When the Tide Went Out
A daughter's journey through her father's illness, sacrifice, and the love that echoes beyond loss.
The first time I noticed something was wrong with my dad, I was still a kid.
We were outside in the yard, running lopsided circles around a tree we’d turned into home plate. He was chasing us, laughing the way he always did—booming, rolling laughter that carried across the grass.
And then he wasn’t.
He bent over, hands on his knees, coughing, his breath ragged like he’d just sprinted a mile.
We hadn’t even made it around the tree.
“You’re getting fast,” he joked, waving us on. “Or I’m getting old!”
At the time, I believed him. I believed every joke, every shrug, every wave of his hand—his practiced way of pulling worry back out to sea before it could reach us. I thought maybe he was just tired. Maybe he was playing it up. Maybe it was nothing.
It wasn’t.
The diagnosis arrived later, like a tide you don’t hear until it’s already at your ankles: Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, a rare genetic lung disease. The doctors explained it like a cruel lottery—his lungs were breaking down from the inside. What looked like “getting older” was actually his body quietly losing ground, eroding grain by grain, year by year.
And the life he had built—his work, his pride, the rhythm of our days—had to change.
My dad was a welder. Not just by trade, but by identity. Welding wasn’t something he did; it was who he was. The man who could fix anything or Jerry-rig it, as we joked on the pun of his name. All he needed was duct tape and an idea. Welding was his passion. He’d even brag about custom-welding Biggie Smalls’ casket. Maybe it was true. Maybe it was mostly myth. It didn’t matter.
What mattered was what it gave him: the belief that his work had weight. That his hands built things that lasted. That he mattered.
But suddenly, the very place that gave him dignity became dangerous.
Fumes. Dust. Chemicals.
The air he’d worked in for years wasn’t just air—it was undertow. The more he breathed it in, the more it pulled him under.
He had to leave.
My dad went from being the man who left for work to the man who stayed home. And the house felt off-balance, like the waterline had shifted and we were all pretending the sand beneath our feet wasn’t moving.
My mom picked up the slack.
She worked three jobs to keep our lives afloat. We didn’t take vacations. I didn’t see the beach growing up except in postcards or movies. I didn’t know then how unusual that was. I just thought that’s how life worked: some families go to the shore; some families go to work.
Now, with adult eyes, I see the truth. Every extra shift was her way of sandbagging a flood—stacking one more barrier against what was rising, keeping us above water while my dad’s lungs slowly sank.
Still, even as his body betrayed him, my dad held onto pride.
Even sick, he was always trying to fix something or help someone—until he couldn’t.
That’s how the tide works in families. It doesn’t always take everything at once. Sometimes it pulls back inch by inch, and you don’t realize what’s happening until you look up and see how far the water has gone.
Through it all, he never stopped being my number one fan.
My dad’s voice was thunder from behind the catcher’s fence at my softball games. I could always hear him. I still can.
It was my first perfect game. I was twelve—braces, ponytail, all elbows and ambition. My teammates swarmed me, my coach hoisted the ball, and I turned instinctively toward the fence.
There he was.
Moving slower than usual.
Stopping more often.
Chest heaving.
Same huge smile. Same proud eyes.
That was the day I understood—without yet having words for it—that something was really wrong. I knew the diagnosis. I knew the numbers: oxygen levels, lung function, percentages attached to his life like small, terrifying decimals.
But part of me still believed he was Superman. Just Superman with an oxygen tank.
He had fought every monster in my childhood—nightmares, bullies, broken cars, broken things. I believed he’d figure out how to fight this one too.
He did fight.
He just couldn’t win.
When I got the offer for a full ride to play at a Big East university, everyone expected me to take it. Especially him. He was so proud. He’d watched me play since I was six, never missing a game.
But I said no.
I couldn’t leave him. Not yet.
I wanted four more years of dinners and games and ordinary moments. I chose presence over prestige, closeness over a name-brand future. I’ve never once regretted it—not even now, as I chip away at student loans.
During those years, our lives bent around his illness. Hospital visits. Specialists. Oxygen tanks. “Good days” and “bad days.” My mom kept grinding. My sister and I grew up faster than we realized.
Life kept moving, because it always does.
I graduated college in 2015 and moved to Philadelphia with my husband—full of hope and not much money. I had a teaching job lined up. He worked long, brutal shifts. We told ourselves this was the beginning of everything.
A year later, in 2016, three months after my daughter was born, I was back in Scranton. My parents were helping with the baby while my husband worked twelve-hour days. It was supposed to be a season of support.
It became something else.
I remember the night everything shifted. I sat in the recliner in my parents’ bedroom, rocking my daughter and humming “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” trying to hide my tears. I didn’t realize then I was singing it for him, too.
My dad lay just feet away—frail, fading—each breath pulling farther from shore.
My mom came in quietly and stood at the edge of the bed. I didn’t need her to speak.
“Is this it?” I whispered.
She nodded. “Yeah… I think it’s time.”
I kissed my daughter’s forehead and handed her to the hospice nurse. Then I took my dad’s hand—the same hand that once held mine crossing streets, tied my cleats, tossed softballs in the yard.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I whispered. “We love you so much.”
He didn’t speak, but I could feel him still trying to hold on.
“It’s okay,” I said again. “You can go. I’ve got her. I’ve got us. You don’t have to fight anymore.”
His chest rose.
And fell.
And stilled.
The ocean did what the ocean does—a final pull, then sudden hush. The tide went all the way out, dragging my heart with it.
Then the door opened.
My sister rushed in, breathless, hope still intact. She looked at me, then at the bed. She knew before I spoke.
“He’s gone,” I whispered.
Her knees gave out.
That’s another thing grief teaches you: death doesn’t wait for everyone to be ready. It doesn’t care about timing. It doesn’t offer a perfect moment. It comes like a wave that doesn’t ask permission.
The room felt heavy and hollow at once—my mom, my sister, my daughter, and me. Three generations of women wrapped around the same absence, clinging together as if we could keep the shoreline from changing.
All I could think was how badly he would’ve wanted us to know he heard us. That he knew we were there. That he knew he was loved.
Even now, I can still hear his voice echoing across an old softball field as I set for my next pitch:
Let’s go. Blow it past her.
That’s what love does.
It keeps speaking—even after the tide has gone all the way out.
