I’m sitting at a sunroom table, my 84-year-old parents to my right and left. Dad just asked Mom, “Did you find my will in the safe deposit box?” She had.
Moments ago, to make sure they had their bases covered, Mom asked me to clarify the difference between an advanced directive and a living will. I explained that a living will is a specific type of advanced directive stating the types of medical care a person prefers.
Brad Bull
After a year of on-again-off-again illness and hospitalizations, Dad recently received a diagnosis of liver and pancreatic cancer. Two days from now, I’ll be driving him to meet with an oncologist.
Dad and I were alone together on Palm Sunday while Mom went to church. After watching their church’s service on TV, Dad and I sat in silence. I could tell he was struggling through “mornings are the worst part of the day.”
Eventually he shared how miserable he felt physically. I was sitting next to him, my hand on his, weeping with him. He said, “I’ve read online about what I’ve got, and I know it ain’t good.”
“I’ve read online about what I’ve got, and I know it ain’t good.”
I said, “They’re going to give you two choices.”
He said, “I know. And I’m not going to spend $20,000 to live six more months like this.”
I asked if he needed to hear anything from me. He thought but said nothing.
I said, “Well, I want to tell you the most important things I’ve learned from you.” I started telling him the top three lessons. Toward the end of the third, he suddenly interrupted. I couldn’t tell if my pause made him think I was done or he just needed to say something before he couldn’t. Voice struggling, eyes penetrating my soul, he said, “Son, I now want to teach you how to die.”
After a pause he sobbed: “God has been so good to me. God is the only way someone from my background goes on to be a college professor. I’ve been so blessed, and I just want my death to glorify God.”
His background?
Dad was born in August 1941, the son of East Tennessee sharecroppers who had gotten married at age 18 and 15 respectively. Dad was the youngest player of a baseball team of nine sons. Six months before his birth, his father died of pneumonia at age 32. Among his last words to my grandmother were that, if any of their sons wanted to go to college, he desired they be sent to Tennessee Baptists’ Carson-Newman. Dad was the first of two of the nine sons who did so. He went on to serve there as a professor of education for 35 years.
“Dad was four months old when Pearl Harbor was bombed.”
Dad was four months old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. His oldest brother was drafted and went to the South Pacific. According to family lore, Sen. Estes Kefauver once came by the house and scolded my grandmother for not contacting him to get a hardship deferral. However, her second son begged and nagged until she signed for him to join, too. (My father just said there is some question as to whether she signed for him or he lied about his age when he enlisted.) Regardless, Dad’s mom was a 30-year-old widow with her two oldest sons away at war. The third would see combat in Korea.
My grandmother once told me that one Christmas Eve during World War II, she was crying because she had nothing to give her sons for Christmas. A knock at the door came, and multiple people from her church were standing on the porch with armloads of gifts.
During his early years, Dad rode to church in a horse-drawn wagon. While I was writing this piece, he was reflecting on his life and said, “I remember so vividly when we got an indoor toilet for the first time. I was in fifth grade.” My mom replied, “I was in second grade when we got one.”
The first time Dad attempted first grade, he had mumps, then chicken pox, then measles and then pneumonia — with a chronic cold thrown in for good measure. His teacher suggested he repeat first grade. He did. He had perfect attendance that year — and every other school year through graduation from college. During the first of three graduate degrees, he missed my birth because he was, of necessity, at work, delivering the Fort Worth Press.
When Dad was a young boy, a man at the farmers’ market asked, “Was Rufus Bull your daddy?” Dad said, “Yes.” The man told him to have a seat on the curb. He extracted a watermelon from his wagon, cut it in pieces, handed Dad one of the pieces and laid the others beside him. The man said, “Your father was one of the finest men I ever knew.” Then the man told Dad stories about his father while Dad enjoyed the communion juice of an entire watermelon and the bread of connection.
I have previously described how — around 1970 or 1971 in Augusta, Ga. — my father heard me use the n-word and warned me of an impending spanking. My mother intervened, saying I likely heard the word on the school bus, and they just needed to explain. The truth is, it’s just as likely I heard the word from one of his brothers or one of my cousins.
Nonetheless, I got a lecture about slavery and racism. He concluded, “That is a word of hatred, and we do not use that word.” That was something I’m sure he learned in a quality Christian liberal arts education that challenged the status quo of systemic hatred.
“There might be a miracle, but I’m ready to go and be with God.”
During our Palm Sunday conversation, referring to his prognosis, Dad said, “There might be a miracle, but I’m ready to go and be with God.” In the meantime, we have now returned from the oncologist and learned that the average life expectancy for his type of cancer is about six months. The doctor offered some treatments to slow the cancer’s progression. But when we pulled in the driveway back home, Dad said to Mom: “I will not be going back.” Mom said, “OK.” He said, “I’m not afraid to die, but this pain.” Mom compassionately said, “I’m so sorry you are hurting.”
Dad napped for a bit in his recliner. Upon awakening, after a bit of silence he smiled and said, “I’m going to get to meet my Daddy.” That led to stories about his childhood. After a while he started talking about a friend who held a funeral before dying. Suddenly, Dad said, “Ha! I’m going to post on Facebook that we’re having a receiving of friends starting now — by appointment. But you better hurry because I’m a limited-time engagement!”
He and Mom laughed like school children.
It’s now been a month since I started writing this piece. In the meantime, one of my sisters — a former track athlete — took Dad to a meeting to confirm the need to set up hospice care. At the hospital exit he said, “Race you to the car.” Benita looked at him incredulously. He lilted, “Hey, my legs work fine.”
Later, my parents insisted my wife and I proceed with a long-planned dream trip. I agonized about being gone 10 days. I’m glad we proceeded with our first-time visit to Chicago and train trip across the Great Plains to Glacier National Park. Each day, I sent Dad a photo of some new sight. He usually responded with just one word like “Cool.” One photo in North Dakota evoked, “That’s where your mom and I spent two summers as missionaries.” Thanks to modern technology, I felt so close to him.
In the time I was gone, though, his “race you to the car” ability deteriorated. A few days ago, he went to a church best-ball golf tournament. He only putted. He told me, “I never putted past the cup. I’m so weak. It wore me out just standing there.” But there was a lightness in his voice as he described the affirmations of his fellow church members.
So, we haven’t seen a miracle of healing. But I sit here thankful for the miracles that already have happened: the miracles of transformation, resilience and grace — miracles born of faith and community. And I’m thankful for the ongoing manifestation of those miracles as Dad and Mom boldly and gracefully face death or, as he prefers to call it, birth into his next life.
Brad Bull has served as hospital chaplain, pastor and university professor. His daddy delivered papers in seminary; standing on tall shoulders, he wrote for a paper in seminary. He currently works as a therapist and freelance writer. Find him at DrBradBull.com.