You guys.

My car window is fixed.

It cost me $250 plus tax.

I went home last night to pick it up and check in on dad.

My sister made Mexican food which was delicious particularly because we got involved with fresh avocado and salsa and WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?

My dad had had a positive day but had eschewed a lot of his regular medication, toying with the whole LET’S WAIT AND SEE approach which we all (should) know NEVER ENDS WELL. He’s trying to reduce his dependency on them so he’s not so drugged up so much and so the catheter can eventually come out and that’s fine except for the fact that pain medication REDUCES PAIN. (In theory, anyway.)

Naturally, all the pain that had been building up throughout the day came barreling down on dad around 8:00 at night and he went from 0-10 in a few minutes, out of nowhere. He started yelping and then howling and then the tears began. I should say that my dad through all of this has been strong. I’m talking TOUGH AS NAILS. But I think there comes a point for every human being when they just can’t be strong anymore.

We propped him up in the rocking chair with pillows which seemed to help the angle of his leg. He was struggling to breathe through the pain, succumbing to a wave of depression.

IT’S TOO HARD, LAWRA, he mumbled. IT IS TOO HARD. I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE.

I bent down and looked him straight in the eye.

“Yes, you can,” I told him. “But you don’t have to be strong while you do it. You wouldn’t be human if you were strong all the time. You can feel sorry for yourself. You can get angry at how unfair it is. You don’t have to be nice. You don’t have to be brave.”

He nodded and his lower lip trembled, tears pouring down his cheeks.

“Dad, you don’t have to be strong all the time.”

More tears.

I told him that after his accident, Christopher Reeve allowed himself four minutes every day to cry and feel sorry for himself. He set a timer. And for those four minutes, he threw himself the ultimate pity party. And when time was up, he moved on with his day. That was enough. TRUE STORY.

You guys, I should get PAID for this motivational speaking crap, AM I RIGHT LADIES?!!!!!!! I pulled that story outta NOWHERE.

But I think there’s truth to it. No, we can’t wallow in self-pity all day. No, we can’t give up. YES! We have to be strong and remember this isn’t a paralyzing accident, this is a TEMPORARY hiccup. And it SUCKS. And it’s PAINFUL. And it’s HARD. But ultimately, it will end. And that knowledge can provide us with grace and compassion for people in situations that DON’T end.

For people on pain meds the rest of their lives.

For people with a terminal diagnosis.

For people with no end in sight.

My father is the one that pointed that out to me. How little he realized. How much he took his good health for granted. How other people have it so much worse. How much love he has found for them.

He seems to perk up when we remind him of how temporary his situation is. When he’s in a lot of pain, he tends to repeat whatever we tell him, muttering to himself, swaying back and forth. When my mom says he’s had a good day, he simply repeats, like a toddler “I had a good day, I had a good day”. When I tell him it’ll be over soon, he repeats, “It’ll be over soon, it’ll be over soon.”

And of course, it was.

He’s getting new medication that has something to do with nerves. (I mean, as in actual nerve endings not like OMG AM SO NERVOUS!) This seems to have made the biggest difference in his pain management so far which leads me to believe that once the nerves are relaxed, the muscles don’t spasm as much and everything calms down. I’m pretty sure I just MADE THAT UP. So look at me, a motivational speaker and a doctor, ALL IN ONE BLOG POST, FOLKS!

We ended up finding a PBS concert on TV of Carole King and James Taylor rocking out, being amazing. My dad, finally quiet and peaceful, got in bed and sang along to the words he knew. And by that, I mean he made up his own words because my dad doesn’t know any of the right words to any song ever written in the history of songs, never ever, not one.

Usually he just mumbles along words that SOUND similar but make very little sense (I’VE SEEN FIRE AND I’VE HAD BLAME…I’VE SEEN SUNNY DAYS THAT I THOUGHT YOU’D NEVER BEEN…) but you could tell the pain meds had kicked in and he was feeling witty. By the time Carole King started banging out “I Feel The Earth Move”, dad was belting out brand new lyrics at the top of his lungs from his hospital bed.

I FEEL THE EARTH
MOVE
UNDER MY FOOT
I FEEL THE PAIN TUMBLING DOWN
TUMBLING DOWN MY LEGGGGG
IN AGONYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

OH BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

etc. etc.

It was then, as we were reliving the 60′s the way my dad should’ve lived it (high on drugs, at a singer-songwriter concert), my sister and I heard a crash coming from the side of the house. I peeked out the living room window and that’s when I saw it.

Something straight out of a sitcom.

A car.

Against the neighbor’s fence.

Perpendicular to the driveway.

Turns out, my brother and his friend were installing a new speaker system in my brother’s car. His friend left the car at the top of our driveway (which, of course, is on a HUGE hill) while they ran out to get some necessary piece of equipment for…speaker system installation? Anyway, Jem’s friend left the car in DRIVE with the emergency brake on and figured FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON that such a position was sufficient. There’s no way a car needs to be in PARK, right?

Um. Actually you guys?

It does.

You know why?

Because the car needed to stay PARKED.

Um, at the top of the GIANT HILL.

Not long after they left, the car gained some momentum and ROLLED DOWN THE DRIVEWAY BY ITSELF, eventually careening off the pavement into the neighbor’s fence.

The back windshield was shattered and the trunk is bent out of shape and I think a tail light is busted along with part of the back of the car which is just sort of dented in a huge way.

My sister and I ran to see what had happened and once we realized no one was IN the car and that everyone was safe, we just stared at each other. And then back at the car.

And then…I started to laugh.

And so did she.

“OH MY GOD,” Debbie howled. “THAT KID HAS THE WORST LUCK!”

That kid being of course, Jem, who just recently spilled coffee on his brand new Macbook and had to replace it. That kid being my little brother who, like me, constantly seems to be in need of five million dollars’ worth of car repairs or computer repairs, who, like our ENTIRE FAMILY, always seems to be JUST GETTING ON HIS FEET when it comes to money when BAM! God is like HA HA YOU KNOW YOUR LAST NAME TRANSLATED FROM POLISH MEANS “DEBT”, RIGHT? YOU KNOW THAT, RIGHT? HA HA! SUCKERS!

Jem walked in the door completely furious.

MY LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE, he wailed. WHY IS IT ALWAYS LIKE THIS!?????

My mother, sister and I surrounded him in a hug.

AWWWWWWWWWW JEM, we cooed.

And then the giggling began again.

My mom, my sister, even my little brother himself, all of us roaring because OMG DID YOU HEAR THAT CRASH!? CAN YOU PICTURE IT ROLLING BACKWARDS? CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS CRAP HAPPENS?

Car cruising down the driveway with no one in it, Dad in bed belting out “You’ve Got A Friend” which actually sounds like “You’ve Gotta Mend…My Hip…”, the laughter, the hugging, the pep talk, the tears…

My family, you guys.

I love them.