My kids have been scheduled to get baptized this morning at St. Mark’s Cathedral, but, as will happen with kids, plans have to change.  My son Will has fallen ill with the flu; he’s been running a fever as high as 103F for several days.   So, the new plan is to have Audrey baptized by herself, while I stay home and take care of Will.

This is a bummer on several levels, not least of which is that I’ll have to miss my daughter’s special moment.  It’s also sad that they won’t have the day to share with each other – they’re so close. But kids get sick, plans have to change, and a parent’s second-most-important ability (#1: patience!) is to be adaptable.

The next baptism day at St. Mark’s is January 10th, or the First Sunday after Epiphany.  He’ll have to wait a couple months, but the little guy will have his own special day to remember.

Today I went to church.  I believe – and I’m pretty sure about this – that this was the first time I’ve been to church since my dad died.  I found myself wondering, with imperfect memory, how related those two things – my dad passing and my reluctance to return to church – have been.  I think perhaps there’s a connection, but I can’t be sure.

What do I know?  I know that Septemberr 26th, 2005 was a tough day for me.  That word “tough” understates my true feelings by a country mile.  It was undoubtedly the hardest day I’ve ever experienced.  My dad was my friend, my confidant, my fan, my champion.  After 68 years, 55 of which were spent with a cigarette in his hand, he died, alone save for me, in a tiny hospital room at Good Samaritan in Puyallup.  I spent the whole day with my dad – starting in the morning, when he was rushed to the hospital, barely able to breathe.  At some point, Janet and the kids went home, and later, so did my stepmom.  I spent hours sitting with him in his little room, watching him breathe, talking to him, talking to myself, trying to reconcile myself with that which to me, at that time, was irreconcilable.

At some point in the late afternoon, I went to the bathroom that was integrated with his room, whose doorway was adjacent to his bed, and when I came out I noticed that his chest wasn’t moving. I put my hand on his chest, searching for movement. I bent down low over his bearded face to listen for breath coming out of his mouth. I felt his wrist, his neck – each moment growing more and more certain that the unimaginable time had come. I buzzed the nurse.  “I think he’s gone,”, I said, and she gave me the sympathetic smile-cum-grimace that seemed at once both sincere and perfunctory.

I felt dazed. I called my stepmom and told her “he’s gone.” I was then led to understand that I could speak to the grief counselor. He took his time, was perfectly pleasant and sympathetic, but the whole time I was talking to him I was thinking to myself that he had no idea what I was going through.  How could you?  Really, truly understand, let alone help explain, the death of the most important person in one’s life? I spent hours sitting in the hallway, cross-legged on the floor across from the room in which my dead father lay, waiting for my stepmom to arrive at the hospital.  She never came.  I eventually called back and we realized that there had been a misunderstanding – she thought that everything was being taken care of by some nebulous set of Hospital Administrators.  I suspect that she had taken something – alcohol or pills – to subdue her own grief, which was different than mine but also real.

The official cause of death was complications from emphysema – his lung capacity by then was down to about 10% of what it should have been – but the real, proximate cause of death was an overdose of painkillers (morphine, if I remember correctly) – ostensibly prescribed to relieve his suffering, but whose real effect was to let him slip away peacefully.  The writer Anne Lamott describes a similar passing in one of her books – an assisted suicide with the help of crushed-up Seconal mixed with applesauce.  I had a flash of recognition when I first read that passage.

So why did I stop going to church?  It’s not like I came down and declared God Is Dead when my dad passed; of course, I’ve never really been one of those bible-thumping God Is Alive! types, either.  I think I was just sad.  I think I didn’t want to be consoled with what church had to offer.  I *wanted* to be mad at life, at fate, at God, whomever.  You can understand.

For the first time in my life, I began to suffer panic attacks – which of course were diagnosed as a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder stemming from the loss of my dad.  I kept those attacks secret from almost everyone; I was ashamed, and felt guilty that I was still alive when my dad was not.  It’s taken me a long time to get back to some sort of normalcy when thinking about my dad and my sense of loss at his passing.

Today, going back to St. Mark’s for the first time in almost four years, I thought about my dad quite a bit.  I still miss him.  I still feel anxious when I have important things that I need to say, issues I need to work through, and realize I have no one close to me with whom I have that sort of relationship – endlessly patient, understanding, nonjudgmental, and wise.  Going back to church today was unrelated to my dad, – there are other issues I’m currently dealing with – but I have an inkling that I’ll be able to continue going, and eventually find some peace about the loss of my dad.  And perhaps more besides.