Celebrating Life
- lewopschall
- Feb 1, 2015
- 3 min read
For most, today is a celebration of America’s finest; food, football, commercials, and this year, Katy Perry. For me, today is a celebration of a life that was lost.
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February 1, 2001. I was ten-years-old. I was sitting in the TV room on the couch nestled tightly in one of the corners. The cushion was worn in. We really should have been rotating those cushions around since this was the place where everybody would watch TV, but we never did and the cushion just got worn because of it.
Whenever my dad would lie on that couch watching TV I would always sit in that very spot. Lying there he would naturally bend his legs at a ninety degree angle creating a small space left between his legs and the back of the couch, where I would happily snuggle in. It wasn’t as cozy without him there.
That night as I sat curled up on the couch our door never seemed to shut as people came in and out of our home. As they walked inside they made their way to the back of the house to my parent’s bedroom. There, my father, who had been battling cancer for over a year, was moments away from his last breathe.
When he was first diagnosed several of the doctors had told us that he was untreatable, that he would die tomorrow. But tomorrow came and he continued to live. My dad was a fighter and got through most of his pain because of his positive attitude and sense of humor.
Still sitting firmly planted on the couch I stared at the TV. “Zeon” the Disney Channel Original Movie was playing. I began to hear slow footsteps from my Grandpa coming down the hallway. Each step he took led me a little bit closer to the harsh reality I was about to face. When he reached the den he walked up to the side of where I was sitting and knelt down on one knee. He looked into my eyes while mine remained on Zeon’s search for Protozoa. “He’s gone,” he said to me as a tear rolled down his face. I didn’t flinch. Not a muscle moved in my body. After a few moments of silence as my Grandpa looked at my stoic face, he gently got up and retreated back to my parent’s bedroom. Not a tear left my eyes that night.
It was at that moment on the couch, when everything changed. My perfect life of growing up in a suburban family of four living in the home with a white picket fence wasn’t so perfect anymore. Suddenly our leading male was gone. This wasn’t how the story was supposed to go, I thought. Where was my happily ever after?
What I didn’t know then though was that this wasn’t the end of my story, in fact it was just the beginning.
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I share this moment with you because it’s a moment that has greatly shaped my life. Losing my father has led me to my outlook on life and fueled the passions I have today.
I still miss my dad. When you lose someone you love, people often will console you with “It get’s easier,” “The pain goes away,” but the truth is it doesn’t. You always feel that pain, that loss. You do, learn to cope with it.
Today, I choose not to morn, but to celebrate because that is what my father would have wanted. He believed in enjoying the simple things, he held his family and friends close, he was giving to others, and always found a way to crack a silly joke. Every day I try to honor him by living the way he would have, had be been given the day to live.
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