How Did I Spend My Spring Break?

"Mr. Bell, a blockage in that area of the heart is typically known as the widow-maker."

"Mr. Bell, I have been here for 5 years and never seen a person get to the hospital alive after an attack like that.”

"Mr. Bell, that particular artery has a 92% death rate associated with it."

Regardless of how the doctor phrased it, we all knew it was a close call.
This was not the first close call my father had. There have been car accidents, surgeries, and work-related injuries galore. He is a roofer who doesn’t always “tie-in” to steep roofs. Growing up, I would watch my father as he encountered these close calls, but I never saw them affect him. He would laugh it off claiming the he got lucky. I watched him get in four accidents in one year, then sell the car because it was unlucky. This event, being 3 days before St. Patrick’s Day, made me think a little bit about luck, though.

Luck is defined as a chance happening, or that which happens beyond a person's control. I have never believed in luck, personally. I believe in cause and effect. That Saturday morning, though, I watched luck occur in its truest form. My father should not have lived through the ambulance ride to the hospital, but he somehow did. He is an incredibly stubborn man, who won’t visit the doctor unless it is to re-attach something, yet he called an ambulance because he felt ‘a little funny.’ The type of heart attack my father had kills 92% of the victims, but it didn’t kill him. I call that luck, but for the first time, my father doesn’t think it is luck. He thinks he has unfinished business.

I have seen my father cry twice in my entire life. The first was when my parents separated, and the second was Sunday morning when my brother and I got into our routine argument. We have one each time I come home. My father cried, and brought us outside to his patio.
“I am here for a purpose, and I know what my purpose is. You, and you,” he said as he pointed at the two of us. “My priorities have changed. I didn’t change them myself, but when I woke up in that hospital bed, nothing mattered in the world except for you, and you,” his voice cracked as he pointed to us again. I am typing through bleary eyes, because my father is not the most emotional person. He is a strong Southern man, who prides himself on being the backbone of our family. His way of expressing his feelings is patting his wife on the butt after a good meal, and buying me a punching bag after a guy breaks my heart.

Will my father forever be changed by this experience? It’s too soon to tell, but I know that something happened to that man. I saw the way that he looked at things throughout the week. It reminded me of my two-year old niece, seeing things for the first time. He told us everything too. He told us everything that he’d been holding in all these years. He told us that he wasn’t going to hold back any longer, and that we shouldn’t either. We talked. We all talked until there was nothing more to say, and I left Colorado knowing that my father and I had connected for the first time in our lives.
There are many things that need to change in the next few months in order for my father to stay healthy, but I know now that with his willpower, the love from his family, and a little bit of luck, he can do damn near anything.