Ten years ago today my father was very ill with cancer of the bile duct. He'd been ill for a long time and I think I was largely in denial about it. He had spent much of my life complaining about various aches and pains and so when he began to complain about this, I only listened with half an ear. By the time he was bedridden I didn't visit him that often. I always regret that now.
July 3 of ten years ago was a day when I was supposed to go visit him. I had a baby, and two other small children. We were supposed to visit him at a particular time, but getting babies out the door is difficult when they're small. I called to tell him we were going to come later in the day. I gave him the time we would be there. He was barely coherent.
A couple of hours later his wife called to tell me that he had passed away. The disbelief and shock were overwhelming and it was my task to call and inform my brother, who was at a blood drive, of what had just taken place. I didn't want to call my brother. I knew that every minute that I delayed calling him was one more minute that his life would stay normal, but also that it couldn't be put off. My baby brother...who I could not save from this train wreck that I was about to unleash into his life. At that point I got to my father's house as soon as I could. He was still there, laying in his bed, and the feeling in the room was so quiet and powerful. I couldn't believe he was gone. I could still feel him everywhere. And as his daughter, his "little doll" as he liked to call me, I wanted to beg him to come back. Come back, because there was too much I didn't get to say, and too much left undone. Come back, because you're still laying there, and shouldn't it be easy, for a mathematician and engineer, to figure out a way to fix this?
But he was gone and the funeral home had been called and I had to watch them carry my father out the door by hand because the gurney wouldn't fit back there into his sickroom. Really, no one should ever have to see that. I still remember it to this day and I probably won't ever forget.
My purpose in writing these memories down is not to be morbid or dwell on sad things. It is simply to record it. Time blunts the edges of things. Losing a parent is a traumatic experience. Some people will tell you it's the circle of life and the natural order of things. Parents pass on and kids take up the torch and move forward in life. Regardless of how you look at it...whether it's God's plan or just the way things are...it's painful and it takes a long time to get over. I am still grieving for him, all of these years later. It's something I had to learn how to do because in the beginning, I didn't allow myself to. I shrugged off the pain of it, just like I shrug off a lot of things that hurt like hell. It reminds me of a kid I saw in a store once. I worked at a JC Penney department store in a bad part of town. A kid misbehaved in the store and his mother spanked him right there in the store in front of everyone. That kid drew himself up and refused to cry and said with all the attitude he could muster, "Didn't hurt." That's me. It should be tattooed on my forehead.
But now I can admit that it does hurt and it still hurts a little every day, when I think of it or really recall what was lost. It's a painful lesson to learn, that people are not permanent. They will come and go in your life, they will hurt you, disappoint you, use you, leave you. My father was no different. What I try to remember of my father...what I hold in my heart...is that he was the only dad for me. He was funny and quirky. He had a ridiculous sense of humor that was as likely to elicit groans as laughter. He was not afraid to act silly in front of us in order to amuse us. He was a good cook. He loved the Cowboys and Star Trek. He loved cold weather and he loved camping and fishing. He was brilliant in his mind. He worked as a lineman for TXU and went to school at night, obtaining a master's degree and becoming an electrical engineer. In that, he taught me that it's never too late to improve yourself or achieve the goals you set for yourself. He was my daddy. I was his princess. He wasn't perfect. No one is.
What I know now is that forgiveness is essential for the people in our lives. I was angry at my father for a long time...for divorcing my mother, for not being able to communicate with us, for a thousand petty things. What I know now is that these things don't matter. If you love someone, you have to let go of the little things and you have to recognize that they are as human as you are,and the expectations you have of them shouldn't be any different or any greater than you have of yourself. I still love my father. I still miss him, even after all of this time. And though some may believe differently, what I know is that God's hand has been in my life from the beginning, and that I have not seen the last of my dad.
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