The Ultimate Role Model

Dearest Rachel –

I freely admit it; while I make a point of showing up at the ‘office’ on a near-daily basis during the ‘work’ week, I almost never put in a full eight hour, nine-to-five ‘work’ day anymore. Since I don’t answer to a boss, and I take no pay for services rendered, there isn’t the incentive to do much, apart from keeping up with the camp registrations (which throw the balance in their account off, but only briefly) and preparing the monthly reports. Most of the time, I consider myself lucky to arrive by (forget “before”) nine, and I usually check out between three and four – mostly to get grocery shopping done, but occasionally to pick up dinner for Daniel and myself – and am home before five o’clock.

It might explain why I’m having difficulty beginning work on the A.I. filming project I hope to get started before two thousand days pass between you and me, and I keep referring to without giving many details. I don’t have the motivation to get into those weeds.

Compare that to the days when I would routinely leave the house by half past seven, in order to be at the office before eight (and hopefully before Mohinder would arrive), and being able to leave the office by five felt like a rare and special treat; one which was often tainted by the realization that the work I’d left behind was piling up behind me, meaning that I’d have to be there all the earlier the following day to get it done to his satisfaction. I don’t have to tell you that I don’t miss those days in the slightest.

But yesterday hearkened back to those days in a somewhat strange way. I found myself out and about for just about a full eight-hour day – including a stop at the bank to make a deposit (which turned out to not be possible, as I’d gotten out to take it there after the place closed).

Granted, in all other measures, it didn’t compare much to a work day. Rather than being in front of a computer, attempting to ascertain when each sale in a given month would be shipped out and payment received (and why it didn’t compare favorably enough to the numbers of the month or year before), I was simply sitting at Dad’s bedside, keeping him and Mom company as he continues to fight his way through a bout of what seems to be considered a case of pneumonia, with a couple of added symptoms on the side.

Fortunately, as per usual, it seems that he is much stronger now than when he was brought in on Wednesday. That said, it doesn’t look like he’ll be going home any time soon, even as we’re expecting him to be moved out of intensive care some time this morning, Lord willing. Moreover, each fight is wearing him out that much more each time; he’s come to expect that, sooner or later, he’s going to reach the end of the line.

That acknowledgement is what makes this vigil harder than some of the ones in the past, even as he appears to be recovering yet again. We’ve done this so many times before, and like a titular protagonist of a superhero serial, it gets to the point where we almost think he can’t be taken from this world. After all, he’s the hero of this show, he can’t be written out. He’s been so many people’s role model; how will they follow him if he isn’t around to be followed?

The irony is, whether he pulls out of this or not, he’s essentially working on his magnum opus of role modeling, whether he is or isn’t aware of it – although I suspect he is, certainly more so than in previous scares. He claims to not remember all that much of his first crisis back in 2019 (and he was comatose often enough, which is part of why it felt like such a crisis, although I remember that first night in February when he looked us in the face, and with a sheepish grin said “I’m in trouble” – or maybe it was “The doctors say I’m in trouble” – either way, it takes a certain level of self-awareness to acknowledge that), and while late 2023/early 2024 had its moments, he claims to not recall certain large swaths of that time, either. This time around, he seems to be completely lucid the whole time, and aware that the clock is ticking on him. Now, to one extent, that mental sharpness should bode that much better for him this time around – he’s able to keep his head in the game and make a conscious effort to fight whatever’s laying him low – but at the same time, he is that much more aware of his own frailty and advancing age, not to mention the pain and discomfort involved in trying to keep going. He has made it clear that he’s “ready to go,” if the Lord wills it, and is actually rather looking forward to it (although he had hoped to be able to be raptured prior to having to go through all of this).

You see, the pain and discomfort – and more to the point, his endurance of it all – is allowing him to illustrate to those who consider him a role model one last aspect of life where one can choose how to deal with one’s lot. There are plenty of folks who have shown people how to live (at least in public, but let’s set that aside for the moment); what Dad is doing through this – and those previous episodes – is to illustrate how to die.

Or rather, how to face death. Obviously, very few of us will have the actual choice of “how” to die – certainly, you weren’t given a choice as much as having it suddenly imposed on you by that tree you struck. Meanwhile, those of us of the Christian persuasion consider the deliberate choice of how and when to die morally problematic at best, and an outright (and literal) mortal sin at worst. But time works its process on us all, wearing us down until even the slightest ailments can be life-threatening; this is the third such time he’s faced such a situation. Even if he survives, he will likely need constant care going forward, to a level that Mom, for all her nursing training, won’t be able to offer (because she’s getting older, too, despite not having been crippled by illness to his extent).

Now, he could, as Dylan Thomas suggested to his own father, refuse to “go gentle into that good night,” and rather “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” But what purpose would that serve? How could a man who has patterned his life after being one “after God’s own heart” succumb to anger at the Maker who has subjected him to such a drawn-out exit? How could he renounce all that he’s stood for throughout eight decades just because the last few years have been painful and uncomfortable?

One of the slogans our lead pastor talks about in his sermons from time to time as that of “finishing well.” Too many figures of Christendom have stumbled in those last steps before the finish line; too many ministries have been ruined by the tragedy of the final act. He himself hopes to ‘finish well’ himself; but in the meantime, he sees Dad as the example of one doing so, even as the process is drawn out interminably like this. In this, he becomes the ultimate role model, showing those of us who might very well face a situation like this ourselves someday – not all deaths are quick and merciful, after all – how to deal with it.

To be sure, it has its advantages, too. Being the organized type – and having had the time to prepare – he’s gotten all the paperwork together that we never did with you. Granted, we still had to have him sign a DNR form so the hospital could have a copy in their own files (and it was mildly distressing to see, for my own part; if such strictures as ‘no intubation’ had been in force seven years ago, we would have lost him back then), but by and large, everything’s taken care of, down to the specifics of his funeral service – which he asked several of our pastors about making a recording of. I assured him myself that, since that was done for you, it would and could be done for him, but warned him that we probably wouldn’t be able to show the recording to him beforehand or anything.

The point is, he’s ready for anything at this juncture; and in so being, he’s serving as one last example to all concerned. Prepare for what might be, accept what will be, and make sure there are no regrets. He’s told his several doctors that “I’m right with my God, and I’m right with my wife,” and they all agree that, with those two matters settled, there’s nothing more that need being dealt with – aside from the physical matters for which they’re there to pull him through if, at all possible.

Granted, that leads to a separate subject entirely, which I may discuss with you at a later date. But for now, I’d ask you to keep an eye on him and wish him – and Mom, for that matter – well. I think they both could use it.