May 5, 2008– Two Words that Changed Everything (Part 2 of 2)

If you live long enough, you will unfortunately at some point experience a blindside. You know the kind– the realization of an unfortunate reality, an unexpected change or unsettling news. The kind that shatters your life that only moments ago felt safe and whole. These blindsides come in all shapes and sizes and they leave us with a deep unsettling feeling– it’s not supposed to be this way. Life was supposed to work out differently. 

What can we do when life starts to go sideways? Is there anything we can hold on to?

When my daughter was distraught over her first day of school not going the way she expected, I asked her if she thought more of life went the way we planned or the way we didn’t. She guessed right. I told her we do not always get  to choose what happens, but we always get to  choose how we respond. And how we respond shapes us. She was over her bad day as soon as she was sipping her strawberry frappuccino. 

But you know as well as I do that some of life’s blindsides are far too much for a strawberry frappuccino to fix. 

Is there something that does work when nothing else will?

My dad had been experiencing a loss of strength  in one finger for the four months before this phone call. We assumed that whatever he was diagnosed with was fixable. There was no indication or conversation any one of us had that hinting at the possibility of something devastating. 

At that point, my family still lived and operated in a world where it was simply a matter of time before the doctor found the problem, treated him and my dad would be healthy again. Just like that. We had no reason to suspect a fatal illness. 

My dad might be dead less than 5 years from now?

I had no words after my dad after he told me the hourglass was flipped on his life. Time was now slipping through my fingers at a much more rapid pace. Mike came into the room to see what the crying commotion was all about. Tears came like a storm. Everything went blurry, like I was trying to see underwater. 

I walked to the living room and dropped to my knees. With tears beginning to soak the ground underneath me, I said to God, “Thank you.” 

My own words surprised me– like someone else had deposited them in me for that moment.

Thank you? 

I had just received news of my dad’s death sentence. Thank you didn’t feel appropriate.

“Thank you God for what you did in his life in 1986.”

Nothing warned me of the news I would receive that day, but in hindsight, something did prepare me. 

The thing that prepared me for this blindside was far greater than finding the bright side and better than hiding behind busyness. It didn’t require pretending life wasn’t painful or trying to hold in the truckloads of tears. It didn’t require me to find extra pep to put in my step or live with the illusion of control by finding everything there was to know about a disease I’d never heard of. The pain of this diagnosis, that was the first of death by a thousand cuts, was much too deep for any of these band aids. 

What prepared me and caused me to be filled with gratitude in the midst of devastating news was something that happened in my dad’s life in 1986. 

More specifically, Someone he met in 1986 the first time he was willing to admit that his life wasn’t working. His faith that laid the foundation for my own, was the only thing that prepared me for that very day.

The good news of my dad’s faith meant that even in the face of death, there was the promise of life.

Come see for yourself the birthplace of what became his bold faith, steadfast love and unwavering hope.

***An excerpt from my upcoming memoir about the life and legacy of Jesse Morales***