15 hours before my dad died, my mom asked me to make a pact with her. It was 4am and we had been up for over 30 hours, keeping my dad calm and comfortable.
Only minutes before had we realized that he was never going to wake up again. Every hour or two, I had been inserting a syringe of a morphine and other things into his mouth as he was in a deep sleep.
I wasn’t sure how quickly he would pass, but this was it. My mom, struck by the reality, walked out and into the living room.
I knew this moment couldn’t be ours alone. He loved so many and so many loved him. I called his siblings so they could say their goodbyes. Each time, my voice breaking as I whispered, “I think he’s going to pass soon.” And every time I put the phone next to his ear, I quietly sobbed listening to his loved ones say I love you one last time.
The hospice nurse said that his hearing would be the last sense to leave. I wasn’t sure if this was true or just a comforting notion to help with the grieving process, but when my dad’s eyes opened and he tried to speak when one of his siblings said goodbye, I knew the truth.
My heart felt broken and strong, all in the same moment. I was a transformed person in only minutes. Tending to the dying body of a person who had been my life-long pillar of strength, guidance and protection for 41 years. Comforting others who loved him. All while cradling my own pain.
I walked from his bedroom into the living room where my mom sat, staring out onto the moonlit lake. The darkness was so quiet and consolatory. I was grateful for the dark hour because in this hour my dad was still alive with me.
My mom, on her own mindful journey in the dark hour, looked at me.
“Make a pact with me. In this next chapter, let’s reinvent ourselves.” She was smiling through her tears, knowing that the next hour would bring brightness and colorful vibrancy, but it would also bring a heartbreaking end to her 43-long marriage. This was a pact for herself, not me. In my own life, I have been reinvented a thousand times over. But I said yes, so she wouldn’t feel alone in her new life and turned my wet eyes onto the lake that looked like a sea.
When would the sun break? I didn’t want to look at the clock. Time was too precious to count it like I normally did every day.
Before I knew it, the horizon has a glow. The sunrise was beginning, a new day was breaking along with my heart.
In this space, next to the deepest grief I’ve ever felt, and an epic display of natural beauty, I felt another shift. If today is the day my dad dies, I will record it forever in my memory along with a beautiful sunrise. What a gift.
Little did I know this theme of paralleled dichotomy was the seed that would sprout my own reinvention. An internal shift that would activate my mind, body and soul. I was keeping my agreement to my mom’s pact. I was being reinvented.
I took my phone, propped it up in the window and started a time lapse of the sun breaking. There was no other need for my phone.
In the next minutes, hours, days, and weeks, I will not want to be free from my phone and free from time-wasting connection.