It Was Time to Cross Over

When my dad turned 61, he knew he needed a change. He had been a highly successful doctor in Long Beach, but he was ready for something different, so he and my mom sold their home and moved to a remote part of the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. To get to their home, you had to cross the river we'd go fly fishing in a couple of times, avoiding the elk herds along the way.

There was so much that we loved about going to the Gila. But when we had family reunions there, it was inevitably noisy and chaotic. This was hard for my dad. He and my mom had moved there to get away from all the noise of modern life.

Often we felt an underlying tension as my father would respond to the chaos by trying to control it. My siblings and I had grown up with this dynamic and understood that you had to be careful or you could end up sideways with him. We dealt with it in a passive/aggressive way, choosing to hide. You couldn't confront dad.

It Was Time to Cross Over

One day I was trying to help fix the gutters on the cabin. Dad saw me doing it wrong. "What are you doing?!" he barked. "That's not the way. Good grief, what are you thinking?"

This set me spiraling down. I couldn't respond. I sunk into a repressed funk for a day. And it came to me that I was a grown man now with a wife and five kids, but relationally, I was stuck. It was time for a crossing. I could almost hear God saying, It's time to cross over. Be strong and courageous.

The next day I asked dad if I could talk to him. We went out back to the barn. I was so nervous. We sat down face to face and I began. The words came out in a halting, almost stuttering way.

"Dad, when you yelled at me yesterday, it made me feel terrible. I'm a 44 year-old man, but your words make me feel like I'm 14 again. It makes me feel like I'll never be able to talk to you, and I don't like that."

My dad looked at me. We'd never had a conversation that began like this. And then something remarkable happened. He said, "I'm sorry, son. I didn't know you felt that way." And we talked it out from there. I had crossed over.

You're My Best Friend

Yes, we would still have our altercations. But when, 17 years later, it was time for someone to help him go through a terrible last year of dying, I was that person. And one of the last things he whispered to me through the pain meds was, "You're my best friend."

I'm so glad I found the courage to make that crossing. It changed my life.