The day after my Father died...
When a conversation with a stranger changed everything
It was the day after my father died.
I was living overseas in a different country. He went to sleep fine on a Saturday night. Had a massive heart attack at 4am on Sunday morning and never woke up.
My life as I knew it had been torn in two.
The ground felt unsteady as I walked around a park in the scorching Los Angeles sun. My vision was blurry. I was having a lot of trouble being present in any real way with anyone.
Something else was eating me alive.
It was regret.
For 6-weeks, I had told myself that I must call Dad, and every f*cking day I had put my phone away and said, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
And the day after he died… There was suddenly no more tomorrows.
All I had now were long emails, Christmas letters that I had never bothered to read and the memory of the argument we had the last time we talked. It was without doubt the shittiest day of my life.
And then one conversation with a stranger I barely knew changed everything.
In my blurry, unstable, uncentered state he asked me one simple question:
“When you think of your Dad, what’s one thing you are certain of?”
I did not even have to think. I did not even have to ponder. I knew the answer in a single instant.
I quietly but fiercely said, “I am certain that he loved me.”
A stranger’s simple question on one of the darkest days of my life transformed everything.
My Dad like many men of his generation had difficulty expressing love physically and verbally. I had craved his affirmation and his love my entire life and I had never been able to see the truth of how he felt about me.
The truth is had loved me deeply my entire life and he was tortured by his inability and clumsiness in expressing it. This showed up in the way he pushed me away when I tried to hug him at the airport, only to try and grab hand, to grasp and hang on to me one last time.
I had been unsure of his love until he was gone and now I knew.
I knew because a stranger was brave enough to reach in and not run away, a stranger who was brave enough to ask the right question.
That’s what I am thinking about today.
Too often we avoid having conversations when we need them most. Either we hide from them to keep our pain hidden from the world, or we avoid people in pain because they might bring us down.
It’s a crying shame.
Pain can rouse us from sleep. Pain can cause our souls to see deep truth. Pain is such a universal commodity that it is one of the most powerful tools alive for creating intimacy.
Pain is an opportunity for growth.
As we enter in 2025 we most certainly will encounter people who like me back on that dark day are experiencing great pain.
Do not run.
Instead be like an angel. Trust yourself to connect deeply. Don’t try and say the right thing, instead ask a kind question.
These are the days that a simple conversation can change a life.