Seizing Fatherhood
On Bearing Illness & Being a Good Dad
Published by Ekstasis Magazine in 2023
“Patient was rigid in the bed
with arms extended overhead
with fists clenched.
Not shaking but certainly unresponsive.
Blue in the face.”
I had a near-death experience that made me reevaluate what it means to be a dad.
In the summer of 2022, Lisa and I had the house to ourselves while the girls were at their aunt’s for a sleepover. After getting home from a date and a night with the house to ourselves, I experienced two grand mal seizures a couple hours apart of each other, the second one being more life threatening than the first.
Lisa had found me with both arms stretched in front of me in full extension with my body completely rigid, all while I was not breathing. She found me blue and in a kind of rigor non-mortis, and I remained in that position for about ten minutes. According to Lisa, the ambulance came and paramedics pulled me out of the house in a stretcher, unresponsive.
That trauma and the months of recovery that followed created a space where I saw that what I believed to be steadfast was in fact very much impermanent.
While I went through months of PT, debilitating pain from spinal damage, powerful neurological medications that rendered me completely dependent upon others, I navigated the deep work of coming to terms with my father’s sudden passing as I saw what that could mean for my girls if I succumbed to death as he did.
I couldn’t sneeze without being racked in pain. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t use the bathroom without there being a 15-step process. And I couldn’t be an eternal and immovable father like I unconsciously believed I could be.
I remember one night as we were laying in bed while I worked through the events and consequences of the seizures, Lisa gave her best to speak truth and hope with all that I was saying. All until I said, “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up with a sick dad.”
I know what it’s like to see a future hoped for become relegated to matters of grief. And this is when the writing began.
There is so much macho-y, power-driven stuff about fatherhood that is completely disconnected from the quiet spirituality I practice.
I felt I owed it to dad’s like me to share this.
After I finalized this essay on my personal blog, I submitted it to Ekstasis Magazine for their 2023 Kingdom Meets Culture Collection. The magazine is a subsidiary publication of Christianity Today with a focus on the arts, beauty, aesthetic expressions of life, and “deeper” spirituality. I saw this magazine as having the best audience for my writing.
This was selected for their digital collection as an essay. I love how they partnered with me in editing. My other submission attempts were either met with ambivalence or requests to change so much that it was no longer “mine.” But the folks at Ekstasis saw the piece for what it was and honored me.