I find myself sitting here in tears again, missing you. I tell myself that is because it is May. This month brings around the day we would have celebrated as your birthday. We always associate it with grilling out on the patio, because it so often coincides with Memorial Day weekend.
The memories are so vivid. You, at the grill. My hubs and the other guys hanging out chatting around you. Mom, myself, and any sisters who are present all floating about alternating between food prep and tending the needs of the children. Oh, the children! Your seventeen beloved grandbabies! Each one a masterpiece blend of the generations preceding them. Each one unique! Papa's beautiful girls and handsome boys!
Gosh, Dad. How is it that you have been gone now for three years? I read my poem "Before You Sleep" this morning. I had been thinking about it for days now, maybe a week. There is this new show on television in which the lead is experiencing the decline and passing of her father. It is all too real, Dad. It is so similar in so many ways.
I recall with visceral clarity the ache of watching you die. I still struggle with feelings of unfairness that I had a broken-down car at the time. I struggle with jealousy over sisters who got to see you, sing to you, love on you while you were awake. I was there, Dad. I was there! I am the one who showed up at night when there were emergencies. I was there in the dark hours where you weren't conscious and couldn't come to! Me, hubs, our babies... we were there for you, too!
That seemed to define how I felt about your death. In fact, it still defines my life in a lot of ways. I am there for my friends when they are in the dark. I am there when nobody else is; when rays of light fail to shine through. Sometimes, I feel as though I have become darkness itself, so adept am I at walking through pain and grief.
I wish you were here, Dad. I miss you every waking minute of every day. You do not show up in my dreams the way you once did. I dreamt so vividly of you those months and especially the days leading up to your death. I dreamed you were giving your final sermons in so many of the places you've preached in your life. The night before you died, I dreamed about a young soldier in a casket in the living room of our C.A. house. I promised myself that it wasn't you bc he was so very young, tall, and thin. I justified that by reminding myself that you did not get to be a soldier. And yet, he wasn't in uniform. He was in your suit. Plus, he looked exactly like you do in your college photos. I know it *was* you, Dad. I had to finally admit it when you went and died right after I had that dream. You always talked about being a Christian soldier. How fitting that my last dream during your life was you in the 'uniform' of a minister? God's soldier.
*sigh*
And you are still gone. All three years of learning how to walk with grief and breathe through the rawest moments have led to today: and today I am still sitting here in this house in this life and wishing you were alive and ten days away from a family celebration. I wish your nurse hadn't said "not tonight", so I could have been with you one last time. I wish we had gotten to sing you to Jesus the way you deserve. I wish I could rewrite history so that I had come up to visit the weekend before like I was supposed to.
You couldn't bear for your girls to be hurting, I know. You said plenty of times that you don't want us to be sad. I feel sometimes that I let you down by grieving so hard. But see, Dad, it isn't a failure to move on. This is exactly how I *do* move on. Your love was as gigantic as your arms stretched around us. We still feel it, even now. So, please forgive my tears on the hard days, okay? I haven't lost faith in God... I don't cry because I cannot see the promise of Heaven in the distance. I just need to get out the everyday loss when it hits me the worst.
You are such a beautiful soul, Dad. Thank you for everything you lent to us during your time on earth. Lessons learned, moments shared, love shown in action: all of it will continue to be cherished! So, for now, during this month which is yours, I will continue to get out these immense feelings of grief. I will wipe away fresh tears and tell my children that I am okay. I am just feeling melancholy and wistful...
because it is May.
The memories are so vivid. You, at the grill. My hubs and the other guys hanging out chatting around you. Mom, myself, and any sisters who are present all floating about alternating between food prep and tending the needs of the children. Oh, the children! Your seventeen beloved grandbabies! Each one a masterpiece blend of the generations preceding them. Each one unique! Papa's beautiful girls and handsome boys!
Gosh, Dad. How is it that you have been gone now for three years? I read my poem "Before You Sleep" this morning. I had been thinking about it for days now, maybe a week. There is this new show on television in which the lead is experiencing the decline and passing of her father. It is all too real, Dad. It is so similar in so many ways.
I recall with visceral clarity the ache of watching you die. I still struggle with feelings of unfairness that I had a broken-down car at the time. I struggle with jealousy over sisters who got to see you, sing to you, love on you while you were awake. I was there, Dad. I was there! I am the one who showed up at night when there were emergencies. I was there in the dark hours where you weren't conscious and couldn't come to! Me, hubs, our babies... we were there for you, too!
That seemed to define how I felt about your death. In fact, it still defines my life in a lot of ways. I am there for my friends when they are in the dark. I am there when nobody else is; when rays of light fail to shine through. Sometimes, I feel as though I have become darkness itself, so adept am I at walking through pain and grief.
I wish you were here, Dad. I miss you every waking minute of every day. You do not show up in my dreams the way you once did. I dreamt so vividly of you those months and especially the days leading up to your death. I dreamed you were giving your final sermons in so many of the places you've preached in your life. The night before you died, I dreamed about a young soldier in a casket in the living room of our C.A. house. I promised myself that it wasn't you bc he was so very young, tall, and thin. I justified that by reminding myself that you did not get to be a soldier. And yet, he wasn't in uniform. He was in your suit. Plus, he looked exactly like you do in your college photos. I know it *was* you, Dad. I had to finally admit it when you went and died right after I had that dream. You always talked about being a Christian soldier. How fitting that my last dream during your life was you in the 'uniform' of a minister? God's soldier.
*sigh*
And you are still gone. All three years of learning how to walk with grief and breathe through the rawest moments have led to today: and today I am still sitting here in this house in this life and wishing you were alive and ten days away from a family celebration. I wish your nurse hadn't said "not tonight", so I could have been with you one last time. I wish we had gotten to sing you to Jesus the way you deserve. I wish I could rewrite history so that I had come up to visit the weekend before like I was supposed to.
You couldn't bear for your girls to be hurting, I know. You said plenty of times that you don't want us to be sad. I feel sometimes that I let you down by grieving so hard. But see, Dad, it isn't a failure to move on. This is exactly how I *do* move on. Your love was as gigantic as your arms stretched around us. We still feel it, even now. So, please forgive my tears on the hard days, okay? I haven't lost faith in God... I don't cry because I cannot see the promise of Heaven in the distance. I just need to get out the everyday loss when it hits me the worst.
You are such a beautiful soul, Dad. Thank you for everything you lent to us during your time on earth. Lessons learned, moments shared, love shown in action: all of it will continue to be cherished! So, for now, during this month which is yours, I will continue to get out these immense feelings of grief. I will wipe away fresh tears and tell my children that I am okay. I am just feeling melancholy and wistful...
because it is May.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please Share Your Thoughts Here