In 2014 my dad died of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’ s disease. What the disease did to his body is very difficult to describe if you have not personally witnessed it.
What it did to his relationships was even worse. A pattern of my dad’ s verbal abuse and threats toward my mom resulted in my dad leaving my mom, and living on his own, for a period of months. He refused all of our attempts to arrange a place for him to live close by so we could help care for him. And when we would pay for someone to come and care for him, he would find a reason to fire them every time. These dark months included repeated threats from my dad toward us and himself— and a downward spiral that made me wonder whether we might end up killing him before the disease did. I say that humorously, obviously, but hopefully the exaggeration underscores how dismal our hopes of reconciliation were.
The turning point, as I now see it, came when my dad’ s health had deteriorated to the point that he was no longer dangerous to my mom. She made the decision to convince him( and allow him) to come back and live with her so that she could care for him in his final days. The process was slow, and I’ m not saying everything healed perfectly. However, I can say that our family was able to experience the last several months of my dad’ s life to ¬ gether. It wasn’ t always pretty, but we were able to be by his side until— and through— the very end. Actually, some of those moments toward the end proved to be the most memorable and beautiful of my life. One in particular I’ ll never forget.
32 Solutions
On that weekend I had preached my sermon at our Saturday night service and then preached it again for our 9:30 a. m. service on Sunday. Normally I would have preached it one last time at 11:30 a. m., but something told me not to stay for the 11:30 service. I instructed the team to play back the video of my sermon for the different locations where our church meets. Then I left in my car. I didn’ t know where I was going. At first I headed toward my house, but while I was en route, something told me to go to my parents’ home instead, which was only a few miles from my own.
When I got there, my dad was pulling up the 11:30 worship experience online to watch in his bed. He had long since passed the point of being able to come to church, but he never missed a sermon on his iPad, which my mom had rigged to the side of his bed where he could mostly control it. He was confused when I walked in.“ Wait, if you’ re here... Who’ s preaching?” he asked.“ I am.”“ But you’ re here.” I said,“ They’ re going to play the video. I’ m going to watch it with you.” I sat on the bed by my dad and watched myself preach. It was a little awkward but mostly very special. There had been a point during our relational standoff where he gave me an ultimatum in anger.
“ If you really cared about me, you would cancel one of your preaching engagements and come spend time with me.”
I remembered him having said that as I was leaving that day, and as he was giving me a few pointers,