“Are you nervous?” I asked him.
“Not at all,” he responded.
So we moved on to talk about our favorite subject: politics. We were both excited for the probable election of Keith Ellison to Congress. Even though my Dad was living in North Carolina, he was following the story every day. I told Dad that I planned to drop off my law school application the next morning, and we were both anticipating their response; this would be a new chapter in my life. I was 37, eight months pregnant with my third child, and ready for this new phase to begin.
The next day I woke up, planning to turn in my application in person, and then have lunch with friends. I stopped home before noon and there was a blinking message on my answering machine. I hit play.
It was Mom. “I’m still in the hospital—call me.”
I rushed to call her back, and when I asked what was wrong she said, “Oxygen didn’t go to Dad’s brain for three minutes, he hasn’t woken up.” I asked when he would.
There was a long pause.
Then, in a tone I had never heard her use before, she said, “The doctors say he might not ever wake up.”
If I thought my post-35 third trimester was difficult, the next nine days proved to be the hardest of my life. Each day I woke up, hoping there would be good news, but each day he didn’t wake up, and it was like the first day of my Mom’s distressed call all over again.
On September 26th I went into premature labor. My Dad was still in a coma. I didn’t want to do this without him, but the doctors started to prepare me for a c-section while my mind thought “it’s not supposed to be this way.”
Then my cell rang. My Mom’s phone number. My heart stopped again - was he gone?
“Mom?” My voice was already choked with grief.
“Dad woke up, now go have that baby.”
Nine days after my Dad went into a coma, I gave birth to a little boy. We named him Zachary, which means. “The Lord remembers.” My Dad lived seven more months, and I was able to fly to North Carolina to say goodbye.I’ll never forget September 26, 2006 because I felt like the real meaning of our Zachary’s name is, “Dad remembers.” I can tell him when he gets older that my Dad always was, and always will be there for us when we need him most. Love is like that. And nothing, not distance, not illness, not even death, can ever, truly separate us.
Happy Holidays to everyone who has supported my Sister Scholar blog.
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