June 18, 2008

• Secondhand Lions.

  Your heart is only as good as what you would sacrifice it for.

  I wrote a few years ago after my father passed away that time doesn’t heal all wounds, it just makes it easier to forget.  Another Father’s Day has come and gone, with the father I am supposed to celebrate it with no longer here.  The wounds have healed, but not because of the time that has passed.  Perhaps you could say that the salve was one part Jesus, one part the love of my wife, one part the love of my family, and one part finally growing into the skin of the man my father wanted me to be.  Time is a trickster, though, a chronological Loki wreaking mischief in our memories.  I spent most of my Father’s Day forgetting that it was Father’s Day, only remembering later that night, spurring a phone call to my mom to see if she was handling things okay.

  I watched Secondhand Lions with my wife earlier today [SPOILER ALERT, however this movie is from 2003] which is about a young boy who is raised by his two granduncles on a rural property.  2 important scenes occured with one where the boy is saved by an old lion finally realizing its true nature after being raised in captivity, its heart giving out in the act of rescuing him and the other when he receives the “How to become a Man” speech from his granduncle.  We don’t hear the talk in its entirety but I think the point is not what is in the message, but rather that there is someone there to give it.

  After the movie was over I thought about the conversation I had with my dad that day when he decided to go to hospice.  For almost a year he had been battling a cancer that most succumb to in 3-6 months, his will to survive partly influenced by his desire to keep his practice around long enough for me to inherit, leading to painful trips to see his patients, the piercing side effects of chemotherapy and an extra surgery which I felt at the time was unnecessary and almost led to his early demise due to a complication.  Though his spirit was indefatigable, his body was not.  Things were progressing the wrong way.  The surgery did not serve to grant him significantly more time, the standard chemotherapy regimens had failed and yet he was still willing to fight, still willling to drag his feet to work, one excruciating step at a time.  I never asked him for any of it yet there he was, a Secondhand Lion willing to give his heart out for his boy.  After he was hospitalized again he mentioned to me that he was considering an off-label chemotherapy agent but for the first time I could tell in his voice that instead of telling me, he was asking.  I pondered my answer, the silence over the phone masking the maelstrom of emotions within me.  How do you tell your own father that it is okay to die?  Though the wounds have healed, the pain from that day still remains and will never leave me.

  I never really had the specific “How to become a Man” talk with my father, but the point is not what he would have told me, but rather that he was there to show me. 

  I thought about that as I went outside to the porch, as I am wont to do on the nights that I try to find somewhere I can be closer to him.  I gazed at the night sky, the first in a long time where the stars were visible due to the fires burning in the distance.  It was there only for an instant, but a falling star made its presence known, flashing brilliantly as it faded away, as if the world beyond was winking to tell me that everything is okay, and on the inside I heard his voice again.  “Your heart is only as good as what you would sacrifice it for…and being willing to give it for your family is how you become a man.”

  I went in and woke up my wife, telling her that I had just seen a falling star for the first time since college, when I was lying at Sandy Beach in Hawaii next to a girl I had a crush on watching the heavenly tapestry being woven above.  She laughed and asked me if I made a wish.  I lay there and watched her as she went back to sleep, the look in my eyes telling her that my wish had already come true, because I have something truly worth sacrificing my heart for.

  Happy Belated Father’s Day, Dad.  I miss you.

  —–

  Edit: It’s currently available free on Comcast on Demand in the TBS section!

  • 10:11 am
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