What do I know of lightning? Of history? Of the history of lightning and the statistics and the sayings, and something about things not happening twice? I know a lot. I have lived through Groundhog Day, and done it again, and I have learned we are creatures of habit, we are dysfunctional, and lightning does strike twice in the same place but perhaps just not in the same day.
I saw my dad go back into the hospital a week before Easter, and I saw him come out the day after. He would have come out on Easter if they discharged on Sundays, but I guess my dad isn’t Jesus. I guessed that a long time ago. But it is not a guess that God loves my dad, and perhaps employs a flock of guardian angels to keep him alive enough for me to grow up under his watch, even though I am 33. But I remember a man at the same age who was stronger than any individual. He had a slender frame and a beard and some people who followed him. He didn’t fear anyone, nor did he abhor anyone. Instead, he loved everyone. And at age 33 is when he died and he was scared, too, because he knew he had to die. But he didn’t show people his fear, even when he was betrayed.
When I was younger, high school or college-aged or something like that, my dad told me that if he grew up under different circumstances, he very well could have been slinging drugs. If that was the way the money was made and the other options seemed grim, that would be the easiest route. And when I heard that I stopped hating gang members and drug dealers and prostitutes. And after I graduated college, I found myself in Pomona, Calfornia, dealing with kids who had no dads and whose family members all dressed in the same colors and who might disappear over the weekend into a bullet’s momentum and there would be no news story about it the next day. I learned to love these kids and some of them learned to love me. I was affectionately known as Larry Bird…our recess basketball games made me more heroic to them than Dirk Nowitzky to every person who couldn’t stomach to see Miami win NBA Championship number one of nine in the next nine years. Latino gang bangers typically aren’t good basketball players, though. So then we played soccer, and they were shocked “Guero” had more game than them, in their game.
Appearances can be deceiving, and appearances can change, and people definitely can change and will, if encouraged. I probably was spoiled as a kid, and I probably am now, because sometimes I think I am better than others because of my education, and then I remember that about 20% of my Literature AP students are already smarter than I am, I don’t know how stocks work, I don’t think I could build a coffee table or put up shelves, and I can get my heart broken by the same girl 5 times in 5 months. I know math well enough to know that the above statistics don’t really put me in the “high aptitude” category. But I do know that my dad is smart, because he still knows when I am sad despite any attempt I make of a poker face, he knows that I love hearing relayed complements from parents about my teaching, he knows I still love sports, and he knows not complain in front of me about what has happened to his memory, probably because he knows I am a wuss who over-complains about things that don’t change the planet’s rotation or atmosphere. And he knows this despite losing a lot of short-term and long-term memory because of oxygen deprivation during a knee replacement surgery two and a half years ago.
But I do know a lot of other things, like what I said about lightning earlier. Because when my dad went back into the hospital a few months back, I knew what I had to do to survive it. I knew again, just how important family is. I knew again that I had a great father, and I was facing the prospects of not having one again. My dad had some infection or virus that caused a high fever and for a little over a week his memory and awareness was gone again. Again, he thought he was back on a boat, or in the military, and the sentences slurred, and my mom and I cried, and I was the guy who didn’t know what to say and couldn’t hold back tears in front of him so I had to leave the room while my mom and my sister held face and said prayers right in front of him that helped bring back his memory once again.
And so I found myself a once-or-twice-a-day Churchgoer again, because there is peace within the stained-glass windows and abundant salvation, and a very large figurine of the Guy who would still go to bat for his friends even if they ditched out on Him when the going got tough. And my dad at times during this brief stint told hospital staff he wasn’t ready to leave because he didn’t want to inconvenience my mom.
Memory is a tricky thing because we remember events differently. The more emotion that is attached to a memory, the more likely we are to remember a certain event or what was said differently. My dad would just like to remember, because most of the time now, he can’t. But when emotions run high between loved ones and he can sense other’s pain on the horizon, it’s magic because all of the sudden his memory emerges from the fog that has encompassed his life and he knows how to create peace. And if he can do that under minimal capacity, what are we doing when we fight, or when we don’t remember our friends and family’s trials, or the homeless guy trying to make a buck when he offers to wash your windows? What am I doing when I complain about those 8 pounds I put on the nine days my dad was in the hospital when I know if I put them on, I can take them off?
I have seen my dad turn around his life, and I have seen life turn around on him. And it was not fair. So I had to redefine fairness when I saw my dad do it. I know he’s upset about what happened. We all are. And I know he’s embarrassed about the resulting memory failure because sometimes people might be uncomfortable when he asks a waitress twice the same question in 30 seconds. And it is always hard for his closest family members to see this, because they still remember him as a guy who never lost an argument and should have been a lawyer.
And so when it’s Father’s Day, it is bittersweet in a way—the way that presents heartbreak yet simultaneously produces thankfulness. Because I remember how many people don’t have fathers, or mothers, or who have lost sisters and aunts and uncles or who have brothers or spouses who go across the world and fight for our ability to do things like write personal narratives on a Sunday night from the comfort of a couch with a loving pet perched on the armrest while ESPN is on in the background. And I still have my dad, the guy who could outrun me when I was young and could throw the highest pop flies imaginable because he had “dad strength.” And I still have the guy who has survived so much in his life but cares most about the future of his children, and their children. And I think that’s a lot. And a lot of times, that’s all one needs to know. And so if lightning strikes a third time, I write this now lest I forget, because God’s love that shines through us is what we need most.
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