Ahead of Time

There is an outcome from my recent triple bypass surgery that I didn't know ahead of time. 

To fully understand that common phrase "ahead of time," I must first take you back in time, back to August 25, 1958.

On that date, my grandfather K (my dad’s dad) died at age fifty-nine. He awoke in the night with a tightness in his chest, fumbled his way to the bathroom, and fell limply to the plush rug beside the tub. Heart attack. Gone before the first responders arrived. 

I was only two-years-old at the time, but in the years to follow, whenever we visited Grandma K's house on Griswald Street, my brothers and I shared a fear of going to that bathroom alone. Silly, I know, but the thought of our grandpa dying there never left us—even when we were older.

Secondly, I must share another backward glance to April 1, 1995, the date my own father suffered a similar heart attack. He and my mother had gone out for dinner. They had just shared what would be their last dance. Then walking back to their table, he suddenly fell limply to the floor. CPR from a stranger in the room,  a twenty-minute ambulance ride with my sister and mother close behind. Hurrying into the ER, they saw the A.E.D. paddles applied for the final time. Nothing. He was gone. 

My dad was in excellent physical condition, an avid cyclist who thought nothing of riding his touring bike from New Baltimore to Port Huron and back (a distance of 100 miles) with a quick dip (swim) under the Blue Water Bridge in between. Yet, at age sixty-six, he seemed genetically destined to his father's fate, outliving him by only seven years. To my family it seemed Dad died "ahead of his time," but we also know that isn't true.

I was thirty-nine when my father died, and for many years thereafter it seemed I secretly lived in the shadow of grief. It was not a constant state of mourning but rather a realization that we are not physical beings awaiting a spiritual life after death--but rather we are spiritual beings experiencing the temporary gift of physical life on earth. This gift is short-lived, "a vapor,” as scripture says. We share this allotted time with loved ones and millions of others ordained to live with us in that dash between the two dates on the stones that mark our graves.

So what changed with my triple bypass surgery? Well, a few years ago, I did the math and realized that each month I lived was a month longer than my father’s time on earth. Who thinks that way? It’s fatalistic—it’s positive and negative at the same time. Yet for nearly three years I had secretly accepted the likelihood that I would someday put my loved ones through the same heartache my father knew in 1958 and that I knew in 1995. 

Living with the acceptance of these facts in the context of my faith and daily duties as a husband, father, brother, and grandfather changed my personality. This outlook changed the tone of interactions and my writing. It tinted the lens through which I observed the common scenes of life. You may notice this tone in a post I called "The Ache of Joy." In "Only the Roots Remain," in "Seeing Through," in “Something Short of Sorrow,” in "The Rhythm,” and in many other poems and posts through the years here at “Patterns of Ink.” This literary melancholy is not unique to me. The best work of many writers (from Emily Dickinson to Abraham Lincoln to C.S. Lewis and countless others) are prompted by the pain of losing a loved one. 

What changed with my recent surgery is that I no longer carry the secret sense that I will not be here much longer. I no longer sit at family gatherings quietly envisioning them in the future without me. This is not to say that bypass surgery comes with guarantees. "It is appointed unto man once to die..." (Hebrews 9:27)  That event still lies ahead for me as it does for all of us. The last stanza of all the hymns of my childhood foreshadowed the “by and by” with joy. But for now, I feel like God has granted me more time…more hope… for whatever lies ahead. 

Ahead of time, as I ate Thanksgiving Dinner 2025 in the hospital, awaiting surgery the next day, we were all praying for a good outcome—but I did not anticipate the new outlook that came with that outcome. I thank God that both my heart and my mindset have been restored. . . and I see every tomorrow as a gift.

“Time does not pass—it gathers; it is not spent but shared.” [from  "The Ache of Joy."]

Tom Kapanka