Rebuilding Rob

Nine years ago today, I woke up with some extreme abdominal pain. I’ve been dealing with it for the better part of a week or so. Only after doing a little research did I come to the conclusion that it was probably a kidney stone. I had similar pains two or three nights before; which prompted me to tell two that if it happens again, I was going to have to go to the emergency room.

So I woke up on February 4, 2015 at a little after 3 AM with this intense pain. I woke up X2 and told her I was going to have to go in, but I couldn’t drive.

As I crawled in the bathroom, to try to go one last time before we hit the ER, I had seen that there was a voicemail from mother. It was probably from about 10 or 15 minutes earlier. Looking back now, I realize that that’s probably what woke me up.

Also, it’s important to know that at this point, my father had spent nearly 3 months in a hospital with what ended up, starting as bone cancer, only the spread to his lungs and his pancreas. He had been home for the last few weeks, receiving hospice care, after having steel rods surgically inserted into his legs

Hey Rob, it’s Mom. Give me a call when you get this.

That was the contents of the message, but I didn’t even bother listening to it at the time. Something told me to just skip the voicemail and call Mother.

The Old Man had passed away.

I felt rotten. Both emotionally and physically. I had talked to my mother earlier than the week, and she knew the circumstances as to what was going on with my gut. She told me that if anything came up, to just go ahead and go to the ER.

I was in immense pain at the time. I was trying to express some sympathy and sensitivity without completely falling apart myself. At the same time, I was feeling the closest thing that the male gender can experience to childbirth, so I just told her “mom. I’m so sorry, [X2] is going to run me to the ER right now, my gut is acting up. I’ll call you as soon as I get everything under control.

I laid in the backseat of XT’s car while she drove me to the ER. I don’t remember a whole lot from going in there, but she tells me that once we got called back into the ER, I was about a good 10 feet out of the room before I just started taking my pants off.

Passing a kidney stone might be the worst physical pain I’ve ever endured, but looking back on it now, I’m grateful for the timing at which it happened. It gave me something to think about other than the fact that my dad had just died. I was in intense pain, and all I wanted was to get numb. So much so in fact, that I really didn’t have time to process what it happened with the old man.

And the other thing, of course, is the fact that we knew that he was sick. No one had come out and said it, but we knew that he was dying. One doesn’t get cancer that quickly and have it spread that fast and usually survive very long with it. I was able to compartmentalize what was emotionally the biggest gut punch of for me in my life with what was in fact, literally the biggest gut punch I ever felt in my life.

I remember a few years prior mother telling me that The Old Man was showing early signs of emphysema, but it’s as if he fought it off as long as he could, and one day, it just overwhelmed his anatomy. My grandmother, his mom, passed in a very similar manner. They were both smokers.

Phred was staying at mom and dad‘s house at that time, so her and Mom were handling a lot of the immediate aftermath: calling my brother, having to call the police; which, apparently you have to do when a person passes away in your home.

After I get home from the hospital, I crashed for a few hours. I’ve never had a seizure, but I’m assuming that passing a kidney stone is not unlike seizing. It’s physically draining on the body, and all you want to do is rest afterwards.

Once I woke up, I called my work to explain the situation and make some short-term lesson plans for my absence. Then I went online and made the obligatory Facebook announcement. I remember being a wreck at the funeral. I spoke that day, spontaneously, and I didn’t do The Old Man justice. I’ve always done better with writing than speaking; so it’s no surprise that I published A Proper Eulogy 3 months to the day he died

In a sick way, there was almost a sense of relief that came over me. Not because my father was gone, of course; rather because he wasn’t suffering anymore. The previous four months had been absolutely exhausting for my immediate family and clearly he was in intense pain the whole time.

It never really gets any easier after you lose a parent. You learn to live with it. You get to a point where you’re not crying every day. After a while you are able to talk about them in the past tense and it’s not hurtful. But every now and then, on days like today and moments like this, a lot of those raw motions come rushing back to the surface.

I’m reminded of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called “the bonding”. Is about the death of an Enterprise crew member, and how the senior staff tries to help her young son deal with his mother’s death. At one point in the episode, Captain Picard, asks Wesley Crusher to talk with the boy; since Wesley lost his father at a young age as well. There’s an exchange where Wesley is talking with his mother, Dr. Crusher, remembering his dad:

WESLEY: Sometimes I can’t remember what his face looks like. It scares me

DR CRUSHER: It happens to all of us, Wes. Sometimes, I can’t get his face out of my mind.

WESLEY: Today, today it’s like I can see it all clearly as if it was yesterday. I can see it all clearly in my mind…

This is really a great scene and I don’t think that either Wil Wheaton or Gates McFadden get enough credit for their performance. The scene is great, because this is exactly how it is in real life. Nine years later, and sometimes it’s still hard for me to except the fact that my dad is dead. Other times, when I get caught up in the day-to-day minutia of life, I just think of him not being around us part of life. But that pain comes back every now and then, and stab you in the chest.

I was very fortunate that I had a great relationship with my father. Not only did we love each other, but we like each other as human beings. We respected one another! I know that I have much better relationship with my father than a lot of other people do. I specifically remember when he died, one of my brothers friends, talked about the fact that my dad didn’t treat him in the way that most guys dad treat their kids friends. He said that my dad listen to him. And then he talked to him. It was a level of authenticity to The Old Man that I try to live up to every day.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Sunday is borrowed time
• Teacher Armor and the Saturday Clearing
• The Extra Day: A Ten-Year Memory
• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)

The article “9 Years Later” originally appeared on Rebuilding Rob.