A Father's Love

I have never felt so loved by my Dad than the day he escorted me down the aisle. True to the Murphy’s Law of things, this was not your ordinary proud father and weeping daughter. My father rolled me down the aisle in a wheelchair. He had spent the last 115 days in the hospital, the target of a disease that choked his arteries, amputated his left leg, weakened his heart, and rendered him a paraplegic. The disease could not dim his spirit.
I’ll always wonder how he did it, how he put his proud, private self on display for me, how he donned a tux, put on one shiny black shoe, and left his hospital bed after nearly four months of convalescing to roll me down the aisle. A man who spent his life water-skiing, gardening, swimming in the ocean, a man whose pride was based on walking tall and whose heart was bent on walking his oldest daughter down the aisle. I don’t know how he did it: showed himself so sick, so vulnerable, so frail, in front of all who knew him.
He looked so pale that day, but so proud. I didn’t know until later that he almost didn’t make it to the church at all. Artery diseases don’t stop for weddings, and this particular predator had found a new victim earlier that week: his colon. I’ll always remember how he held my hand so tightly as we walked down the aisle. As a little girl, he held my hand to keep me steady. Now I was doing the same for him. My arms still feel that hug at the end of the aisle, as he wiped a tear from his eye and gave me away to my waiting beau. I didn’t know it then, but that was the last hug my Dad would give me. I could feel his eyes, his smiles, his pride as he watched the vows unfold on that sunny Saturday. And I’ll never forget that gift of love.

Who could have known that it would be his last perfect gift to me? The day after the wedding, he was in a coma, his brain protecting him from the ravaging pain of his constricting arteries. His blood pressure plummeted as I soared through the air to Jamaica with my new husband. The doctor said he’d be dead within the day. My Mom didn’t want to ruin my honeymoon, so she bore the burden without me. While I sipped tropical drinks by the shore of the Caribbean Sea, my Dad sank lower as his heartbeat slowed.

For four long days, I basked in the sun while my Father refused to die. On the fifth day, I knew. Something inexplicable forced me to call. I found him in the ICU, waiting for his goodbye. Although he couldn’t talk, I know he heard my words. I thanked him for his love, I assured him of mine, and I marveled at his amazing gift to me: the day when he summoned his last bit of strength in order to offer me every girl’s dream, a proud father to escort her down the aisle. He died twenty minutes after that phone call, and although I was thousands of miles away, I held his heart in mine as he drifted off to sleep.