Not Everything Can Be Looked Up.

By this time tomorrow my father will be at the hospital.

Granted he is going in for a routine procedure(a heart cath) but there is the chance they will decide to perform open heart surgery depending on what they find. He's already had his fair share of procedures and tests over the years, but a part of me is still terrified.

I never knew my father's father. Sadly he passed away just under a year before I was born. My Dad was 27 at the time and his father was just 52. Now he has made it to 60 and while I am older than he was I can't help but fear the idea of losing him now.

Because...

You can't look everything up. One thing my Dad has always told me was that if you didn't know something you should look it up. But after watching him over the years I have also seen first hand that not everything can be looked up in a book. Before he was even 30 he lost his own father, and a few years back after some similar heart trouble he let it slip that he had made it past the age his dad had. He never would admit it, I don't think, but deep down he has been afraid that at any moment he'll leave us much like his dad left him.

One thing he and I have in common is that we struggle with finding the right words to say most of the time. For me, well - writing things down just seems to work better. It helps.

With any luck everything will go without a problem tomorrow. And if it does, maybe then I can ask him just what do I do if I can't look it up.

We may wrestle with the words or fail miserably at expressing it but I hope he knows I love him.