How I Spent my Fourth of July: a Lesson in Forgiveness.

How I Spent my Fourth of July: a Lesson in Forgiveness.

TL;DR: Don't wait for a near-death experience to forgive. Also, to forgive and to love can be mutually exclusive, and that's ok.

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That's my dad. He woke up this morning and his breathing was rapid, shallow, and wheezy. I took him to the ER, where the doctors were surprised about the amount of fluid in his lungs. Considering his stage-5 kidney failure, diabetes, high blood pressure, and gout, if I'd waited any longer, the doctors said he might not have made it through the day.

A catheter was inserted into his neck, and he was put on dialysis. That's where a machine sucks out your blood, filters all the stuff your kidneys were supposed to, and puts the filtered blood back into you. They also removed a liter (~34 ounces, roughly two vending machine-sized soda bottles) of fluid from his body, which helped with the labored breathing.

I remember sitting at his side while he was napping, and thinking about what one of the doctors had said. "If your father doesn't get dialyzed in the next few hours, he will die." That was a real punch in my gut. I'd had some beef with my pops for the longest; he told me he wasn't proud of anything I'd done in my life (at the time, I was going to graduate from college debt free, and go into the military as an officer). We hashed it out years later over some tears and a good hug, but the hurt never fully went away.

But there, seeing my dad napping as the hospital staff, my dad, and I collectively told the God of Death, "Not today," I realized how much I needed to let go of that hurt. Dad wasn't the best father in the world, he'd made his mistakes both big and small, drove a wedge between both his mother and I, but he was something more important than being the best father.

He was *MY* father. I know that my past, present, and future are in some way connected to him... and I'm pretty happy with who I am. I don't think I can say I love the guy, but I can definitely say I'm grateful he was -- IS my Dad.