Universal

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 7^th 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.