Life Can Change In A Heartbeat

The past month has been hard.

For those who don't know, my dad collapsed on November 28, 2016. We still aren't really sure why. He didn't have a heart attack or a stroke. His heart just stopped. Mom and I did CPR on him while Allison talked to 911. The paramedics arrived & took over CPR. I couldn't watch, so I knelt down in the kitchen and prayed. Eventually, after what felt like forever, they took him to the hospital where they got his heart beating on its own. But he still wasn't breathing by himself, so they put him on a ventilator and admitted him to the ICU.

He spent a week in the ICU with the doctors running all sorts of tests. During that week, it slowly became apparent that my dad wasn't going to wake up. And even if by some miracle he did, he wouldn't have much of a life. He just had too much brain damage from lack of oxygen during CPR. So on December 5, 2016 we made the difficult decision to take him off the ventilator. He passed away quickly and peacefully, which I'm very grateful for.

His funeral was on December 9, a week after his 60th birthday. The funeral was lovely and I felt so much peace and comfort from it. My mom wanted the song Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer sung, so some talented ladies from her ward sang the arrangement I wrote. That was special.

As I look back on the past month or so, I'm not sure what to think or feel. Mostly, it still doesn't feel real. It feels like Dad is just on a long business trip and he will be home soon. Sometimes I come home from work and see his car in the driveway and think, 'Oh, Dad's home!' Other times, I'll be on my computer and someone will walk down the hall and I'll have the fleeting thought, 'It's dad.' I wonder if I'll always have moments like that, even ten or twenty years from now. Part of me hopes I do.

Looking back on the last few weeks before Dad collapsed, I feel grateful for the time we spent together. He was my movie/TV watching buddy and was the only one who I could sometimes convince to watch a Korean drama with me. We went to see Doctor Strange together the day after Thanksgiving. Then one day when I was running out the door to go up to the ICU, I grabbed the jacket I'd worn to the movie and found our two ticket stubs in the pocket. That was a tender mercy. We'd also been watching The Blacklist together on Netflix, and the night he collapsed we'd watched an episode and discussed our theories about the show and what would happen. I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch the next episode and find out if we were right.

But I also look back and feel incredible guilt and regret. The night he collapsed, I was on my computer with my headphones in and didn't want to be disturbed by the world. If I hadn't been so wrapped up in myself, if I'd taken the time to ask how he was feeling, would things have turned out differently? I can't let myself dwell on those thoughts for too long. Things happened the way they happened, and asking "What if" won't change them.

Doing CPR on my dad that night, I just thought, 'This isn't what I imagined I'd be doing tonight.' In life, I think all of us get into our routines: wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch Netflix, go to bed. Rinse and repeat. There's nothing wrong with this. We're creatures of habit and we like life to be predictable.

But life can change in a heartbeat. For any of us.

However, something I've learned and felt to be truer each day is that these changes are often God's way of shaking us awake, helping us grow and stretch.

One day I stayed home from the ICU while my mom and sister went to visit Dad. I needed some time alone to process and cry and pray and seek comfort. I found a talk by Richard G. Scott called Trust in the Lord and one line struck my heart like lightning.

"Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain."

As soon as I read that, I started to sob. The Lord felt I was prepared to grow more, even though I didn't feel prepared at all. But reading that line, I knew the Lord hadn't forgotten me or forsaken me. In fact, I felt more strongly than ever that He had a plan for me. He had faith in my ability to become better through this trial, and that knowledge gave me strength and hope. It still gives me strength and hope.

I know I'm not the only person in the world experiencing sorrow, disappointment, regret, pain . . . Whether those feelings come from the loss of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of faith, or life just not going the way you planned, I think every person reading this can relate to those emotions. But for me, some of the sweetest spiritual experiences of my life have come as I've acknowledged those feelings and taken them to my Heavenly Father and my Savior. They have provided peace and comfort beyond words.

Life can change in a heartbeat. I'm still processing this change in my life and I anticipate many more hard times ahead. But, I want to stay close to the Lord through it all, through every emotion and experience this trial is going to bring.

To whoever may read this, no matter what you may be going through, know that I believe in your ability to grow through the hard times in life. Especially if you turn to the Lord and let Him shape you. He has the ability to turn every sorrow and regret, every pain and disappointment into an experience for our good.

I hope you all have a wonderful 2017! This year I want to blog more and share some of my thoughts. And while those thoughts might not always be cohesive or make sense, I hope they can help someone. I'll write again soon.

-Erin