A Year Ago Today

One year ago today, at this very moment, I was sitting in a full waiting room, filled with hope and excitement, with a small amount of fear mixed in.

Daddy was in surgery, finally receiving his long-awaited for liver transplant.

The hope and excitement that I felt, the overwhelming relief was enough to make me weak in the knees. I tried not to think about the "other" family. The one that was making funeral arrangements because someone they loved had just died. I kept telling myself it was in God's plan that the person who died happened to do so just in time to save my daddy's life. I struggled not to cry for them as I rejoiced for myself and my family. I fought to keep them away from my heart.

Today, it is not so easy to do that. They just "crossed" over the one year mark. The one that is coming up for us. They are mourning and sad and they didn't deserve to have their loved one die for anyone else to live. I think of all the sorrow and grief that I have felt the past 12 months and I am sad that they do it also. Do they take comfort in the thought that the person they loved saved lives while dying? Do they know that not every one he/she donated to made it? Do they think, "What a waste?" like I sometimes do?

From time to time this year, I have thought of them. Should I send them a note, thanking them for their generosity? Should I tell them of they hope that they gave us? Should I tell them about the man my dad was? How does one write a note like that when the out come wasn't at all like we or they wanted it to be?

The fear I felt in the waiting room was not real. It was a small thought in the back of my mind. A little tickle in the back of my throat that I could ease with a sip of water, if that analogy makes since. It was there, but it wasn't real...because no where in my mind did I ever think or consider that my daddy wasn't going to make it.

When the doctor came to tell us that he was out of surgery, we all rejoiced. We didn't pay attention to the fatigue that he wore like a heavy coat over his shoulders. We didn't notice the worry that crinkled around his eyes. We shrugged it off on his personality, on the thought he had done 2 back-to-back transplants that day. In fact, I barely heard his words after he told us he was done and that daddy survived. It is only in hind-sight that I see his worry over his patient, his fatigue from a surgery that didn't go as well as hoped instead of the elation or excitement that I am sure most surgeons feel when the patient sails through with flying colors.

I foolishly thought the worst was behind us.

When we were finally allowed to go see daddy in the ICU, I looked at him in horror. I still have the image of him laying in that bed stuck in my mind like a brand new snap shot, clear and precise. I see the grayish-yellow, sickly pallor of his skin, the blood that ran like water and tears down his face leaking from everywhere it seemed at the time. For a moment, fear paralyzed me. I was scared to reach out and touch him, to speak even one word.

Then, I thought, "Man, Aimee, you are so dumb; he is fine, he is wonderful, he is ALIVE." I reached out and gently touched his hand, his forehead. I whispered softly to him that I loved him and rejoiced with my siblings and mom that it was done.

As I walked out, I said to them, or maybe just thought it, "Wow, we could have lost him today." Then shrugged it off as easily as I did the earlier fear in the waiting room. "Because, my daddy IS invincible and God won't let someone so wonderful, so good and true die after all he had been through and all he had done for God."

Naive isn't even the word, right?

The day ended with my mom, sister and I sleeping in the hospital, giggling and joking about silly and mundane things. We were all so over come with joy and hope for the future. We teased each other, laughed together and had a good night, sleeping one on a couch and 2 in a tiny, hospital bed. We didn't care. Daddy was ALIVE and on his way back to being who he was before this dreaded disease infiltrated his body, our lives.