painful beauty

Last week my daughter and I spent a few days in Chicago. It was her first trip there, and my first visit back in six years. Our plane flight out from Chicago was not until late in the evening Thursday, so we had all day for whatever we thought to do.

There were pleasant moments throughout the visit, yet the one sticking in my mind is a beautifully painful one, or painfully beautiful perhaps better said.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse on Wednesday afternoon, and by the time Thursday rolled around it was cold with a downright sting rather than a nip in the air. The temperature was in the 20's, then with the humidity off Lake Michigan and winds no less than 20-25 in downtown it was quite a contrast of temperatures both from where she lives and from earlier in our Chicago trip. Toward the end of the day it was time for us to retrieve our luggage from the hotel we'd been staying at and take The El (metro train/subway system) to the airport.

I decided we'd walk eight blocks to the hotel, then take a cab with our luggage seven blocks to the subway station. We could have taken a cab both ways, but looking back on it now I'm glad it seemed good for us to walk the first part. We were about half way to the hotel when the late afternoon weather started to really show itself to the sun. We were walking in shadows of buildings, and the wind was really doing its thing. As we walked down the street hand in hand, my daughter said "I'm cold, Daddy."

I have a knack of paralleling my life with her to my life with my Dad, the Man Upstairs. This situation at hand followed that pattern. I acknowledged her statement with an "I know, sweetheart, we only have a few blocks to go".

As I digested her words, I turned and silently said the same thing to my Father, "I'm cold, Daddy".

He knew my reference was not to the weather conditions at that moment, but rather a reference to my life.

We walked another half block or so and turned east. We were now on the street our hotel was on, but were also facing directly toward Lake Michigan. I knew what that turn of the corner would mean: a combination of the strong winds amplified by the cooler air from the lake. It had been that way leaving the hotel that morning, but the wind had been at our backs. It would now be in our face.

As we made that turn we had to wait for the stop light to change to cross the street, so that last two and a half blocks began with 45 seconds of standing dead still before we could walk one foot closer to the hotel. Even though she wasn't saying anything further I could tell my daughter was miserable. When the light turned green we ran across the street, then she once again commented how cold it was. I picked her up, faced her body toward me and crossed my arms under her hamstrings as she buried her head into my shoulder and put her arms around my neck.

And then I began to run.

Maybe it looked like a jog to anyone else, but what would a sprint look like if you were wearing a 45-pound sack of potatoes around your neck and chest? All I know is I was going as fast as I could, driven by a Rocky-like desire to abate a bitter situation for my own flesh and blood.

I made it about a block going as fast as I could while a searing pain took root in my lower back. I kept running, and as the pain increased I let out a gutteral growl. My daughter lifted her head and asked "what's wrong, Daddy?"

"My back hurts, sweetheart" I said between breaths and kept on. The pain was really bad at this point, and yet the hotel entrance was 75 yards ahead. I kept running and let out another growl. My daughter raised her head again and said "are you hurting, Daddy?" "Yes, baby", I gritted between my teeth.

I kept running, and then started to cry. There was such a swirl of emotion in that moment that I just couldn't bear it anymore. I hurt like hell, and yet I wanted to take care of my flesh and blood. It didn't matter that I hurt, I wanted to keep going, and yet the wind, the weight and my back were conspiring together to kill me. I hated their opposition, and their effect.

My crying made my daughter start to cry. She knew that I was hurting, and when I hurt she hurts. When I cry, she cries. She's very in tune with Daddy's heart, and what he feels she feels.

I made it about 10 more yards and just couldn't do it anymore. I stopped and set her down behind a small facade sticking out from the building next to our hotel. It jutted out about 18 inches from the wall, and I thought it would be enough to shield her from the wind while I let my back and breath catch back up.

The facade did nothing for her. I could tell right away it was still bitter and she was still miserable. What I hoped would be a 20 or 30 second catch-up became a two-second respite of nothingness. The back pain had not subsided in the least, and yet here came that eye-of-the-tiger surge and overflow from the core of my spirit to keep going even in the midst of my own pain.

I quickly picked her back up and took off again. Not 5 yards into those last 50 yards the daggers in my back let themselves be known more than ever. I began to growl again, and cry. This really upset my daughter. She knew I was in pain, and yet saw me going on in spite of it. She pleaded with me to stop and I said "No, I'm not stopping."

I kept forging ahead, gutterally making a fool of myself. The more I growled and cried the more upset she got. She kept pleading amidst her tears for me to stop, and I kept telling her through my tears and gritted teeth and shortened breath that I wasn't going to.

We were both tearful, crying wrecks as we neared the hotel doors, to the point we attracted the attention of the bellman, the doorman and guests outside the front. I didn't give a shit what they thought, or what they knew or didn't know. I just wanted to take care of my daughter, and to do so was killing me.

I made it to within 5 yards of the hotel and collapsed. I didn't fall, or drop her, my body just gave out as I simultaneously prodded her to the door to get in out of the cold. We entered the hotel lobby both crying messes. It was about 5:30, and the hotel lobby was full of posh, sophisticated business people in the lobby lounge and bar. They were involved in their business chatter and professional posing. The gentleman playing the lobby piano, in cumberbund and tuxedo, was making those ivory keys sing, doing a great job facilitating the Lawrence Welk, everything is wonderful atmosphere.

My daughter and I stumbled loudly and unelegantly to the closest two lounge chairs we could find, she still crying and me with a grimacing look on my face, gasping for air. We crashed that party like a bull in a china closet. Quite unbecoming for the slice of Americana we had barged in on.

We sat there for several minutes. She said "you were hurting, Daddy. It was hurting you to help me."

There are so many things she says that are parallels of God's fatherhood to us. I always try to respond back to further these parallels. "Yes, sweetheart, it did hurt Daddy to help you, but all I wanted to do was help you, it didn't matter the pain that Daddy was in."

Later that night out of the blue she said "Daddy, you were hurt so that you could help me".

"Yes, sweetheart, that's right."

I'm really glad we walked those eight blocks.

And I'm really glad the weather was miserable.