I have only known two people who have had dialysis for an extended period: Pappy, Teresa’s dad, and Mike Lavens. They were both on my mind when I had the harvest of the stem cells earlier in the week.
Though I was hooked up to a machine that processed my blood, I quickly understood that it was nothing like dialysis. It was not hard on my heart. The worst part was being confined to a bed for five hours. I sat with Pappy on more than one occasion when he was having dialysis. I don’t remember if I ever sat with Mike. I watched what the dialysis did to their bodies. One evening still sticks in my mind. At some point in the dialysis Pappy zoned out. I thought that he was gone and I alerted the nurse. A doctor came and literally smacked Pappy to wake him. And he came back to life. I have wavered between guilt and blessing over that decision. Blessing in that some things happened in some relationships that wouldn’t have happened had he died that night. Guilt over the pain that Pappy endured that he would not have had to experience. As I was waiting for Teresa to pick me up one afternoon after the harvest, I noticed an appearance in the glass window at the patient pick up. It was more like a mirror than a window. I had seen that same look lots of times. A grey-haired man with his shoulders slumped over because of what he was going through. I saw Pappy in the reflection. I have told Teresa many times over the years that she married her dad. About the same height. We wore the same size button down dress shirts. Pappy and I were vastly different on some things. He could ride in your car and listen to the motor and tell you what was going on with your car. The closest thing I have ever been to a mechanic was to know Pappy’s phone number. On some other things, beyond our physical size, I hope I am like Pappy. He had a deep love for Jesus and his local church. He was as faithful and honest as anyone you will ever meet, a man whose word was his bond. I guess we shared a unique relationship between a son-in-law and a father-in-law. In no way was he a replacement for my dad. I had a marvelous dad. Maybe we could say that Pappy was an added blessing to my dad. When life got hard and his physical health was declining, Pappy was asked to sign a living will at the hospital. He’d never told us what he wanted. The counselor who had gone into his room and asked him to sign the living will came out with the living will in hand. Pappy signed it. No directives listed at all. Just one thing that he had written with his own handwriting, “Whatever Chuck thinks is best.” I hope that I have the fight in me that I saw in Pappy. Honestly, I doubt that I do. I heard him moan when he was slightly moved in the bed those last weeks of his life. His hands from working on cars and arthritis often had sores on them that the yuck could be squeezed from them. Pappy is now a part of the great cloud of witnesses who lived out his faith as well as anyone I have ever known. I will be proud to stand someday between two veterans of our faith, both dads who impacted my life. I have two sons-in-law whom I love dearly. I hope there can be a trust level deep enough that someday I could say, “Whatever they think is best.”
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Chuck Cooper
Pastor at Daybreak Community Church Archives
February 2025
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