Erick Erickson - Before You Wake: Life Lessons from a Father to His Children

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found that it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.

G ANDALF THE G REY , THE H OBBIT

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

D EUTERONOMY 6:49 (ESV)

T O MY CHILDREN, E VELYN AND G UNNAR,

Sometimes we encounter suffering. We dont know why it happens. When it does, some people will come to you and say, God is testing you. To others, God is setting you up for something if you weather the storm. But sometimes hard times are just hard times. There are no lessons to be learned. And sometimes, only in retrospect do you see those lessons.

In time, your memory of challenging periods of your lives will start to fade. You will remember bits and pieces, but maybe not the whole. Youll no doubt remember bits and pieces of this past year of our lives. This past year was the hardest year for our family. It has weighed on your parents so much.

In April 2016, I spent a week in the hospital trying not to die. My lungs had filled up with blood clots. My blood oxygen level had fallen below 90 percent. I could not breathe lying down or standing up. Walking left me gasping for air. For months I thought it was allergies, but it got worse and worse, until finally your mother forced me to go to the doctor. The doctor sent me to the hospital for a CT scan and I never left. Within hours I was being treated like a stroke victim, administered tissue plasminogen activator, then lots of blood thinners. I looked like the victim of a car wreck, with a single bruise stretching from my shoulder to my hand.

Gunnar, perhaps by the time you read this you will have forgotten, but for the last year you have been increasingly worried about me. You are upset I work too much, insistent that I play with you to get me out of the office, and mad at my boss, Mr. Pete, for me working so hard.

As it turned out, I wasnt the only one you and your sister began to worry about. While I was in the hospital, your mother traveled to Arizona to the Mayo Clinic for a checkup on her lungs. The doctors found spots growing and in June, performed a lung biopsy. While I have clots in my lungs, your mom has a rather uncommon form of lung cancer. Thankfully, an oral chemotherapy she is taking is shrinking the growths.

In the midst of these twin medical crises, the 2016 presidential campaign was in full swing and I was a conservative who did not support Donald Trump. Protestors showed up at our home. People sent us hate mail. They called my office daily demanding I be fired. Everybody was convinced I had destroyed my career. Our house had to be protected by guards. You two were yelled at in the store by a man angry with me for not supporting Donald Trump. At school, other kids made sure you knew your dad was not liked in their household. Some of them wondered aloud if something bad would happen to us.

For a time we stopped going to church because we couldnt make it from Sunday school to the sanctuary without someone stopping us to give us a piece of their mind about politics. One day toward the end of 2016, I went up to bed late, looked at your mother, and said, I dont know if Im going to survive this year. Your mom had a near meltdown. Ive made a deal with God, she said. He cant take both of us. Here we were, both of us just over forty, and for a time it seemed we both had a death sentence.

I would lie awake at night wondering what I needed to do to make sure you two would be okay if something happened. I realized that if I died tonight and you googled me, you would come away with an awful picture of me, much of it untrue. But some of it is and these are things with which I must reckon. But nothing youd find on the internet would give you a real picture of who your father is, why I have raised you as I have, and how much I want for you to be a better person than me.

I realized I needed to write down the things I want you to know about me; the things I want you to know about life; the reasons we believe what we believe and have raised you accordingly; and I really just want you to know me. Being told you might die has a way of shaking you to your core and making you reprioritize things in your life.

Above all else in this universe, know that your mom and I love you. If something should ever happen to us that means we are separated from you by the chasm of eternity, we want to see you again and be with you. But in the meantime we want to make sure you are raised lovingly and properly. I want you to know how we come into your room at night and just watch you sleep. I want you to know in the quiet hours of darkness we sometimes cry because we know your body, heart, or soul is hurting. I want you to know that our love for you is so deep and wide that you will never truly be able to fathom it till you have children of your own.

This most painful year we have endured together has made us stronger as a family, more tender to friends, and has both provided valuable lessons and made me aware I need to share those and other lessons with you. I needed to write this book for you. I have written two books in the past. One I did not really want to write. The other felt necessary, if not personal. But none were like this. This is a book I need you to readperhaps not at this moment, but to open later, like a time capsule. That is why I am compelled to write this book. If I should die before you wake, I want you to know these things are real and true.