Giving Thanks in the Face of Hoplessness

Thanksgiving will never be the same again. My mother was always at her happiest when family gathered together to share food and laughter. This year we will all miss the enthusiasm that my mother displayed for all things holiday related. I knew this was coming. I knew that it would be a difficult day. But until November 12, I had no idea how hopeless I would feel this Thanksgiving.

The election results kicked me in the gut and left me with a sick feeling. It feels like the time I wiped out on my bike and the handlebar made a direct hit to my spleen. I was bleeding internally. It’s a uniquely sick type of feeling. I was sweating, but cold to the touch. I felt completely wiped out. I could not catch my breath at first, and then felt an overwhelming desire to just let go and fall asleep. My parents arrived home just as the neighbor called to check on me. The neighbor had helped me get home after the wipeout, but assumed my parents were home because both cars were there. But my parents had gone for a boat ride on the lake we lived on.

It was not that unusual when I was a teenager to find me taking a snooze in the middle of the day. But after the phone call, my mother came to check on me. My mother was a certified medical assistant and had worked in the medical field for several years at the time of my accident. She gently woke me up. She had that motherly look of concern on her face. She asked me details about the accident. She asked what happened when I got home. When I reported that I had vomited, I saw the worry grow on her face. She felt my head. I might have said something like, “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” I was accident prone, but I had never felt sick in this way before as a result of any previous falls or crashes. Mom said that we needed to see a doctor.

Dad drove us to the hospital in the city which was about a 30-minute drive. I believe we made it much quicker than that. Hospital regulations required that I sit in a wheelchair. As we waited to see the Doctor, I began to start feeling like myself again. My parents were beginning to doubt the rush to the hospital as I started racing around and popping wheelies in the wheelchair. We might have left except that the doctor arrived at just the right time. If we had left, I would not be typing this sentence right now. I would have been the first in my immediate family to leave this realm. By earthly measure, it would have been a long wait for my mother to join me. In cosmic time, it probably would have felt instantaneous.

The Doc took me to an examination room. He said that he was going to poke around my abdomen and I should let him know if I felt pain anywhere at all. He poked me under the left ribcage. I felt an immediate searing pain in my right shoulder. I remember telling him that it might seem strange but that his prodding in my gut had made my shoulder hurt. He stood up and said,” Yep. That’s your spleen.” They brought my parents in and explained that I had most likely ruptured my spleen. They would need to inject a dye into my blood and look at my spleen on an x-ray to see if it was bleeding. He explained that spleens were unnecessary organs and that if it was bleeding that they would need to do emergency surgery to remove it.

I’m much like my mother. Inside I am a ball of nerves, but I can display calm when crisis hits. So my mother and I both displayed calmness while our insides churned. This was major surgery. I watched on a screen the short x-ray video of blood leaking out of what they said was my spleen. I had never heard of a spleen before, but they made it sound no more important than tonsils or an appendix. Dying during surgery never occurred to me. But as a parent of teenagers now, I realize that must have been a real fear for my mom and dad at that moment.

My parents had to wait in the hall while the nurses prepped me for surgery. They had to shave the peach fuzz off of my belly where the incision would be made. They let my parents back in to see me off to surgery. They were all smiles and full of reassurances. I was in good hands. The doctor would take good care of me. As the nurse showed up to wheel the gurney to the O.R. my mother and father told me they loved me. My mother stroked my hair with one hand and held my hand with her other for as long as she could until the nurse said to them, “This is where we have to leave you. He will be fine.” I looked back at my parents and saw the color draining from their faces.

Then it was through the doors to the operating room and suddenly there was a rush of activity around me. A man dressed in scrubs and wearing a mask came to my side and talked to me. He said that he would be monitoring me during the surgery. He would make sure that I was OK. He also said that he was going to inject something into the I.V. that would put me to sleep and that when I woke up I would be in recovery. Then came instant darkness and all awareness was gone. It seemed only a moment passed and I was awake in a different part of the hospital. It took a minute to remember why I was there.

A friendly nurse greeted me with, “Good morning! Glad you decided to wake up!
There are people waiting outside who are eager to see you." 

My mother was first through the door. She had that look you get when you are bracing yourself for a potentially shocking sight. Would I look gaunt? Would I have tubes running everywhere?  Her face was prepared for these possibilities and more, but only for an instant. Her expression immediately changed to one of pure joy. Her son was fine. Dad was immediately behind her and was already smiling and saying, “How ya doin’, buddy?” Mom told me how happy she was that I was alright and how worried she had been. My parents loved me in that deep way that you don’t even know exists until you become a parent yourself. 

It is a burdensome kind of love. 

A love intertwined with hopes and fears.

It’s that love for my children that weighs so heavily upon me this Thanksgiving. I am afraid for them as I witness the emboldening of white nationalists. I watched in disgust as grown white people made Nazi salutes to our President-elect. I am discouraged by his weak response to the clear rise in hate crimes stirred up by his divisive rhetoric. I fear that my children have a long battle ahead. I worry that they will face bigotry because they are not Christian or white.  I struggle to put on the “everything is going to be OK” face that my mother was so good at.      

          Today we give thanks.

  And I understand that my privileged status gives me much to be thankful for, but with an awareness that finding comfort in that privilege is shameful. I am thankful that I am alive. I am thankful that my mother recognized an emergency when she saw one. I am thankful for the love that my parents gave me. I am thankful for the memories of my mother overseeing the family gatherings that made her so happy. I am thankful that I will create new memories with my wife and children.

And I am thankful for the burdensome love of being a father. Only this love can defeat hopelessness.