On December 29th, 1986, my father turned forty years old, and on this momentous birthday he was doing what he loved best - waiting in line at Disney World.
This is not true, of course. My father was not a fan of Disney World or amusement parks in general. He was at Disney World on his birthday because that’s where we were and he didn’t want us to get lost.
On December 29th, 2021, my father
would have turned seventy-five years old, and on his momentous birthday I was
waiting in line with my family at Disney World’s snarkier little cousin,
Universal Studios. Dad passed away back in May, which was pretty good timing on
his part, because I don’t think he would have been impressed.
If you want to know what the world
looked like before God started making plans to flood the place, Universal
Studios is where you might start. It’s not necessarily evil or anything, it’s
just kind of wrong. Half-drunk middle aged men holding nine dollar beers,
cussing at each other because they don’t want to budge their strollers; angry
moms yelling at underpaid park attendants about rules neither of them
understand; kids freaking out about waiting in line for overpriced pretzels and
then freaking out even harder because they ran out of cheese.
It’s just a lot to take in,
especially in the Florida heat, and I was often shocked by how much money and
effort we had invested in voluntarily spending our Christmas break in such a
crazy place. The drive itself, which our GPS said would take thirteen and a
half hours, was more like twenty hours over two very long days, crawling down
the interstate as part of a huge migration of questionable choices.
It wasn’t all bad, of course, and,
honestly, much of the trip was great. The kids really liked the rides
themselves, particularly the Harry Potter attractions, and our resort had two
different pools to enjoy: one with a water slide and one with a lazy river. It
was also nice to just be away from home for a while and soak up some sunshine.
It was nice to be together as a
family.
Minus dad, of course, who was heavy
on our minds all week.
We began discussing the trip in June, and, like many winter plans conjured up in the
summer sun, it made perfect sense at the time. We were anticipating the need
for an emotional balm to help us endure not only our first Christmas without
dad but also his birthday and even his and mom’s anniversary, which was on New
Year’s Eve.
It was an impossible task, of course,
but it was a start.
It was something.
Although the trip south was, as
mentioned, long and slow, it was only slow once we were about half way there.
We were through Illinois by mid-morning and well into Tennessee by noon,
focused entirely on the road in front of us. Through parts of Kentucky,
however, we were shocked by the storm damage beside us, where we found trees
wiped out and signs bent useless from the tornado that ripped through the area
just a few weeks prior. The damage reminded me of another trip I’d taken with
Dad years earlier to Oklahoma, when we stopped for lunch on our way through
Joplin, Missouri. Although a year had passed by that point, the effects of the
2011 tornado were still stark and violent.
As they do for many Midwesterners,
especially those who enjoyed an early television diet that included “The Wizard
of Oz,” tornados have always loomed large in my imagination. A few times each
year, in fact, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had a recurring nightmare
I’ve called “Tornado on the Horizon.” Like the gray funnel cloud approaching Dorothy
on her Kansas farm, the monster from my dreams lurks from a distance.
It approaches dark and slow;
inevitable.
A few weeks after dad passed away, I
had another tornado dream, only this time the storm made it just outside the
window. A few months later I experienced a similar dream, only this time the
storm wiped out the house, leaving debris everywhere I looked.
Had this “tornado on the horizon,” then,
been an unconscious manifestation of watching my father get older year by year,
the unspoken realization that his time with us in this word would someday end?
Perhaps. The mind is a funny thing,
complicated and temperamental.
Having grown up in south-central
Illinois, however, I learned early that tornadoes are inevitable. My own closest
call came in 7th grade while helping to set up for the Spring awards
ceremony at school. No one was hurt and the damage wasn’t significant, but I will always
remember the intense moments listening to the wind and hail, waiting for the
storm to pass, crouched beneath cafeteria tables with my classmates.
Storms in general are absolutely a
sure thing. We live on a funny planet, complicated and temperamental, full of
hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis and disease.
The debris from such calamities can
be overwhelming.
Death, also, can be overwhelming,
like a whole house flattened with its guts tossed for miles. Such loss is often
paralyzing. We can barely wander around the remnants of what we thought we
understood, too shell shocked to even begin to pick up the pieces.
We do, however, begin to eventually pick
up the pieces, because that is what survivors do. We learn—often quite
slowly—to honor the memories of our loved ones by just breathing, by waking up
each morning, and by carrying on the best we can.
This looks different for everyone.
For me, I suppose, a big part of
honoring my father means raising his grandchildren as well as I can, guiding
them, praying over them, telling them the dad jokes they secretly adore.
I suppose it also means waking up
before the sun rises on occasion, to wait in line at amusement parks.
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