I said you guys could hold me accountable so here it is: This is the short story I recently entered in the writing contest. Perhaps I'll win $600 or perhaps I won't win a thing, but I put myself out there and did something I never thought I would. It's the story of the weekend my father in law passed away.
The Rock
by Courtney Pierce Arrant
We had dreaded this time for several years. We had hoped the medication would work, that we would get him back, the husband, father, father in law and P-Paw we had known before the disease hit five years earlier. He fought it hard. The chemo was exhausting, the radiation left scars internal and external. The depression, however, was the worst to watch. After he was diagnosed, we were told he would make it two years. He more than doubled that. Thank you Lord for 3 additional years. Emotionally he began to fail before the final physical failure came. He stayed depressed, desperately wanting to see his grandchildren grow up and wondering why this was happening to him. There were fervent prayers to end his depression so he could really enjoy his final months on this earth. The call came on Memorial Day weekend 2010. He was in organ failure. The end was near. We went in separate cars. When I got there he had a moment of lucidity. He held my hand asking what I was doing there. I wasn’t supposed to come that weekend. I told him I had a change of heart. I hugged him. I looked into those pale blue eyes and the end was evident. As quick as it came, it was gone again. He began to speak in riddles, asking about airing up tires. We all gave each other knowing looks. It was close.
She was strong, solid as an oak while she watched her husband of almost 40 years become ashen, confused, weak. But it would only be a matter of time before, surely, she would begin to crumble. His sons knew, but couldn’t say the words. I, the daughter in law, would hold them together. It had been my prayer for the last several months: “let me be the rock they need.” I convinced the family of the need for help outside of what we could do. Hospice was called in. My husband and his mother took turns sleeping on the couch so they could be there when he needed them. Friends stayed over so the rest of us could get some rest. Funeral arrangements commenced. We watched him leave us a little more with each passing hour. We heard the heavy breathing early in the evening on Sunday night. The rattle. I will never forget that sound. “Lord, let me be the rock they so desperately need....” We got out of bed and went to his bedside. The color was changing on his feet and legs. Suddenly, it was real. This was my chance.......”Lord, let me be the rock they need....” Friends and family gathered around his bedside. She was amazing. She told him he had been a wonderful husband. She told him she would be ok. She told him to go on. She told him, unselfishly, that she would miss him terribly, but that she understood he was tired of the fight. I marveled at her composure. I was touched by the way she ever so gently, stroked his head while she spoke to him. She didn’t hear the rattle. She didn’t see the difficulty he had breathing. I know she was looking at the husband she had known before the disease ravaged his body. I know she saw her groom 40 years earlier. It was beautiful. On the other side of the bed stood his eldest, my husband, sobbing the deepest sobs I have ever heard and pleading with his father to just.hold.on. It broke my heart. First I wanted to shake my husband and say “look at him! He cannot hold on anymore.” Then I wanted to hold my husband. I wanted, desperately, to have the right words to say. I wanted to erase the pain. I wanted to be steady, sure......a rock. It was more than I could handle. Shaking like a leaf with sobs racking my body I had to leave the room. “Lord, please let me be the rock they need.” I dissolved on to the couch, begging my Lord to help me hold it together and comfort my family. They needed me. I was supposed to be the rock, I never doubted that I could be the rock. I had always assumed, when I thought of this day, that I would be the pillar of strength. I could still hear the sobs of my husband from the other room. Where was my strength? I was a mess. Suddenly, I felt arms around me. I felt the strong arms of my beloved husband, who had left the bedside of his dying father to comfort me telling me it was ok. I apologized over and over. I told him I wanted to be in there for him, but I just couldn’t watch it any more. Tears soaked our shirts as we held each other and cried. Friends came in the room and told us that now was the time to say our goodbyes. He squeezed my hand. Unable to speak, I shook my head. I couldn’t do it. I begged God for forgiveness for failing at my mission to be the their steadiness in a time of shaky ground. I wanted, more than anything, to walk to my dying father in law’s bedside, hand in hand with my husband and tell him that we loved him, that we would miss him, but that we would be fine. I wanted to be there while my husband said his goodbyes. It was impossible. I could not go back in that room.
If I could have done it, if I could have pulled myself together, stopped the tears and managed to speak, I would have told my father in law about something he had done 10 years earlier that meant the world to me. I can picture it as though it happened yesterday. It was September, Labor Day weekend 1999. His son had, three months earlier, put a ring on my finger and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. I enthusiastically agreed. It was a hot and sticky Sunday afternoon. I stepped out the back door of my in-laws house and saw my father in law walking arm in arm with his mother through their yard. He pointed at me and said to his mother “there’s my daughter.” He was beaming. He appeared truly excited that I would, in 8 short months, be a part of their family. If I could have suddenly become the rock I so desperately wanted to be, I would have held his hand and told him that that comment meant the world to me. I would have thanked him for making me feel like a part of the family from the beginning. I would have promised him, again, to be a godly example for his grandchildren. I would have reiterated my love for his eldest son. I would have remembered to tell him that his wife would be well taken care of, that this family meant everything to his son. I would have thanked him for raising one of the most amazing men I have ever known. If only I could have been the rock......
This experience was a difficult one. It was hard to live through and it’s been hard to remember the details without falling apart once again. It taught me about loving and letting go. It taught me that sometimes God provides steadiness and sure-footedness to us. Sometimes he allows us to be the pillar of strength and sometimes he allows a pillar to walk in the room just in time for us to lean on it. Watching my father in law leave this earthly world was not the time for me to be the rock I wanted to be. The days to follow was where I was needed most, it would later appear. The thank you notes, phone calls, final arrangements, these were where my “solid as an oak” mother in law needed a pillar to lean on. My husband has yet to need me be his rock. I have yet to see him fall apart where I wasn’t falling apart right there with him. I know, however, beyond a shadow of a doubt that if that time comes he will come to me. He will allow me to wrap my arms around him, to stroke his head, to tell him that it’s ok to feel this way. He will allow me to be his rock, when his own pillar finally begins to crumble. The relationship between my husband and his father is one that I pray to see again one day between my husband and his own children. My father in law was my husband’s best friend, there were times where he was his teacher, his disciplinarian, hunting buddy, confidante and more. These are all roles I hope my husband assumes with our 2 daughters and our son. My prayer remains that my father in law’s memory stays alive through stories told, memories shared and prayers spoken.
