My dad couldn’t talk and as a man of many words and opinions, this agitated him. We were all desperate to hear his voice and hear his opinion. He had been praying for the man I would someday marry since the day I was born. Now I found what seemed to be a keeper, I couldn’t hear his thoughts on the matter. One otherwise boring day, David and I sat in his bright hospital recovery room with the TV buzzing in the background and the nurses popping in and out every few minutes. Dad gestured for me to hand him the whiteboard, and he wrote for a few minutes before turning the sign around to us both. He wrote, ‘When are you going to her ask her to marry you?’ I nervously laughed, wondering if his forwardness was going to kill any chances I had. But though no one said it, we all knew it then and there. The man taking care of me was the very one Dad had spent all those nights praying for.
We were transported to a rehab unit where we would help Dad learn to walk and talk again. Most days felt grueling and defeating, wondering if we would ever hit the milestones we longed for. Just when hope felt too distant, a connection in his brain went through and we celebrated the hope this carried. The weight of this season still felt palpable. Dad’s brain cancer was still a part of the story. The biopsy had confirmed it was aggressive. While laying in the hospital bed, Dad’s friend, Kevin, who also happened to be a licensed therapist posed some questions for him. Mom sat listening while us kids gathered in the family room. Kevin boldly asked what we all wondered without saying aloud, ‘The cancer isn’t going anywhere. You have lost your ability to speak and walk. So Patrick, what now?’
Before he had even regained the ability to speak, my dad grabbed a whiteboard yet again and wrote out the words, ‘I CHOOSE JOY!’ They all then signed the bottom as a promise for them, but really as a promise for all of us. No matter what happened in the days that followed, joy would be our anthem. It wouldn’t come naturally, but we would choose it again and again and again. It felt like a foreign language at first but soon, it would become our native tongue. Instead of anger or fear, joy was going to take center stage and get the loudest microphone.
Eventually, we made it home to the bungalow a couple of steps and a stone’s throw from the rolling waves of Lake Superior. I had been living in a college house with a couple of other girls but moved everything back into my parents to help care for my dad. We didn’t know where our story was headed and I clung to the hope of full healing and restoration in my dad’s body. Still, I packed my bags in that college house so fast and Mom made space to fit my bed only 14 steps away from where dad recovered.
