Good morning. Six years ago, my dad lost his fight against pancreatic cancer. During the majority of the three years he was sick, I hid. I found every reason I possibly could to stay hundreds of miles away from IV bags, mood swings, and the mountains of pills that towered over every meal. I ran to Australia. Eventually, he begged me to come back. So I did—and then weeks later, I sprinted halfway across the country to hide in Chicago. When it became clear he had only a few weeks left, I crawled home.
When I returned, I found a home full of cousins, aunts, and uncles. Our days were long, boring, and filled with conversations dancing around the phrase, "so when he dies..." But the nights—the nights were glorious. We'd spend hours making his favorite lamb shish kebab, downing Scotch, and dissecting how much of a cry baby I was in family videos. We laughed, ate, and danced past the IV bags and pill mountains that tormented us hours earlier.
All to say, it was in those final weeks that I learned I never needed to hide—and that I could find joy and safety in the smallest cracks of the most painful moments.
Father's Day is always one of those moments. The lamb's going on the grill in a few hours.
