I miss you, Dad

The sense of numbness hadn’t gone away. The pain hadn’t hit yet.

It was just a matter of time. When it struck, I knew it would take control.

I still remember how it felt like a horrible nightmare embedded deep in the subconscious that had yet to awaken. The truth was just too much to bear.

It began with a phone call late Sunday afternoon. The timing of the call just didn’t seem right.

It was too late in the day for it to be a weekly chat with my parents.

My mother’s frail, shaky voice relayed the news as she struggled to put into words what had happened. My father, the one who served as my mentor and source of inspiration as a child, had passed away earlier that afternoon.

It was something my family and I knew was coming. It was just a matter of when.

His health had steadily declined in recent years and worsened over the span of several months. I’d honestly lost count of how many times he was rushed to the hospital after falling to the floor in the family’s house.

Weeks later, I learned he was fully bedridden and receiving hospice care, which truly punched me in the gut.

I knew Dad’s time was running out. The question was when.

Months? Weeks?

Perhaps I was being too optimistic.

In talking with my family and my dear childhood friends, we all agreed the pain my father suffered from over the years no longer burdened his soul. He returned to his place within the heavens.

Simply put, he was freed from his pain and no longer suffered from the medical burden placed on him during his time on Earth.

Aug. 29 marked the fourth anniversary of the day I learned my father was no longer with my family. To this day, I still bear the burden in my soul in which the pain of losing my father has yet to hit me.

To this day, I continue feeling a great sense of fear and trepidation of when and how hard it will strike. That was something I dealt with once I returned home late last month so I could be with my mother and my brother. It gave us time to simply be with one another and enjoy each other’s company.

At the same time, I paused to reflect on some key moments I experienced over the past four years. I’m convinced those moments helped symbolize the messages my father tried to relay to me in ways that seemed a bit subtle.

Among those moments included the time when my brother drove my Mom and I back from the funeral home in our hometown following Dad’s memorial service. We stopped at a convenience store so I could buy a notebook so I could continue writing the eulogy I planned to present at the funeral service.

However, when my brother started his car, his stereo immediately started playing the opening riff of Norman Greenbaum’s classic song, “Spirit in the Sky.” First released in 1969, the song’s lyrics highlight a key message I have never forgotten:

“When I die and they lay me to rest

Gonna go to the place that’s the best

When I lay me down to die

Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky…”

To this day, I will argue this happened on purpose – that this song started playing during that one moment in time. From my perspective, this was no coincidence.

Another moment that remains in my mind actually happened before I returned home to attend my father’s funeral back in 2021. It involves a tiny rose planted in the front yard of my home on the north side of town that seemed to symbolize what has happened within my family over the past several years.

This tiny plant struggled to stay alive and rarely bloomed after I planted it along our front yard. Each year, I really wasn’t sure if it would make it. Its leaves often wilted, and I frequently worried it wasn’t going to survive.

However, things changed suddenly and unexpectedly when that tiny rose bush showed signs it had been reborn after its flowers bloomed for the first time -- the same day my father’s soul left this world. Perhaps the “rebirth” of this rose bush represents my father, whose soul was reborn and allowed him to reunite with his parents and sister.

Since that one moment in time, I always made it a point to provide additional care for that struggling plant. Those efforts continued earlier this year when that tiny rose bush found a new home once I transplanted it into a new flower bed I created in the front corner of our front yard earlier this spring.

Today, that once-struggling plant now flourishes. It’s as if it had been reborn.

Perhaps it’s my father’s way of subtly telling me that he’s doing well in the afterlife.

I miss you Dad, and I always will.

– Brian S. Orban