6 Years.......

As I began writing this, I was thinking that this really isn’t part of our current adoption story, but the more I wrote the more I realized that it is.  This is the first time I have shared this complete story.  I feel it is time to share it because I need to remind myself that God showed up in the midst of a pain so great it could have crushed me, if not for His Hand.

          Six years ago today, I experienced one of the most painful moments of my life.  It was a beautiful day, much like this one.  It was cool, breezy and sunny.  Our family had just returned from a wonderful vacation to Disney World with my parents and my sister.  It had been an amazing trip.  My parents had returned back to our home in Alabama a few days after us, as they had stayed a couple extra days in Florida to see friends they had not seen in over 20 years. 

          Daddy had made his “famous” oatmeal for breakfast, and I had gotten the children started on their school work.  Momma was going to help them with it while Daddy and I worked on our van in the garage.  He headed out there before me, and I didn’t understand it then, but I remember having such a sense of urgency to get out there with him.  I have always loved working on cars, snowmobiles, dune buggies, etc. with my dad.  I have done it since I was a little girl.  I have always loved the smell of oil, gasoline, and engines.  But even more I have always loved working on stuff with my dad.  To just be with him and talk with him was such a treat.  I threw on my work clothes and headed out to the garage.

          We only worked about an hour and everything was good to go.  We chatted the entire time about everything under the sun.  As we started cleaning up Daddy walked around the far side of the van and I was standing on the opposite side near the front.  He said something funny, and I laughed and joked back, and he didn’t say anything else.  This struck me as odd so I looked over at him.  He had just bent over to pick up a wrench and as he stood back up, his eyes closed and he seemed to sway and loose his balance. I darted around the front of the van just in time to catch him as he fell.  As I lay him on the floor of the garage he was unconscious.  I flung open the door to the house and yelled for my mom to call 911, all the time thinking, “This is not happening.  It is not real.  I will wake up from this nightmare.”  But I didn’t. 

My nurse instincts kicked in.  I checked for a pulse, none. He wasn’t breathing.  I began CPR.  I could hear my mom standing in the doorway behind me on the phone talking to 911.  She was frantic.  All I could do was count chest compressions and breaths.  At one point I heard her say, let me have you talk to my daughter.  I took the phone for a second.  The lady on the other side was sweet, but was trying to ask me questions I didn’t have time to answer.  I had to keep counting and doing breaths and chest compressions.   I cut her off, told her I was a nurse, and told her we needed an ambulance NOW.  I gave her the address as I continued to work and slid the phone back across the garage floor to my mom.  I kept listening for sirens, praying someone was coming.  I was shaking from head to toe, but I kept working.  I shake with adrenaline even now as I type this.

Then it happened.  He opened his eyes.  Momma was sitting at his head still on the phone with the sweet 911 lady.  I stopped.  He looked into my eyes.  He stared so intently as if he wanted to say something important. Then he took one last deep, labored breath closed his eyes and relaxed.  I remember hearing someone scream, “NO! Not now, not today!  It’s not time!”

I went back to work, with a realization that that voice I had heard was mine, but I just kept working, counting breaths and compressions.  I was not going to lose my dad today.  I was going to fight! Thoughts began tumbling through my mind.  He was a boxer, a real fighter.  He had taught me to never give up.  He had taught me that the right thing to do was never the easy thing to do.  He had taught me that even though the odds are against you and the opponent has you out sized, you fight to the end and either win or go down swinging.  So I fought.  I worked harder than I ever had at any moment in my life.  So hard in fact that the next day I discovered that I had rubbed all the skin off both of my knees kneeling on the garage floor doing CPR.  I hadn’t felt a thing.

And I prayed!  I prayed like never before.  I declared life over my dad, in Jesus’s precious and powerful name.  Scriptures about life tumbled out of me as prayers.  Then the first responder arrived.  He seemed to be moving so slow.  I am sure he wasn’t, but I needed him to take charge, and he didn’t.  He handed me a bag and mask to blow breath into my dad’s lungs and attached an AED.  When he turned the AED on I heard it say, “Shockable Rhythm.”  I looked down to see my dad’s left hand and watch resting against a dog crate that was touching the freezer.  I heard the AED counting down and all I could imagine was the shock traveling though his body, into the metal dog crate, through the metal freezer, and into the outlet the freezer was plugged into.  I grabbed the crate and tossed it through the door into the entry way of the house.  I turned in time to see the AED shock my dad.  I prayed.  This was it.  It was all over.  He was going to be back.  I just knew it.

But then I heard it. “Shockable rhythm.  Recharging.”   I looked at the first responder in shock and dismay.  I think I mumbled, “This isn’t happening. Not today.”  He started compressions and I started breaths.

The AED again announce an impending shock.  We cleared away.  I watched and prayed.  Then I heard the words I was dreading, “Not a shockable rhythm.”  I prayed; I declared life over my dad and I worked.  I remember telling the first responder that his compressions needed to be deeper.  I wasn’t being mean or rude, but I was in this fight to win, and we were going to do this the best we could as long as I had anything to do with it.  He looked disgusted at me and I said, “You don’t understand.  This is my daddy!”  We kept working.  The AED never again said those hoped for words, “Shockable rhythm.”

The ambulance arrived, and I backed off.  The EMTs took their place over my dad, and I suddenly became the daughter, not the nurse.  The prayers poured from my heart.  Every cell of my body cried out to God.

They loaded him in the ambulance, but didn’t leave. My mind knew it was bad, but I wouldn’t stop fighting.  My dad would never have stopped fighting for me, so I was in this fight to the end.  I knelt on the driveway in front of the ambulance and prayed.  Then I felt it.  The breeze stopped and everything was quiet.  Time seemed to stand still.  I have felt the presence of God before, but not like this.  I still wrestle with words to adequately describe what I felt.  There was a warm peace that settled over me.  I was quiet.  I had no words.  It was a weighty presence, but it didn’t crush me.  It lifted me to my feet.  I quit trembling.

I felt God’s presence leave and the breeze seemed to return.  I knew deep in my heart He had taken Daddy home.  My mind said it couldn’t be, but deep in my heart I knew.  The peace stayed settled over me.  The ambulance driver climbed out of the back and came toward me.  He looked into my eyes and told me they were taking Daddy to Athens.  The final thing he said to me was, “Don’t try to keep up with me.”  As he jumped into the driver’s seat and backed out of the driveway, mom came from the house carrying her purse.  She must have run in when they put daddy in the ambulance.  I ran into the house.  There were my wide eyed children.  Looking to me for hope and peace, but my mind was a whirl wind.  I choked out the word, “Pray”.

As I jumped in the car I called Frank, and then my cousin Krista.  Krista headed over to be with my babies, and Frank left work calling on people to pray as he drove with his flashers on the usual 45 minutes from Huntsville to Athens.

I got behind the wheel of moms car and drove to Athens.  Mom looked at me and asked, “How bad is this?”  My nurse brain knew, my heart knew, but my daughter’s heart choked out the words, “It’s bad, but this is Daddy.  He is fighter.”  I tried telling myself that they will get meds in him.  His heart will come back. They will med-flight him to Huntsville, and Frank will have one of the cardiac interventionalists or surgeons ready to put in a stent or do bypass.   

I drove the 10 minutes to Athens Hospital, parked the car, and walked into the ER holding my sweet momma’s hand.  She sounded so strong as she gave the receptionist at the desk my dad’s name.  She sounded like a fighter.  They ushered us into an office in the back.  My nurse brain shouted silently, “NO! This is where you put families who lose a loved one.  Not on my watch!  Not today! This is my daddy we are talking about!  We will be at his side in no time.”

Mom and I looked silently at each other.  I opened my mouth to pray, but all that came from my lips was a soft cry.  It came from deep within me.  It brought me back to that peace that God had left with me.  The doctor walked in.  He was so kind.  I could see the pain in his face as he looked down into my momma’s hopeful face.  He offered to continue to work, but explained that there had been no response.  Deep within me I heard the Lord whisper, “He is already with me.  There is no life left in his body.”

Momma must have heard the same thing in her heart.  She squared her little shoulders, looked kindly into the doctors eyes, and said, “It’s ok.  He is gone.”  The doctor told us he would be right back to take us in to see daddy. 

When it was time, we went silently into his room with tears streaming down our faces.  Momma looked at Daddy’s work worn hands.  They were still greasy from working on the van.  A gentle smile softened her pained expression as she whispered, “Well Butch, you got what you wanted.  You died with greasy hands.”

Yes, Daddy died the way he lived.  Working hard.  Taking care of his girls.  He was a fighter.  We worked harder than any person I have ever known.  A furious love burned deep in his heart: a love that propelled him to always fight for the little guy, protect and care for his girls, help anyone that needed it, and do the right thing even though it may be the hardest thing to do. 

There was a flurry of amazing friends and family that supported us and helped us to stand as we walked out the gut wrenching weeks ahead.  They were God’s tangible hugs of support that carried us when we couldn’t stand.

As time passed that first year and the numbness of grief began to subside, we felt the seed of adoption that God had planted deep in our hearts years ago, when our precious niece Mackenzie had passed away, begin to grow.  It had been cultivated and watered in the grief and pain of losing Daddy.  We began to look at our lives and ask, “Are we living like he lived, consumed by the furious love of our Heavenly Father that would cause us to fight for the ones less fortunate, drop whatever we were doing to help someone out, fight for what was right even if it looked like we might lose, and do the right thing even if it was the most difficult choice?”  And so our adoption journey began.

Now today, as I am feeling battle weary from this adoption process and remembering how hard this day was 6 years ago, I am choosing to remember who my earthly Daddy was and who my Heavenly Daddy is.  I will love with a furious, passionate love that will cause me to fight for the weak ones, stop my plans for my life to help someone in need, and do the right thing even when it is painfully hard.  I will rest peacefully in the presence of my Mighty God who will never leave me in the midst of the raging storms of life. I will lean into Him and the perfect peace only He can bring.  I will hide in the shelter of His wings as He fights for me.  And in Christ alone, I will fight the battles set before me and love with a furious, all-consuming love.