My father died June 13 after a long battle with Pulmonary Fibrosis, Colorectal Cancer, and Prostate Cancer. We are nearly four months into life without him, and yet the grief my brother and I have experienced has been an emotional roller coaster of shock, anger, and sadness compounded by the physical tasks of wrapping up his unfinished business and cleaning his house and seven storage rooms.
You read that right. Seven storage rooms.
Mom died ten years ago, and she’d been the glue. Once she was no longer here, his cord came unraveled. He would not allow others – especially his own children – to help him divest himself of his belongings, and he did not know how to handle these things alone – even though he insisted he did and promised time and again that he would.
Oh, how he was stubborn! He bought a car against the advice of the mechanic inspecting it (all because he’d lost the keys to the one he drove). He fired the housekeeper that his doctor strongly urged him to hire and keep after only one visit – reluctantly managing the hiring, but not the keeping.
We struggled to find compassion for Dad when he wouldn’t listen – and frustration lingers as my brother and I have had to bring our own lives to a screeching halt to try to clean up the mess he would not allow us to touch before school started back, which would have allowed a better pace and less racing against the clock to avoid additional monthly storage fees.
I’ll admit: I felt a certain smug satisfaction when a huge limb fell on his new car and knocked the side view mirror off, proving that the repair bills on that make and model would be far more than we knew he wanted to spend after he’d told us sternly that we were just wrong. I delighted in the concierge doctor who did more than suggest that the boxes stacked against the door of the guest room were a fire hazard and that the condition of the home warranted a housekeeper.
We came to places of disbelief, watching him do things no person in their right mind would do. Once we realized he wasn’t in his right mind, we developed what little compassion we could muster.
It was hard to feel compassion for our father, who seemed to be working against us at every turn.
Ephesians 4:32 says be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. How many times has God watched me make mistakes, deliberately and willfully, and then forgiven me with grace and mercy? I needed to extend grace to my earthly father the way my Heavenly Father has so freely offered it to me for 59 years. Even though compassion isn’t listed as one of the nine fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, I’m pretty sure it’s an offshoot fruit, like a secondary or tertiary fruit in the complete rainbow sherbet of spiritual fruits.
Feelings of guilt and regret emerged as we watched our father lying at peace in his Hospice bed, breathing machine as loud and obnoxious as an after-storm generator in a total power loss. I took photos of our hands holding his, so still against the backdrop of the snow white sheets. There was silence without peace, sleep without rest, stillness without calm in all the trademark ways that grief works.
I grappled with my lack of compassion when it mattered – and will carry some of that regret for the rest of my life. I was not as tactful and understanding as I could have been while Dad was still alive. But I take comfort that I held presence in those final weeks, burning sick and bereavement days at work to be with him. I invited his stories of the good old days, recorded them, and took interest in them. I offered words of thankfulness and pride in him, making our peace at the bitter end of a long road.
….still I wonder:
how far down the road
is self-forgiveness
and how does regret
over the absence
of compassion
get resolved?
I’m asking my Spiritual Journey friends for your stories and insights on compassion today. Please share your links to your blogs below. If you do not have a blog, please share your experiences and stories in the comments.
Common Threads 