Phone Call from Leavenworth: Father's Day Flashbacks

I got a phone call that changed my life. It was late and I was hanging out with friends, not planning on going home that night. My dad had fallen down the basement stairs on his way to bed for the night and crawled to the phone to call me and if I recall correctly, I called 911 for him. My friends and I raced to my house to meet EMS. I didn't realize it right away, but that night would change the entire course of my life. 

I was sitting in Bible study when the phone rang and then rang again. My dad called me to tell me that my mom was found unresponsive and had died from an overdose. That phone call changed my life too. Events like this have made virtually every phone call send chills up my spine. 

I got to call my dad to tell him that I was going to be a dad too. It wasn't his first time being a grandpa, but being a grandpa to all of his grandchildren is probably the only thing I remember giving him genuine joy for a very long time. 

The phone rang and I felt that familiar chill. It was time to call my dad and say goodbye. He'd fallen again and had to have surgery. I picked up the phone and talked to my then nonverbal father for the last time. He died from post-op complications. The phone rang again to tell me the news that had already been relayed to me on social media. He was gone. 

My relationship with my dad was love, hate, codependent, and costly. I haven't forgotten my blind loyalty to the man I called Dad. I haven't forgotten acknowledging my hatred towards him for the first time after he passed away. I haven't forgotten the cost of codependence and work tirelessly to be a different kind of father and person. However, on Father's Day it's impossible not to think about my dad and the mixed bag of good and bad. 

The human experience is a wild one. I can be simultaneously sad that my dad is gone and grateful that his fight is over, and by extension so is my codependent role with him. I don't like how many times a phone call has changed my life and given me chills, but I sit here on Father's Day ultimately grateful for the journey that's come through it all. 

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