It's only been one month since I got the call that changed everything. "Is this Ali Smith? Is your dad Andre Smith? I'm calling from a rehabilitation center. Your dad's had a stroke and he's been here calling your name for the last three weeks." Understand, my dad had refused to talk to me for 8 years prior. The reasons are shifty and abstract. If you asked him why, he'd probably tell you it's because i'm a jerk. That I'd betrayed him in a number of ways he was willing to elaborate on in a scathing list. So this call came with a heavy weight and filled me with fear, dread, relief, panic, hope, gratitude and confusion. 

In some ways, it's all I could have ever hoped for. A chance for reconciliation even though the circumstances are shit. So far, although an excruciatingly hard process, it's proven to be a blessing I couldn't have foreseen. Life slaps you silly from every which way it can. 

Let's thank the helpers who toil and respond and care and try and hope on our behalf. They are heroic.