Losing my Daddy and Coping with Loss, especially During the Holidays

A daughter revisits the ten days that reshaped her family, from surgical hope and ICU turns to the quiet strength of community and faith. Small signs—a snowfall, a vision, a hawk—become anchors that steady grief through holidays and years.

• kidney crisis, surgical plan, and early complications
• ICU vigil, Christmas awakening, and rapid decline
• dialysis strain, December 28 loss, and burial of hopes
• Psalm 91, anxiety imprint, and coping in the body
• empty house, sports memories, and daily absence
• community support, pastoral presence, and generosity
• vision in worship, snow in Savannah, and hawk as sign
• hospice with mom, spiritual thresholds, and farewell
• parenting through grief, teaching in hard places, and gratitude
• remarriage after loss, unanswered prayers, and steady faith
• Christmas hope, Jesus as anchor, and endurance

Before you go, could you please open your podcast app, scroll to Beyond Existing Beyond the Small Call, and tap follow and leave a five-star rating or quick review to help this podcast grow. Also, you can go to the episode's description and send me a text if you would like to share how this episode is, or if you would like me to share a message with any bucket.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why I’m Sharing My Story
• 1:20 Dad’s Diagnosis And The Surgical Plan
• 4:30 Complications, ICU, And Christmas Wake-Up
• 8:05 Dialysis, Decline, And December 28
• 10:20 Scripture, Anxiety, And First Trauma
• 13:00 Home Without Him And Sports Memories
• 16:10 Faith, Community Help, And Presence
• 19:00 Visions, Snow In Savannah, And The Hawk
• 22:20 Hospice With Mom And Spiritual Moments
• 25:30 Parenting, Teaching, And Gratitude
• 28:00 Remarriage, Hard Questions, And Hope
• 31:10 Christmas Faith And Listener Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Existing. I'm here to talk to you today about losing a parent or someone close to you. And I know it's super hard during the holidays. Yeah, I come on here and I ask people to share their story, but today I'm gonna share with you my story of losing my daddy. On December 28th, 1993, my world changed forever. We lost my daddy. I was 21 at the time. My brother Alf was 19. Mama, she was 47. And Daddy, he was 55 when he died. The way it started, I was off at Georgia Southern of the college, and I got a phone call from my brother. He told me that he had to take Daddy to the emergency room because his back was in so much pain and he had fever. And come to find out, his kidneys had little to no blood flow. One kidney had completely shriveled up, and the other had a small percentage of blood flow going to it. They sent him on, he actually had an appointment in Savannah with my mom's heart doctor, and this was an hour and a half away, and they came up with a plan. They decided to do bypass surgery. They were going to remove his spleen and then reroute that artery to and connect it to the renal artery. They would connect that to his remaining kidney. And this sounded like a really good plan for us. And mama, she had just had uh open heart surgery. She had an aneurysm on her aorta that was repaired. Now, this was just a few weeks before my daddy went in for his surgery, and so she was still recovering from that, um, especially with her ribs and the way they have to have a wire that they tie the ribs together, and so you know, she was super sore and she couldn't sit up much. So here she is trying to recover, but her surgery was went so well, and her recovery was so well that, you know, we felt like it was a good plan. It was going to be the same surgeon, and so um we decided, my daddy and mama, they decided to just go go with that plan. But I think my dad, he felt, I don't, I think deep down he didn't feel like it was going to be as successful as we were thinking it would be. Before he went into surgery, he's laying there in the hospital bed and he asked my mom if she would call one of his co-workers to apologize because they would always pick at my dad at the post office. See, after he left farming, he got a job subbing at the post office, subbing for a rural route until he uh got a full-time position. And he was one that they would always kind of pick on, have a good time with. And my dad, he was always such a good sport, but I guess he wasn't feeling good. And there was one day he let one of the co-workers have it, and then he he just felt so bad about it, and he wanted to make sure that yeah, his co-worker knew how sorry he was for that, and that just that just tells you the type of character that my daddy had. But um he decided to go with through with the surgery because really there was no alternative. So he had the surgery at St. Joseph Hospital in Savannah. I don't know what I don't know if it's still called that or if it goes by another name or not, but there's a motel that is off to the side of St. Joseph, and that's where mama and I stayed because the surgery was just going to be so early the next morning. Well, on the day of the surgery, I woke up too sick to get out of bed. And I remember just being so upset that I couldn't be with him that before they wheeled him back for his surgery. So mama, she called me from Daddy's hospital room so we could talk before his surgery. This would turn out to be our last conversation. Um, he made it through the surgery, but he was in a lot of pain. His renal artery was in such bad shape that the sutures they would not hold, and he had internal bleeding. All my life my dad smoked, and um he was also hypoglycemic, which uh I think honestly it crossed that threshold and went into just into diabetes that he never caught. But uh, because I remember working on the farm when he would get hurt whenever he was working on equipment, I mean he would just bleed so easily. But he did, he had internal bleeding, and the surgeon wanted to go in a second time, but they they said that he may not make it because it's just so hard to go into a second surgery immediately after that first surgery, but again, we just didn't really have a choice. So they went in a second time to try to stop the bleeding, but this proved to be unsuccessful, and it was so hard on his body to be opened that second time. He remained unconscious at ICU for several days. This all happened uh just before Christmas. And he put up a fight, he put up such a hard fight. But I will tell you this, my brother and I, we got the best gift we could possibly get at Christmas, and I don't think it could be talked. The night of Christmas, Daddy woke up for us. Alf and I, we were just so excited, and he couldn't talk because he was intubated, but he was alert. And poor mama, from just sitting up, you know, during her open heart surgery recovery, she was so worn out that evening that we tried to get her to come to the hospital room with us, but she had to stay at the motel and just rest because she was just so sore and so worn out. And that would prove to be one of her biggest regrets that she would bring up until her life ended. We my brother and I we stayed there with him for as long as we could, and eventually we went back to the hotel room and we were just feeling so hopeful. And the nurses they had told us the next day that most of the night he was up and they actually had to put restraints on him. His doctor, then his surgeon, like they were all just encouraged by this, but then it's just it's unbelievable like how quickly you've got a patient who's doing, who's like making this progress, and then all of a sudden it just flips. And our joyfulness was quickly turned to sorrow. A day later, his body began to swell because he didn't have any kidney function. There was no way for his body to you know get rid of these toxins that were building up. I mean, he was swollen to the point that he was unrecognizable. The medical team they decided to put him on dialysis. And if you know anybody on dialysis, you know how hard it is on someone. Uh dialysis that did work to pull out all those toxins and to bring the swelling down, but it was so hard on him that his blood pressure just continued to drop and drop and drop to the point that they used as powerful blood pressure medicine as they could to get his blood pressure up, and it just it wasn't working. So we were mama and afna, we were sitting by his side, and I we lost our daddy on December 28th, 1993. Mama lost her husband, and uh, like I said, mama was only 47, I was only 21. My brother, he was 19, he was still a teenager. When things were first not looking good, I remember opening the Gideon Bible. See how like the Gideons, they would place Bibles in nightstands. And when Daddy had that first surgery and things weren't looking good, I I had turned to the Bible trying to find a verse about miracles and healing, and God reassured me he was going to make it, and he would come home. But I didn't find that. The verse that I found that stuck with me was Psalm 91, 14, and I did not want that to be my verse. I didn't want to be the ver that to be the verse that God had picked out for me, because deep down I knew what it meant. So the verse it goes like this because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high because he hath known my name. And I knew what that set him on high meant. And I just did not want that to be true. And I remember just walking those hospital halls, just praying and praying and praying so hard for him to be healed, but it was to no avail. Yeah, he was healed, but he wasn't healed on this side where I wanted him to be healed. And, you know, just it's it was so discouraging to just, you know, just to pray for healing, and the healing never came. And afterward, I just I never had anxiety, I never had a worry. I mean, I had such a great childhood growing up, but those ten days that he spent in the hospital, I was just so anxious the whole time. I couldn't eat, and I could barely sleep. To this day, when something stresses me or I get worried about something, my body goes into that fight or flight mode, and I have to constantly remind myself, okay, Elisa, this is not daddy. He's not in the hospital, he's not done, this is not near that bad, you know, and that really helps me. But it's funny how the brain and the body just goes back to that first trauma. And then there was like, you know, this low-level depression and this loneliness that sat in but that just sat in because, you know, I was always a daddy's girl growing up. And I can remember when we got home late that night after he'd passed away, the house felt so empty, even though there was a room full of people there. And it hit me how final death is. His absence was just so hard. He loved playing ball with our yellow lab. Her name was Bits. And my dad, he was uh, he played baseball, but uh when he got older, he turned to golf. And he would take, he would stand on the other side of the fence with his golf club, and he had one of those plastic basketballs that the cheerleaders would throw out to the crowd during basketball games. And, you know, oftentimes I'd be coming home from school, and uh I would see him just I'd watch him hit the ball over the fence to bits our yellow lab, and she would bring it back to him, and they would do it over and over, and we all did that. It was just so much fun, but like he really enjoyed that, and it was hard not not seeing him do that anymore. And then just you know, him coming home from his Saturday morning postal route and not hearing that door open, not hearing the gate open, you know, him walking down the little walkway to our house, and uh not hearing that storm door open and and then like we always ate at the table together. Always. That was something big with mom and daddy's and it's big with me. I've carried on that tradition where we all ate as a family, and and him not being there, you know, sitting in his chair, like those were really, really, really hard times. And you know, looking back now, there's no way I could have gotten through that by myself. Uh something that daddy instilled in me was a love for sports. And like I said, he played baseball. He played baseball all through school. He played in college, and then after college, he played for a little bit on a semi-pro team. And he instilled in me a love for softball. And I know one of my favorite movies is the is filled with dreams, and one of my favorite moments is when Kevin Costner um plays catch with his daddy.

SPEAKER_01: 14:23

And that's just one of my dreams. I constantly ask God when it's my time just to uh let me play catch with my daddy. Um something we worked on constantly.

SPEAKER_00: 14:44

Uh when I was uh old enough to be able to throw a softball was uh just playing catch with him and he taught me how to pitch in softball. And he wasn't gonna have a daughter that threw like a girl. He wanted to he would say that constantly. Don't throw like a girl. And it's true. I mean, like uh I played shortstop, and my coach used me as an example of uh I was one of the smallest on the team, but he talked about how strong my arm was, and uh just because it was all about technique, and I had my dad to thank for that. Uh he taught me how to shoot a basketball and how to dribble. And then I just remember sitting there on Sunday nights watching NFL football with him, and years and years later, I married my husband Joe, and Joe works in NASCAR and he works for Joe Gibbs Racing. And gosh, I want to say like nine years ago, we went to the uh Christmas party, the Gibbs Christmas party, and it was held in Concord, North Carolina, in a convention center, and they've got all these big round tables and huge room where everybody uh would sit to eat. And Coach Gibbs, he you want to talk about someone that couldn't command a room, he can command a room, and he made it a point to walk to each table and introduce himself and just talk to each person and thank them for being there. You know, after he left our table, all I could think of was sitting there with my daddy watching the Washington Redskids on a Sunday night. That was during the days of Joe Thysman and Coach Joe Gibbs, and here I am, I'm getting to sit here and meet him and listen to his stories. And you know, it's times like that that that it's a struggle for us all when we want to tell our parents or our loved ones just things that happen in life, and and I couldn't. But you know, that's the thing about earth. We're constantly moving towards death, but the opposite is true of heaven. In heaven, a person becomes more and more alive. Daddy's death made absolutely no sense. I mean no sense at all. But I have to believe that God is good and all things work for the glory of God. And even in those tragic times, I got to see a lot of good. I got to see church family members walk up to my mom and give her a check to help pay bills. Um, I have my grandparents, my aunts and my uncle, who were right there with us, helping us every step of the way with whatever we needed. My Aunt Nancy, she would drive an hour and a half to sit with us and be with us and take our laundry back to her house and and do our laundry. And then like um my Aunt Arlene and my Uncle Frank. My Uncle Frank and my dad, they farmed together. And uh they were just they would sit with me and they would take my brother and I um back and forth to Savannah, or we would go spend the night, you know, just to get away for a little bit. And then one of my closest friends in the whole world, Ivy, she was there with me. And um, her mom, Miss Linda, and her dad, Mr. Jimbo, they were they were just right there with me. And then later they were with me when mama was dying as well. And uh my grandparents, like I said, my grandparents, they were there with me, and I had other friends who just took me in under my wing, and then just so many prayers from my community. And I'm gonna tell you this: this is something I strive to be like. Have you ever met someone who, when they walk in the room, you can feel the presence of God walking with them, and then when they leave the room, it's like you can feel the presence of God leave. And that was our preacher, Robert Anderson, and he spent time with us and he would pray with us in the waiting room, and as soon as he left, oh my gosh, it's like he took he took God with him or something. I mean, we all made that comment about how you really could feel the presence of God when he was there with us. And then, you know, it's funny because when you're going through these trials in the hospital, you th there's other people there going through the same thing. And we were so blessed. There were these women in the hospital, and one of 'em, her mom, was she was very sick as well in the ICU. And and we just got so close to them and they were there for us when immediately when Daddy passed away. Um something else that happened to me was weeks and weeks later, I was praying really hard in church one day as the choir was singing and with my eyes closed, y'all, this was so weird. I could see my daddy in this glowing white robe. I mentioned it to my friend Sally's mother, and she did not discount me at all. Like she took this to heart and she told me, she said, Alisa, you have received a vision. And then there were nights that I would just go to sleep, just purposely thinking of him, because in my dreams I could it felt like at least I was dreaming about him and I would be able to talk to him in my dreams, and that was such comfort. Something really cool that happened was it snowed in December. It snowed in Savannah. Like that hardly ever happens. And so uh I don't know, that was always just so neat to me to wake up and there was this like several inches of snow at my aunt and uncle's that next morning. It was so beautiful, so beautiful, and that really brought some joy to me as well. It's just those little things.

SPEAKER_01: 21:23

Growing up, I don't recall seeing many hawks around the house.

SPEAKER_00: 21:31

But right after daddy died, there was this hulk that would hang out at our house. So we had a house. So we lived way out in the country. And it was too far, they didn't run cable, and we didn't have one of those big dish satellites. And uh, so we had an antenna, and there was a guide wire that ran ran from the antenna down to the ground. And what what daddy did was he had posts that he had tied the wire to to kind of help stabilize the antenna. Well, it was right next to the house. And y'all, there was this hulk that would circle the house, and then it would perch right there on that post that was very close to the house and was not intimidated by us. And I mean, this happened like I mean, a day or two after he died is when this hulk showed up. And it's it hung out for probably six weeks with us. I mean, you'd see it go circle the house and then come back down and land on the post, or either it was on the power line. I mean, it was just always right there near our house. Uh eventually it did fly away, but I have seen a hawk like whenever there is some kind of huge life moment, huge life change. Uh when I was pregnant with Jake, my oldest, there was a haul that appeared during my second trimester, and it stayed probably around the house for about six months. I remember uh we had my friend Christine and I, we had gone shopping, and I was pulled into the driveway, and there was this hawk, and it was landed on its black hose looking at me, and it had its tail and was wrapped around like it was trying to pull it up like it was a black snake. And I looked at it and I said, honey, that's not a black snake, and it flew off, but there was a tree that it would stay perched up in, and then right after Jake was born, it would stay perched on top of our house almost like it was a protector, like it was guarding our house. And then uh when Luke was born, we would find tail feathers in the yard, and you would see this hulk that it stayed for a long time, like perched in the yellow maple that was in the backyard. And then just a few days ago, while I was riding for this episode, I was walking out to the truck and I saw something caught the corner of my eye, and I saw my little Polish chicken. She jumped down from the ladder that was in the coop, and they and they all ran underneath, all the chickens ran underneath the underneath the coop where they sleep. They were in their run, but ran underneath the coop. And I saw these big wings flapping outside of the coop and I said, What in the world is that? And so we went down there and it y'all, it was a hawk. I have never, I mean, I've seen hulks around here up in the trees, and you can hear them, but never like this, making such a ruckus and hanging out at my coop until I started writing the script for this episode. Uh and I'm not kidding you, it's like it wanted to be noticed. And I've never believed that the haul was my daddy by any means, but I do think there's some kind of significance, like kind of like it's, you know, some messenger or maybe it's showing that hey, God's protecting you. I don't know. But something else that happened years later was um I was in my 40s and mama was under hospice care in the hospital. Well, excuse me. Let me back up. This was just well, I think we had just put her on hospice in the hospital and met her, Georgia. And I had to break the news to her about her stomach and liver cancer and how it was way worse than her oncologist told her. Y'all, that was the hardest thing I've ever had to do was tell her that the hospital is there. I don't know why she wanted me to do it, but she said, I think it would be better coming from you about your mom's cancer and how bad it is. So I told her, and oh, we just cried together and cried together. And I told Mama, I said, Mama, when you see daddy in heaven, give him a big hug for me. And she said, Oh, I will, and I'll kiss those pretty lips. And uh, you know, when cancer is just it's horrible watching somebody die from it. Like they'll in just a matter of days, her health declined so fast. And I don't know if it's because she'd gotten news of how bad it was, or you know, if it was just that's just how it worked or what, but um a few days later she just started doing things where hospice workers talk about, you know, the spiritual world and how strong it is. And I'm sitting there in the room with her all alone, and she looks like she's asleep, and then all of a sudden her arms go up like she is giving somebody the biggest hug. And I feel like that was a gift for me from God. You know, that that she's she entered the spirit world because they do, they go in and out of the spirit in the physical world. And I do believe that, you know, she was giving my daddy a hug. So I know the struggles of the holidays and birthdays and those everyday reminders and how there's things that my boys do that I just want to share with daddy so bad, especially my younger son, Luke, because he is so much like him. Just the things he says that cracks me up, or you know, he loved baseball. Well, now he wants to play golf and he loves bird hunting, he loves shooting at my daddy. He was a you know, in his younger days, he was a big bird hunter as well, and and you know, like I don't know, there's not even words to describe just how much I wish he was here so they could get to know him. But uh something I would do is talk about my daddy in class. And I've always taught in in poor schools. I think I've taught in like four or five different schools, and most of them were pretty poor schools. Uh a lot of the kids were either from divorced families or they didn't even have a daddy in their life. And when I would talk about my daddy and they ask questions, the students would ask questions like they always do, especially middle schoolers, and I would tell them how he passed away when I was 21, and they would always, oh, was their reaction, I'm sorry, Miss Dacove, or and like these are kids who never even knew their father, or they knew their father a little bit. I mean, come from just some awful family situations, and here they are telling me how sorry they were, and it makes me know just how blessed I am, and I'm so thankful that I had such a wonderful childhood. And also, God, He blessed my mama because one thing I worried about and something I would pray about often is just I was at the age where, you know, I graduated college, I was going to get married, and my brother, who's just a couple years younger than me, and I mean he would be doing the same, and so I always I worried about when mama was gonna be by herself. Mama's friends set her up on a date, and she ended up and they set her up on a date with the guy who he had lost his wife to cancer, and they ended up getting married. And now God does not answer prayers like we want them to. Now he answers prayers, but he just doesn't answer them the way we want him to. And but he does know what's best. And oftentimes, and I still find myself asking, are you sure, God? Are you sure? Are you sure this was supposed to happen? Are you sure this is the right thing to do? But just keep your focus on him. That's the best advice I can give you. Keep your focus on him, especially during this Christmas season. He is our reason for Christmas. Jesus is our reason for Christmas. And as Christians, we have hope. And this life is not our only life. This life is not the end. Because he has said his love upon me, therefore will I deliver too. I will say to my own heart, because he has not money. Before you go, could you please open your podcast app, scroll to Beyond Existing Beyond the Small Call, and tap follow and leave a five-star rating or quick review to help this podcast grow. Also, you can go to the episode's description and send me a text if you would like to share how this episode is, or if you would like me to share a message with any bucket.