Perspective.

Dealing with my father’s health always puts things into stark perspective. At the current moment, he has been in the hospital since Monday for what appeared to be a very routine thing with him – congestive heart failure which caused fluid to build up in his lungs. He’s been dealing with this for almost a year now and it has become fairly simple.

Just now, however, my mother informed me that they have moved him to the Cardiac Care Unit, which may be just a precaution because his heart is so fragile. Earlier today, they thought he might have contracted slight pneumonia, which would again necessitate moving him to CCU to better take care of him. Mom and I wait while they move him and take their time in letting her know what’s going on.

It makes all my issues and problems in the last week or so seem so trivial and so insignificant.

The main thing my father taught me was to be happy. To be able to look in the mirror and not be afraid. To never compromise what will feed you. He never said it in words, he said it in actions.

As always, when he is this fragile, I almost see my own failure in his eyes. I know he’s proud of me and I know he’s supportive of my passions, but nothing has come to fruition yet, nothing tangible that I can hold out to him and say, look, I’m there, I’ve made it. Each film makes it a little easier for both him and my mother to see the path but, as with all of our parents, until a check comes along with it, they’re just tolerating the indulgence and are waiting for this to pan out into something real.

This puts a clock on me. I’ve done some amazing things in the last two years and have achieved a modicum of success. I’ve made huge changes to my life to lead me where my heart aches to go and where my talent says I should go. I just want him to see some of the results before he’s not here anymore.

He is the man that all the men in my life compare to and none have really lived up to. His eyes are the ones that haunt my dreams when I feel that I’m not there yet because I know he wants me to get there. He would never condemn me and would never belittle what I do. He wants what any father wants – for his children to be happy.

I hope that his life has been just that. He chose his life and he chose his path. He could have done so many things and yet he spent the majority of his life driving a bus because he liked talking to people. He was a semi-pro hockey player, for those of you who didn’t know. He drove big rigs. He coached hockey. He loves movies.

Throughout this past year or so, the only thing he and my mother said to me about my leaving my ex was that they wanted me to be happy. That’s it. Nothing negative about him, nothing bad about our marriage. Just that they hoped that this is what I wanted and that it would make me happy.

As complicated and difficult as life can be, those are the most amazing words a child can hear from their parents – we just want you to be happy.

I guess I need to focus on that more, focus on making my life full and wondrous and happier than I could imagine, if nothing else, to honor them and show the world what I learned from them. Because, as I’m learning on this journey, without joy, without happiness, without feeling that what you’re doing is worth something, there is no life out there.

Which makes me think about what I cannot live without. Hey, here’s a make-your-own-list possibility. See what you think.

1. My father’s eyes. He has the most intense, amazing, gentle eyes. The greatest compliment my sister ever gave me was that I have his eyes.

2. My mother. In her entirety – difficult, emotional, untamable. I am her daughter.

3. My creative drive. Without my ability to create – whether it’s film, theater, jewelry, journals, fudge – my life would be so flat and colorless.

4. Music. I lost that for so long. Didn’t realize how much I loved it. Rediscovering music in all of its forms has been incredible. I can never thank Chairman and Zadra enough for bringing music back into my life.

5. Hope. Hope that tomorrow will be better. Hope that there is still a great love out there for me to discover. Hope that my feet are on the right path and I won’t stumble too badly on the way.

6. Faith, which goes along with hope. I cannot hope with faith and I cannot have faith without hope. God has guided me well so far, I trust He will continue to do so.

7. Friends. Old and new. Near and far. Too numerous to mention. They make my life rich, they make my life colorful. They bring me to laughter and to tears. They are the lifeblood and the reason I get out of bed in the morning. There are that handful of special ones (yes, you know who you are and who they are) that have not only gotten me through the dark times but have helped me find my soul in this past year. I would die without them.

8. Passion. I have lived without passion. I have given up my passion. I will never, ever do that again. It makes me crazy, it makes me emotional but it makes me who I am. And it draws me to those around me.

9. Fear. In an odd way, fear of what I have lived and what I left keeps me from going back to it. Fear drives me to conquer it. Fear drives me to overcome it.

10. Chocolate. Just because it’s there.

11. Love. The hope of it. The search for it. How much of it I feel for those special people around me. How much of it I feel from my parents. How much of it I have been blessed with in my life, even in my failed marriages. I was lucky enough to have two great loves in my life.

So I am grateful to the universe for giving me a moment of reminder of what a gift our lives are and what precious little time we have here, whether it’s 25, 45 years or 75 years. It’s never enough. We must be sure to honor the life we’ve been given and make sure to embrace it and make the most of it. Go out there today and find some way to make your life richer, fuller and more blessed than it was this morning.