Who is this man?
September 30th, 2001
Who is this man?
His hands once so strong,
His hands once able to carry me,
To walk me places,
To lead me…
Who is this man?
Now, here he lays,
His hands gingerly folded,
One over the other in dainty form;
So helpless and entirely at God’s mercy;
Who is this man?
He lays here shivering and cold.
Tears slide down his cheeks
And I know he yearns to be hugged,
To know love.
Who is this man?
Once he could care for himself,
But now he relies on the generosity of others.
I see his hands,
And even though they are
Tired and no longer carry me,
I can see strength.
Who is this God?
Paul found hope in his weakness.
In his sorrow he found strength.
His God is still God,
And Paul’s hope is also
My Father’s hope.
I wrote this when my father was in the hospital with Leukemia on September 30th, 2001: only a month before his death. I spent the night in his hospital room, and as he slept I took my notebook in hand and just stared at him as I wrote. I have never shared this with anyone except my wife, and consider it my life-lesson from my short time with Dad before his death.
Adam Parker – 1/28/03
My Father’s Illness and
Death: An account of January through October of 2001
To my family, should they read this: I am brutally honest in this account, and I do not mince words. My purpose in writing this was not to write an epitaph or a rosey account of dad’s sickness and eventual passing. Some things I say in here may offend or even appear excessively honest. It is not my intention to offend, but to honor dad’s memory through a truthful account.
In
January of 2001, my father, Charles Parker, had a serious heart attack, but
survived. Within a few days, the
doctors told us that they believed him to be diabetic. He went home on sick leave for a couple of
weeks, but then returned to the hospital, this time with very different
symptoms. After a battery of tests, the
doctors announced to my family that my father had lymphomatic leukemia and that
he would need to begin treatment immediately.
For the next 8-9 months, my father essentially lived in the hospital 24
hours a day. My mother was always
staying by his side, exhausted day-in and day-out by the incredible stress,
fear, and mystery of what was unraveling before her.
At
the time, not only did my family have an incredible amount of medical bills
that insurance did not cover, but they had rent, food, vehicles, and other
ordinary expenses that any family which has to continue in life must pay. My father’s employer generously sent my
father $3000 a month, which was his basic pay-rate before he received
commissions on the sales which he was supposed to make each month. This continued on until my father’s death in
October. In total, my father’s
employer, Bob Moss, gave what I estimate to be nearly $30,000 for work my
father never completed or was able to return to. Mr. Moss deserves a great deal of honor for this incredible
generosity.
The
bills always seemed to be just too much, and my mother endured the incredibly
scary notion day-by-day that bills would not be paid. From my father’s perspective, he couldn’t really deal with the
money issues because he was frankly fighting to survive each day. God is so good, though, because absolutely
every Sunday, when my family went to church, my mother’s pockets would be
stuffed full of $20 and $100 bills during greeting time. I remember in particular one Sunday when dad
was well enough to come to church; It was his first Sunday after being
diagnosed. He did not know how to take
charity, at all. When we got home, he
laid out all of the money on the kitchen table and counted out nearly $400! This was a pretty regular event, and the
generosity of Pleasant Hill Nazarene Church at that time, could not have been
in doubt. Mom took that money and
bought groceries. She used it to pay
for the gas for their many trips to Wichita before effectively moving there for
the remainder of the chemo treatment.
My dad realized the great extent of his pride, I think, when he couldn’t
accept the peoples’ money without a great deal of embarrassment. To me, this was my first step in realizing,
existentially, the truth of my father’s humanity. This father I was beginning to see was not “super-Christian.” He was not invincible, or a capable provider
any longer. To see my father graduate
from unwilling recipient of gifts to thankful receiver represented a real
metamorphoses for me, and I am still so astounded when I think of it!
I
remember that my father had always had a full and awesome, dark and thick head
of hair. It was something he was always
proud of. While his friends and
acquaintances around him were losing their hair and balding, my father had
always retained this awesome mane that made him the source of envy for
some. When chemo began, dad seemed to
feel very timid and almost afraid of the coming hair loss which he knew would
happen. One day, I was visiting him in the
hospital from college in McPherson where I was going to school with my fiancé,
Arryn. I entered the hospital room and
saw my father, his head shaven, his hair entirely gone. Apparently, during the night, his hair had
begun falling out in clumps, so my mom decided to just shave it all off. To this day, when I see a man who is entirely
bald, I think of my dad.
All
of the men in our church knew that dad was embarrassed of his sudden hair loss,
and we devised a great and amazing plan.
One day, all of the men in the church got together, we pulled out the
cameras and the video camera, and we all shaved our head in the middle of the
winter. We captured it on film, took
plenty of pictures, and stuffed the hair into a large glass jar which read,
“Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his hair for his
friend.” We ceremoniously crowded all
of the bald men into his hospital room and presented him with out jar of hair
as well as a picture of all of us with the words “PRAISE THE LORD” written
across all of our heads, pointed downwards at the camera. This was a classic and memorable moment for
my dad, and though I can’t exactly remember his reaction, I know he was
grateful to know that he was not in this thing alone. I like to think that this made things easier for him.
I
would be deceptive if I sugar-coated my father’s time of sickness. I have had nearly three years to think about
that season of all our lives, and I have tried to understand how I should think
of that time. Basically, my thoughts
are that yes, this year of our lives was difficult. Yes, my father became not only physically ill, but he also became
mentally ill. I know that the
chemotherapy caused him to often become a cruel and mean man sometimes. I can remember one night coming home
incredibly late from work. I walked
into the living room and saw my sister, Libby, curled up on the couch crying to
herself. After talking to her, I
discovered that she and dad got into an argument and that he actually called
her a “bi**h.” I was so shocked. This was NOT my father. The man that the chemicals had caused him to
become was someone else entirely, and this was the moment when I no longer
doubted that. I am certain that Sarah
and Andrew also could share similar moments, though I was not privy to
experiencing their pains in the same way that I was with Libby in this
particular incident.
He
was prone to periods of time when he behaved as what I can only describe as a
bigot, a border-line racist, and what I perceived as a political
reactionary. He would fight with me
often about the most ridiculous things, becoming violently angry. In fact, he fought with almost everyone in
the house when he was actually able to stay at home. On the weekends when I didn’t work, I would bury myself in the
basement playing video games while the rest of my family had to be upstairs with
him. I read incessantly as a form of
escape. Additionally, the fact that I
was marrying against their wishes in only a matter of months created a strong
tension between myself and both my
parents.
The
question then arises in my mind: Is it fair to remember such moments, to
include them in an account of my father’s life? I am not sure, really. I
mean, this event did actually happen.
It represented a moment in my father’s evolution from the man he hated
(prior to his sickness) to the man he knew he needed to be (post-sickness) to
finally, the man he would have despised had he known better (post-chemo). It does justice, I think, to my father’s
memory, to represent him, flaws and all, though I do think that for fairness’
sake, anyone should gauge the man he was in light of the chemicals he was being
treated with. I don’t know how my
siblings feel about this: perhaps they are like me and initially felt that
remembering the bad times was not a good idea, later realizing that you cannot
erase a bad memory. Perhaps, however,
they have discovered a way to remember the good and put the bad behind
them. If they have done this, then I
envy them.
When
the time of my wedding came, circa July 21st, 2001, my relationship
with my parents had strained to a fever-pitch.
I was leaving home, and now they knew it. I had an apartment, my own car payment, I was paying my own
insurance, and my independence was certain.
I
remember that the wedding was at Pleasant Hill Nazarene (due to pressure and
insistence by my father), and the wedding was almost entirely paid for by her
dad (as is traditional). My family had
only one thing taken upon them: the rehearsal dinner. I can’t remember what we had, but it was good, delicious food,
and my parents put a lot of work into the veritable feast, and as I remember
it, a good time was had by all. Looking
back, I know that my family felt neglected by me. They had received hardly any attention from me, and I realize
that now. In retrospect, I realize that
my inattention to them was due mainly to my desire and anxiousness for
independence: an escape from a difficult time at home. I was almost out the door, almost a free
man, almost married to the girl of my dreams, and I knew that I didn’t have to
feel bad or burdened or attached to this family anymore.
Secretly
I pitied my siblings for being stuck in a situation that I was able to leave,
forget about, and abandon. I still
stayed “close” to my family, visited on the weekends, and spent extended
amounts of time when possible. However,
these were now “their” troubles and no longer “my” troubles. This distance endured until my father died
on October 20th, 1 day before my sister Libby’s birthday.
The
last time I saw my father was really quite a bitter moment. You see, many months before, my dad had
taken Newton (a friend of mine) under his wing as a son of sorts. He had helped him to grow in the faith and
had basically just spent a lot of time with Newton. In some ways, I knew that dad looked at Newton as more of a son
by the end then I was. My last time
seeing dad, I had known by virtue of the doctor’s prediction that I may not see
him alive ever again. I hugged him
goodbye and told him I loved him, acting like I would see him in another week. Newton also said goodbye to dad, but when
Newton hugged him, he cried, and he wept!
And my father hugged him and cried as well, embracing him and telling
him that living for Christ is the only important thing. The bitterness of the moment may be evident
to the reader, and it may not. The one
thing that should come through this moment was not a moment of despising Newton
or my father, but instead of
self-loathing. Why did I need to be
this type of person who couldn’t even shed a tear when saying goodbye for the
last time? Why did I have to be so cold,
so unnecessarily business-like? Could I
not shed a tear for my dying father?!
A
week later, I arrived at the hospital only minutes after he passed on, and
elected to not see his body. In fact, I
never saw him in the coffin, either. Truly I preferred to remember him as the
man with a full head of hair, a big healthy belly, a jolly laugh, and a voice
with hymns always at the ready. This
man that I had known for the last 8 months was not my father, as far as I was
concerned, and I refused to remember him like that. (Ironically, now that the years are passing, this is often the only memory I can manage of him: bald, angry, pale,
afraid…)
His
funeral was picturesque, the church filled beyond estimated capacity. Truly my father was loved a great deal by people
all over the Kansas area from his hometown of Greensburg to Macksville; from
Stafford to Salina. The people he
touched ranged from fellow school-board members to congregations of small
churches where he came to sing at. Some
were business associates, and some were close friends from years past.
As
dad (and all of us as a family) desired, his funeral was a bold proclamation of
the Gospel of Christ, of the forgiveness and freedom that Christ brings to the
lost. Pastor John Miller spoke
passionately for nearly an hour, and then offered the microphone to anyone who
wished to speak. I took the
opportunity, and said a few words.
I
reminded everyone in the room, very importantly, that our purpose this day was
not to glorify or gloss-over my father’s life or his decency. I told them that I knew his flaws and that I
had seen many of them first-hand. No,
the reason we were in this room was that we can have hope: that if a sinner
like my father, warts and all, could still stand before God’s throne, then so can
we, but only by God’s grace. I then
told everyone that our family was joyful, because we knew that we would someday
see Dad again. And I still believe
that.
6/30/04