Life Ain’t Time, It’s Love Instead
*Trigger Warning: This article discusses the death of a parent.
As I sit here writing, I’m listening to the movie soundtrack from the iconic baseball film, Field of Dreams. It has always had a very special place in my heart. My Dad and I shared a love for the story, the sport, the main actor (hello, Kevin Costner), and it’s inevitable ability to bring us to tears with that iconic line, ”Hey Dad… wanna have a catch?”
It gets me every single time.
I was recently on a 2-week visit home to Canada (sans hubby and child) and was hoping to have the chance to squeeze in another Field of Dreams ‘viewing party’ with my Dad while I was there. For the first time since having a family of my own abroad, my parents had asked me if it were possible to come home for a solo visit, so I could spend some quality time with my father. He’d recently been in the hospital for the 2nd time in about a month, and was now on permanent home oxygen — a natural progression/consequence of being in the 12th year of a 5-10 year life expectancy with his pulmonary fibrosis diagnosis.
I knew the moment I stepped through the front door of my parents’ house that it was a good thing I was home.
In the first few days of the visit, we sat on the couch and chatted, played a game or two, and even ventured out for a family meal at the Canadian eatery, Swiss Chalet (Dad, who hadn’t had much of an appetite in the months prior to this, said it was the best meal he’d had in ages)! I sat in on home visits with my Dad’s new team of nurses/therapists, who were going to help him figure out how to navigate this next ‘step down’ in his diagnosis and quality of life. There were sobering conversations had about his ‘wishes’, should he find himself experiencing another medical event in the future.
His wishes were very clear… what we didn’t know was just how soon they would need to be honoured. My dad went back into the hospital about a week after I got home, and passed away suddenly a few hours later.
The purpose of my visit shifted in that moment — from making memories, to making arrangements with a funeral home. To helping my Mom work through the incredibly long list of things that need to be done in the immediate aftermath of a loved one passing. It was a LOT to process.
My Dad’s wishes were to be cremated, so my Mom, brother, sister-in-law and I all met together with a Funeral Director to discuss details and pick out an urn for his ashes. We settled on a lovely black one that had a sort of sci-fi feel to it (right in my Dad’s wheelhouse, as a Professor of Science Fiction). We returned home with the specific goal of finding a song lyric in one of my Dad’s many song books to have engraved on the bottom of it. As a singer and guitar player his whole life, he’d played and sung right up until he couldn’t anymore — mere days before he died.
Surprisingly, the lyric presented itself fairly quickly and easily, saving me the trouble of sifting through 10 or more song books, and scouring Eagles and Beatles and David Bromberg lyrics online for something memorable and fitting. In the end, it was my Dad’s own songwriting that won out. A song, scribbled on the back of a few other pages in a book — one that neither my Mom, nor my brother or I, had ever heard him play before.
It didn’t have a title — but the sentiment was clear. Dad knew he didn’t have a lot of time left on this earth, and had written this one for my mom, and for his ‘favourite sons and favourite daughters’. Words for each of us to remember and to live by.
We chose the final line of the song to engrave on Dad’s urn:
“Life Ain’t Time, it’s Love Instead’.
I love it.
I love the simplicity of it.
But I also love that this lyric is a realisation — an acknowledgement of something that took decades of life experience to land on.
A final message for us, of sorts (…although perhaps not intended to be). It’s not about how much time we all have… it’s about what we choose to do with that time. Who we choose to be.
In the month since my Dad’s passing, I’ve had a really difficult time coming to terms with the fact that he died… and that in the days and weeks immediately following that, the entire world seemingly went to shit. You’ll have to excuse my language — but I think anyone reading this right now probably has an idea of the things I’m talking about.
Each day, I listen to the news. I stream my regular podcasts. I scroll through social media. I talk to people. I feel worry, and sadness, and disbelief at the state of things… and then out of nowhere, a rogue wave of grief washes over me, and I just can’t believe the timing of it all.
Our politicians and world leaders are acting like petulant children. Citizens around the globe are treating one another with disdain and hatred. Countries are divided, alliances are dissolving, trust is broken.
It feels like a REALLY difficult time to see the ‘good’ anywhere around us…
But we must.
It’s as simple as that.
For our own self-preservation, we must CHOOSE to focus on love and hope.
And if we are not seeing enough ‘good’ in the world, then we need to make damn sure we are putting more ‘good’ into our world every single day. We need to surround ourselves with it — and we need to do it in an incredibly intentional way.
Maybe that means doing something thoughtful for someone, or helping somebody in need.
Maybe it means moving our bodies for an hour each day, instead of doom-scrolling social media in the fetal position.
Maybe it means finding somebody or something to love, instead of somebody or something to hate on.
Dad didn’t know that this one song lyric (of hundreds) that he scribbled down on the back of a piece of paper would have such an impact on me… but it couldn’t have come at a more timely moment in my life.
It speaks volumes. Don’t give any of your precious energy to hatred or revenge or bullying, it says.
You don’t have that kind of time to waste in your life, it says.
Focus on the love.
Focus on the good.
And if you can’t find enough of it in your world these days, then you sure as hell better figure out how to create some of it of your own. ♥️
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(She/Her)
The gal behind Held In The Heart. The Community Journal is a space for those who feel deeply to express freely. We explore all sorts of things here, from the real & raw healing stories & creative writing, to the funny & fleeting moments of everyday human life. I warmly welcome you and invite you to explore with us!