DAD
If we were the Fellowship of Basses, then our father was Gandalf. He was our leader, humble and wise and huggable, who always brought the fireworks with him wherever he went. He was curious about the world, genuinely interested in people, and a master at asking questions. He lived with purpose and vision, and knew where he was going even when the path wasn’t clear. Dad didn’t mind the dark, because he was sure-footed and certain of the destination. He feared nothing except regret. He was our wizard.
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He routinely challenged us to be courageous, and to dare to dance with our destiny. When we felt as though our dream of bringing powerful stories to the world was impractical and beyond our reach, he would say, "Remember, the last chapter hasn’t yet been written.” He fanned the flame of our belief, and reassured us that we were all in this together. “Something big is going to happen. I can feel it.”
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And then, during the last week of September 2020, Dad began to cough. It was nothing concerning and it wasn't Covid, but it persisted. On October 1, he decided to go to the hospital to have it checked out, along with a bit of shortness of breath and a spike in his heart rate that had come on suddenly. Since he had never been sick a day in his life, we all went with him for moral support. It was to be a few tests and maybe a prescription. Twelve hours later, Dad was dead on the operating table from a pulmonary embolism. The last thing he said to us was, “Don’t worry, I’ll be home for dinner.”
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We drove home from the hospital in stunned silence. Our very own Gandalf had fallen into shadow.​ It was a full moon that night, illuminating the empty road home, but the light in our lives had suddenly been extinguished. When we turned down our street, everything was dark. We later discovered that at the approximate time Dad died, there had been a loud, inexplicable bang that had knocked the power out on our street – and only our street.
Jung was right: summoned or not, the god had come, and we hadn’t seen it coming. We had been living in the season of Advent without knowing it.