This week has been a difficult one for my family. At 81, my father’s health is failing, and we’ve had to make some tough choices. He is none too pleased, which has made the whole thing so much heavier for us all.
I’m sitting here with him now in the hospital in our hometown of Forest, Mississippi, as he sleeps. At this point, we want him to be at peace — and we want to share in that peace.
Truth be told, my family is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. I’ve sat trying to write this column for longer than it usually takes me to finish one. I didn’t think I had it in me to get it done by my deadline. Finally, I texted three longtime newspaper friends and asked if they had suggestions on what I could write about this week.
They each responded immediately with a variety of good suggestions. One of them said, “I’m sure you could just not write one this week. I’m sure the newspaper would be OK with that.”
I agreed with her that it was a solid option. The thing is, I’ve written a newspaper column every since week since I started writing a weekly column in February 2002 — that’s more than 20 years, and I’ve never missed a week. I didn’t want to break my streak.
She reminded me that not breaking a streak is the premise behind an Apple Watch. A streak can be powerful inspiration to keep going.
Friends who remind you of such streaks are even more powerful.
Another friend suggested that I write about those tiny moments that give you strength to keep going. Certainly, I’ve had those today. For example, this morning as I was leaving my parents’ home to head to the hospital, I had to wait my turn to use their long, country driveway.
A small platoon of my father’s former football players filled the driveway with their trucks, trailers and lawn equipment. A few weeks after my dad got sick, a number of his former football players came one day and cleaned up their yard and around their house. After the Herculean task of getting the yard back in shape, they told my parents that they would keep their yard cut and looking good for the next year. Seeing them come down the driveway today put a smile on my face. I love it when folks show up.
When I got to the hospital this morning, I was greeted by people I grew up with. The nurses who treated my father called him coach, as he was the football coach in this tiny town for decades. In fact, this is the hospital where both he and I were born.
Until my father’s recent decline, my parents have primarily used larger medical facilities an hour away. Being here with him has given me a whole new respect for rural health care and its importance to so many. The drive to and from the big hospitals in Jackson was killing my mother. Just the idea of “big city traffic” makes her head spin. But the main thing is that the people who worked at the hospitals in Jackson didn’t know my dad.
Don’t get me wrong, the Jackson folks were nice, but my dad didn’t coach them. My mom didn’t teach them, and I didn’t grow up playing with half of them on the school playground or in my grandmother’s backyard. There are benefits to growing up in a small town, benefits that don’t come down to a matter of privilege — people simply know each other because there are so few of us to know.
As I sat here, I got a text from our daughter in Germany where she has been dog sitting for my parents’ long-ago foreign exchange student who came to be with and help take care of my dad last week. Our German friends arrived home and promptly took our daughter to the train station where they all boarded a train for Paris where they will celebrate our daughter’s birthday this weekend.
Even though my dad continues to sleep, there is much good in this world. I appreciate friends reminding me to pay such good proper homage.