Dad's final gaze

I am acquainted with death more than the average person as an element of my career. It is inglorious for even the most stoic or heroic. It is precious for the saints, in God's eyes, according to the Psalmist (116:15), but only an eternal perspective can make it so. The passing of those closest to me were difficult, to say the least, and not witnessed by me. My sister passed from AIDS in her forties in a nursing home in Baltimore. I got the word just before I boarded a plane to visit, but in time to identify her. My brother died in his sleep, presumably peacefully, but we never know that. It was expected. Cancer. Same for his wife five years after. Their sons died violently, one by homicide, the other by suicide, ages 22 and 19. My mother died at home, as was her wish, but in a difficult final struggle in the presence of my older brother and a hospice worker. But everyone has their own stories, so mine are not any more notable than another. 

The one different from those I've noted was my Dad. He lay in a St. Louis hospital, mostly comatose, after a traffic crash. We were all able to get to the hospital, praying for a miracle, but eventually surrounding his bed watching and listening to the monitors until they all showed no sign of life. My brother, the woodsman hillbilly philosopher, uttered words intended to be memorable and profound, but there were no words for those moments, but he tried. A chaplain was present which I found a bit annoying in her intrusion to the family, but she was a comfort to Mom, so I appreciated her for that. As final moments go, this was good, but, again, no words.

It was a moment earlier that day, or perhaps the day before, that was a gift to me. Watching an unresponsive person in a hospital bed with all of the attachments, its hard to look at the actual person and not all of the screens and numbers and graphs that give more evidence of their existence than their flesh at this point. I was alone in the room with him and I think I held his hand for a moment, when from the depths of wherever the mind goes in such a state, he returned to me and I could see in his eyes more than I had ever seen. He could not speak and probably wouldn't have anyway, because those eyes said everything. 

I know that we romanticize and create the meaning that we need in moments and memories, but I am certain that I read nothing into his eyes that was not already there. It was "Yes, I'm sad that I'm going away. I love you. We're good, right?" However long that gaze of clarity lasted - maybe a second -it lasts still. Scripture says: "beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8) That day was a thousand years worth. 

That day will come to all of us, of course. I'll stop here without opining about last words, lost opportunities, and eternal consequences. I will say that nothing was left unsaid between Dad and I, or Mom, as far as our love for each other, though never in specific words that Hallmark writers strive for, but there is no vocabulary to express. Dad's moment of clarity, essentially reaching out to bless me just before stepping into glory, was to affirm his Fatherhood in all of its richness and warmth. I'm forever grateful for that last gaze being one of mutual affirmation and not regret.