Perspective: The Gift of Time

Last Thursday, May 29, marked the 20th anniversary of my dad’s death. I was finishing up my last week of finals during my junior year of high school when he succumbed to his two-year fight with cancer. "Surreal" is the only word to describe my whole junior year. When I look back on it now, I wonder how I maintained such a dual life—acting the part of a carefree teenager by day but coming home to a father whose body was so riddled with bed sores that his flesh was literally rotting off his body before our very eyes. The fact that my dad was also my high school’s football coach made our private pain all the more public and the duality of my existence harder to hide. That memorial day in 1988 brought a lot of relief with it—an end to the suffering, the wondering, the fear of the worst. The worst happened on that day as I stood in the dark hospital room with my mom and brother, holding my dad’s hand as he slipped away, but I now see how it was really for the best.

I’ve written an essay about my experience with my dad’s life and death, and I’ve told most of the people who know me well all about it. There’s no need to rehash it here, but suffice it to say that my 17 years with my dad shaped my views of grace, forgiveness, and family as much as anything in my life. My dad was a flawed human being whose flaws spilled out all over me. His determined search for success and significance made my childhood unstable and lonely. His struggles with rage and discontentment made me fearful and resentful. But that was when I was a child.

I now see him as an adult. I’m only seven years younger now than he was when he died (and I remember thinking, at 17, “Well, at least he lived a good long life and made it to 44!”), and I have been separated from him long enough to see him as a man instead of as my dad. I can see a lot more good, like that he was a lot of fun, he had good friends, and he did everything with passion. As a football coach, he was also a powerful influencer of the young men he coached and invested in. And in the end—the very end—he was even the kind, caring daddy that every little girl longs for.

Everyone wonders if it would be best to die suddenly or to battle a horrible disease yet have the time to say goodbye. In our case, the time to say goodbye was one of the biggest blessings of my life. Cancer is an evil monster. It smells and debilitates and destroys, but for my dad and me, it healed. I can see now, as an adult, that God used his sickness to transform his life, and to transform mine in the process. My 20-years-later perspective gives me firm footing on Romans 8:28 as I see how God truly is working for our good, even through our pain and unanswered questions.

I also mark this anniversary with a heavy awareness that my everyday words and actions are making a permanent impression on my children. I pray they will extend much grace to me as they look back on their childhood years. I am a flawed parent as well. My flaws are different from my dad’s, but they are stems from the same root—a struggle to find my way, get my way, and have others see things my way. Parenting, unfortunately, can bring out the worst in us all. When this happens in our house, I pray I’m not messing them up too much, ask for forgiveness, and trust that God will continue working for our good even when I'm at my worst. It’s also these times that fill me with more grace for my own flawed parent and make me most thankful for the merciful gift of time and perspective.