death to be swift; that he might escape the agony that was the pulse-beat of his dwindling life. Each day I had to face the agony of prayer unanswered—prayer for healing that availed nothing. Each day I watched my hero, who had taught me gymnastics and had carried me up mountains, melt away into the sack of bones that I now had to carry to the loo.
Each day I knew with increasing certainty that I was very angry with the omnipotent God whom I served for visiting this trial upon my Dad. I could have given Him a list of at least twenty people whom I knew (and perhaps a few hundred public figures) whom I thought were far more deserving of this miserable fate than my Dad.
Not that I had never disagreed with him; not that I had never resented his discipline. Like any good father, he had sanctioned me at times for my bad behaviour. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but I do now.
My Dad grew up in a broken home—son of a policeman who seemed committed to perpetuating the myth of the Irish being a nation of drunks. My Dad’s lasting memory of his father was of getting as far under the double bed as possible, with his five brothers, as they tried to avoid the flailing belt buckle of their angry, drunken father. That’s a pretty good excuse for being a dysfunctional parent.
But this father, hero of mine, said: “This stops here.” As a result, I grew up in a home where my mother was cherished and my two sisters and I lived such a secure and sheltered life that we scarcely realised that there was suffering in this fallen world. This man, who had taught me to pray, to love, to be a gentleman, seemed to have been betrayed by the God whom he had served all his life.
My Mom and sisters sat on one side of the bed whilst I, the left-brained one, sat on the other side, holding Dad’s hand while surreptitiously feeling his carotid pulse with my free hand.
I recalled the conversation we had had the night before.
“I’m dying”, said my Dad.
“I think so”, I replied, finally yielding to the inevitable as I watched the sparkle start to fade from his eyes.
“Promise me this”, he said through the pain. “Promise me that you will look after your mother. I’ve loved her so much”.
“I will, Dad. I promise”, I sobbed, my stiff upper lip having suddenly gone a bit floppy.
Now, twelve hours later, we sat, waiting for the moment. Waiting for the moment that I, then, saw as the consummation of God’s betrayal of a fine man, but which I now understand to be God’s reward for a life well-lived.
I knew the moment when his heart stopped.
I saw the light go from his eyes.
I felt his hand become cold.
My Dad was dead…
Then I became a man.