First Visit of my dad in the ICU

I am the luckiest person alive. I feel like the most blessed woman on earth-- or maybe apart of the most blessed family on earth. I know firsthand of the goodness and greatness of people's hearts. Does heaven exist here on earth? I think in little pieces it absolutely does. It exists in that purest of pure sections in our hearts. When people need care, our eternal spirits yearn to come free and love those that need loving. That little bit of our heart reminds us that great good exists in the world and especially, in all of us. There are spots all around the world where celestial love and calm can abound, and that is the temple. That is where that piece of our heart is able to expand. My family has been blessed with great love. I know I keep saying that, but I do not feel that saying it once, justifies how touched my heart has been.

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Today I flew to Oregon to be with my Dad. I arrived with my son E and nearly straightway drove to Legacy Emanuel Hospital to see my Daddy. I did not expect him to be awake. I was very certain he would still be in a drug induced coma. But as we rounded the corner, all the while my heart is nervously pounding, I see my Dad's eyes open as he looks at us. The nurse says, "He's been asking for you." How she knew that I do not know, since he still has a ventilator down his throat.

I've seen a lot of things in my life.... or at least I like to think I have seen a lot of things. Either from television shows like CSI, personal idiotic experiences, or family or friend idiot experiences. Seeing my Dad in the ICU was devastating to me, but not horrific or disgusting or tramatizing. It just made me very sad. He's my Superman. He never gets hurt. He's a brick wall... an atomic bomb. Nothing gets past him. And tonight I saw what a bacteria like Strep can do to my Superman, my brickwall and atomic bomb.

I came into the room and it felt like all of the air had been sucked out of me. It felt like my thoughts had been stolen from me, leaving my mind a blank. My Dad was lying in a bed with a tube in his nose to feed him. Cuts on his neck from various tubes that had been removed from him. A tube down his throat that was connected to two others. His eyes could not focus long. His hands and feet were swollen. He had two more tubes protruding from just below his lungs that were there to remove excess water build up. His ribs hurt him from the tubes, his throat hurt him from the tubes, and the only thing I could think was, "Get the tubes out! Can't you see they're hurting him! Get them out! Please! Please."

We stayed for a few hours; myself, my mother, and my father-in-law. We talked about what is going on and what thing is doing what for him. We tried to talk to him and I felt so hopeless as he signed to us and I did not know what the sign meant. I wanted so bad to make things easier for him and here I am unable to discern the ASL alphabet and only making it more difficult for him. I am determined to know it before I leave. After a bit, we ran out of conversational things to say, so I started to tell him about home. His eyes closed and he just listened. I told him about the little pug that E likes to play with. They're the same size and the little thing just lays E flat out on his back when he pounces on him. I told him about my Chemistry class that I am in right now and how my last test was a bust, but the teacher will just drop that completely off my grade. We talked about nothing and everything and anything being sure we did not require him to converse with us.

I love my Dad. I am grateful for a little thing like a credit card reward plan that made it possible to fly down to be with my family. I love the Lord. I love his gospel and I know more than ever now, the capacity the human heart has to love and serve.

We are going to make SuperFan shirts for our dad. All the kids will have one with our handprints on them. Kind of cheesy, but hopefully the sincerity of the idea will shine through if the shirts do not turn out so well.