Eight Father's Days Without You

Christians have hope of seeing one another again in the afterlife. Any person of any faith that includes that element does, in fact.

This is not about that.

This post is about the reality of this world as we know it. 

You are missing from us right here in the present where we can't see you. Your arms that existed on this earth will never hold us again. Any time I need your advice, I cannot call you to get it. I don't get to hear your laughter or beautiful voice booming in song. 

I don't get to watch your face light up as you look upon your grandchildren. Their memories of you stop at young ages: for my youngest, at just four years old. That is not enough time to remember you the way she deserves to. Six of your grandchildren have become adults since you died. Six, and the other eleven right behind. You have a great-grandchild we are all so proud of, who will never know her Papa.

It has been seven full years but this is our eighth Father's Day holiday without you, and it feels like you've been gone simultaneously for just a few months and forever. 

I can't bear that you are just a set of cherished memories. I can't stand that you get farther away from us the longer we live. I remember the intense panic attacks I had daily after you died when I first became so vividly aware of that reality. You were farther and farther away from us every single minute of every single day. Your loss has been excruciating.

I know someone who likes to say that people are 'holding onto grief too tightly' or 'too long', as though she has any sense of what any person's process looks like outside of her own. Unsurprisingly, she also posts publicly about herself missing you usually within 24 hours of chastising one of us. I find that really gross, but I know that genuine conversation with her is useless, so I don't say anything. I'm just so sick of the emotional gatekeeping. I pray that she grows beyond the need to do this very soon.

Missing you so deeply that it steals my breath and throws me into tears randomly through the year doesn't mean I'm not healing in the spaces in between. It doesn't mean that any family members aren't, or that anybody is "grieving wrong". Certainly, none of us is qualified to claim to know what is healthy for the rest.

Your remains were recently interred in a place you've never visited: permanently laid to rest somewhere that was directly against your wishes. The intense amount of disrespect in not even giving you your final resting place about did me in, I'm going to be honest. I had to finally settle my soul on the fact that you were an easy-going guy and would likely have caved to the wishes and needs of those who love you. That somehow made me feel even worse. Still, Mom is alive and you would have wanted her needs to be respected. I can work on that. My final attempt at reconciling with this madness was the fact that the spirit who exists in an eternal state isn't concerned about where the ashes of your earthy body are laid. That settles it for me. 

Forgive my rambling, Dad. I know I am not actually talking to you but to the universe. That has to be okay for now. Thank you for loving us, and for investing your time in us. I will never forget the closeness we shared before you died: the way you made yourself available to us when you were already hurting and suffering. 

Thank you for being open about the darkness you faced. I've never seen Christmas the same since your last Christmas contained that confession, but I needed it somehow. I would do anything to go back in time and try to find a way to support you better or soothe your emotional pain. Knowing that you had these feelings inside helps me to give myself grace as I struggle through my own breathtaking depression. 

This year as Father's Day comes around and you are not with us, I will celebrate my hubs and his dad the way you liked best: a family cook-out. I will feel desperately sad and alone even as we are all together in the room, bc grief is like that. It is a very private journey. 

I miss you, Dad. 

Love,
      ~Lynn