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Have we ever enjoyed waiting?

I’ve straight up left exclusive events I was invited to in the past because there was a line.

There is almost nothing worth waiting in line for, so I once thought.

Did you know we spend between 5 and 6.7 years of our life waiting? Roughly FIVE YEARS in lines or queues. SIXTEEN MONTHS for food. Over SIX MONTHS in traffic or commuting (unless you live in LA or Chicago or drive to perform for road gigs then FOR sure a shit ton more…), up to FOUR MONTHS waiting for websites to load.

If I could take all that time I’ve waited in my life so far and give it to my dad, I would in a heartbeat. I’d give him my extra heartbeats too. He needs them.

I think back on times of waiting. On road trips, we often would play driving games with road signs and billboards. Waiting for food? Conversation. In traffic? Podcasts, audio books, or catching up on calls.

We are naturally pretty good at filling idle time.

My family and I are currently playing a waiting game unlike any I’ve ever played before. Since my newsletter last week, dad went into ICU and has been battling harder than ever. But here’s what I hang onto in the waiting…

Dad was sent home multiple times by other hospitals. By the time he went into the ER his heart, stomach infection, and other organs were in detrimental shock and strain.

This man made it MONTHS in rapid decline and heart failure at home. If he can do that, he can do it with the incredible help he’s getting now.

We are holding onto a sliver of faith. Waiting.

The Hustle

Here's how we’re choosing to wait right now: laughter and presence.

Dad's in the ICU and still cracking jokes, and I'm cracking them right back. Jake, mom and I have been there every day just keeping things as positive as possible.

The ICU is heavy enough. Why make it heavier?

Dad’s getting a little “ICU delirium” as they call it — just overtired and healing and fighting through so much does that. He catches himself when he says something off and then laughs about it. He’s also far more open about bed pans and catheters and every gross thing a body does, since he has to now. I find it endearing.

The nurses are enjoying it too — and the staff is beyond incredible, aside from literally keeping my dad alive they are fun and communicative and so patient and SO good at their jobs.

Especially Emma and Patrick. I’ll send them each million-dollar checks one day for all they’ve done for us.

I've been doing whatever work I can from a hospital chair, dropping everything when dad’s up from resting (we let him sleep when it hits, he needs it). 

Other than that, I’ve paused everything. My dad often referred to the first five months of lockdown when I was home in Wisconsin with him as the most wonderful time of his life — we ate well, bike rode every day, played games outside or cards at night. But it wasn’t about any of that. It was about quality time together.

I don’t know how “quality” I’d consider time in the hospital, but if it keeps him hopeful, it’s quality to me.

Dad knows I’ll never leave his side. And I know he’ll never wonder how much he means to me. Dean’s my guy. We just get each other in a way nobody else does.

That's enough to keep going.

So we wait. And we do what we can. And we laugh. And we trust. And we show up every single day ready to fight — in whatever way we each know how.

The Chill

We pray when things are bad. “God help us!”

We thank God when things are good. “You’re amazing!”

But there's this third space nobody talks about. The in-between. The waiting rooms. The holding patterns. The place where you don't know what's coming and you can't force the outcome and all you can do is... be there.

That space is terrifying. But it's also, quietly, one of the most powerful places you can inhabit.

When you're stripped of distraction and certainty and control, something shifts.

You get quiet in a way you never are when life is moving normally. You notice things. Like the way your dad's face looks when he's sleeping. The kindness of a nurse who gets his sense of humor amidst delirium. The way your family moves around each other in a hospital room — making space, holding hands, laughing at the wrong moments.

You become present in a way that everyday life rarely demands.

It's like that slow-motion part of an action film that rotates in a three-hundred-sixty-degree view around the action. But instead of swords it’s IV’s.

And your thoughts? They become everything.

I've been very careful about what I'm feeding in that waiting room. Not just what I'm saying out loud, but what I'm thinking when nobody's watching. Because I believe —Genuinely, not just as a platitude — that what we think, we feed. What we feed, we grow.

I'm growing faith. Growing hope. Growing the belief that my dad is stronger than this. That he will be the medical marvel and miracle his doctors speak of for years to come.

Not because I'm naive about the reality.

Trust I cry myself to sleep most nights simply because it shatters my heart seeing him go through this.

 But because presence and positivity are the only weapons I have right now.

And I'm using every single weapon in my arsenal.

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Thank you for being on this journey with me — through the ups and the downs. This is life. This is human. This is what it is until it’s something else. I appreciate all of you.

I find in this rollercoaster with my dad I’m having to lean more and more on my own words in my TEDx Talk. I’d love if you continue to share with people in your life. It may just help them. Who knew it would help me in my own situation right now:
Why Laughter Heals Broken Hearts

Love you all and cheers to the hustle + chill. We break, we fight.

xx NPH

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