I felt like writing tonight, so decided to blog. It's been several months and; I am almost embarrassed to say. I don't want to read. I made myself read a little this morning. I read a few pages of "Spiritual Torrents" by Julian of Norwich. It was interesting. I highlighted a few sentences to review..... some day... maybe.... I'll want to finish it.
Here I set, university educated, blessed because I was taught to read as a child and have hundreds of books that I could plop down and read... or over 200 books on my Kindle (mostly free downloads of Christian literature).
I figure there is one of several things going on:
Idea 1: I've gotten lazy in my old age. Living in Western society with drive-in restaurants and drive-through banks and media on demand - I've lost the ability to patiently wade through the typed words to make sense of what I'm reading and to find ways to apply it to my life. If that's the reason, than I'm in sad shape and need to pull myself up by the boot straps and get a life.
Idea 2: I'm too tired to read with intentionality and comprehension. I'm still recuperating from moving, tired from the last bit of unpacking, tired from trying to work and get my yard in shape, weary from a half of year of urinary tract infection and a couple rounds of anti-biotics, depleted from this latest round of antibiotics (that are not liver friendly), exhausted from the liver disease. If that's the reason, then it looks like not reading is good self-care.
Idea 3: God is pulling me out of books so I will incorporate what I've read during the last few months of compulsive reading and apply what I've learned to my life. If so, then not reading is a good thing and a growing thing.
I don't know if any of the above are accurate, or partially accurate or just completely wrong. The blessing is that I'm not overly concerned about the why's because I know my life is in God's hand and trust He is directing me this way. I love the fruit of the spirit "Gentleness" and am so grateful I am learning to apply gentleness to my own self. I do not intuit I am out of His will; but deep in his heart of love. I feel close to God and sense His indwelling presence. I talk to Him and spend time with Him. I just don't want to read what others say about Him at this time.
The only icky feeling is what if I'd never have the desire to cuddle under a warm blanket and read a good book cover to cover - underlining beautiful sentences that I want to explore later or that make me feel closer to God? Part of me would miss that. Part of me would rejoice that I am feeling God in ways other then reading and/or intellectual.
As Ecclesiastes says, there is a time and a season. I am grateful I can accept this is not the season for more head knowledge and am content.
I'm so grateful to be God's beloved daughter.
Monday 17 June 2013
Sunday 16 June 2013
Dad - A Father Worth Remembering
Having lived 17 years longer then my Dad, I often feel I'm treading on virgin territory. What would Dad have been like at age 62? How would he have handled the changes age brings? What could I have learned about aging gracefully from him? The little I remember about the man are indelibly imprinted on my mind and are a guide. A few specifics, but the character of the man shined: his honesty, his love, his integrity, his faith.
Specifics: I remember riding home on his shoulder from work. When we walked into the back yard - winter was over and summer was there. Twigs were lush green, lilacs smelled wonderful, tulips added colour... it seems every spring the re-life after winter catches me by surprise and I am once again the little girl riding on Dad's shoulders with him holding my hands so I don't put them over his eyes thinking I was being funny.
Specifics: I remember him finding make-work projects at his business. Cleaning old car parts or scraping an old rubber runner off the floor. Things to help me feel special, needed and competent.
Specifics: I remember taking an old blanket (pink & white with embroidered autographs??) and laying it on the ground and looking at the stars. He'd tell me about each constellation, why it was named, what the story was behind the name and the name of some of the more special stars. Then we'd come inside and he'd "dope" (put medicine on) my mosquito and chigger bites.
Specifics: BRC (Bike Rider's Club - Janeen, Brenda, Pat and me) cleaned off the cement slab beside his shop to roller skate. He said it was too hot. We wouldn't believe him. He put a thermometer out in the sun and said if it's over 100 there would be no skating... it reached 110 that day. No skating.
Specifics: After fishing many Sunday afternoons, and putting my pole and bobber in the pond and then walking around exploring. The day we heard a schoolmate died in the pond when a bank gave away, Dad sat at the kitchen table and cried and cried; then called us to him where he held us girls and cried some more.
Specifics: I remember him crying when he heard a local teen was going to be an unwed mother. He wasn't mad at the girl but at the boy who had "taken advantage of her." Okay, this was the 50s and there was quite a social stigma and ostracism back then; but he had compassion on people who others were shunning. Mom made maternity clothes for her.
Specifics: I remember when a tourist's car broke down, he helped them set up our family's tent in the back yard of his shop (in the grove area behind the office where the outdoor toilet was), and they lived there until the parts were shipped in. Mom invited them to our home to shower a few times why they were stuck in Kensington. Although they never met again, apparently they remained friends for years after Dad had died and them and mom corresponded.
I know that next to God, Dad's family was everything to him; not only his wife and children, but his birth family and their families; but the family of community in Kensington and his love of the whole family of God's creation.
As a kid, I liked May Day. Our family tradition was to make May baskets out of construction paper, filled with candy and flowers from the yard and deliver them to everybody on our list of who we'd went to get Halloween treats. That meant we chose to just visit about a dozen people at Halloween. That's a tradition I handed on to my children. I remember them trying to figure out people to give May baskets to who they hadn't trick or treated. But May Day didn't end on May 2. I remember more then once that Dad would drive the jalopy (what he called the car) down the street from some family, leave a bag or two of groceries, ring their door bell and run off and hide in the bushes to make sure they got the food and then sneak back to the car. He took such delight in giving. I was so thrilled when I got old enough to go along and stay quiet in the car so he could give in secret. Then on the way home he'd caution us to not tell anybody because the receiver needed their dignity. Even at those tender single-digit age, he trusted me to know something and handle the information in secret.
At age 7, I remember the family did it's normal nightly routine. Dad read us an age-appropriate story about nature then we'd discuss how lovingly God made the universe and how we could see God in nature. Then he'd read a Bible story and we'd discuss it. Then we'd kneel beside the bed and pray. But one night was different. Dad went through the form, but his heart wasn't in it and he often would stop to wipe his face with his white hankie with brown plaid edge. I thought his hay fever was acting up. But when it came time to pray, he didn't kneel down but sit on the edge of the bed and cried. Eventually Mom lead him out of the bedroom and put us little girls to bed. I understood Dad was going to the hospital again, but instead of Sadie Gudd babysitting us in our house, we'd spend time with Aunt Madonna and Uncle Joe, Donna Jo and RoseAnne and Butch, the dog who drank out of the toilet and looked like the then popular "Shaggy Dog."
We arrived to find Madonna's nieces were also visiting. That was 6 or 7 girls and since I was 7, I was the only one who wasn't old enough to wear a bra. I was spoiled, especially by RoseAnne who always did my chores because, "But Mom, she's just a little kid." I loved the attention. Uncle Joe would let me sit on his lap when he got home from work and that was comforting because he reminded me of an extroverted version of my quiet Dad. He also taught me to gamble!
I remember getting into trouble because I told Dad that Grandpa Kaba was in the hospital. They didn't want Dad to know that his Dad was sick. I was too young to understand Dad was undergoing what was then experimental heart surgery. I was nick-named "Big Ears" by Uncle Joe and when Uncle Greg use to call Gypsy the Trix rabbit - it would bring back those memories of my childhood when I was the one with the growing ears.
After a few weeks Dad was back, Grandpa was home from the hospital; both were pale and skinny, so I didn't understand what all the hullabaloo had been about. The change for me was no more bear hugs because where they'd wired Dad's ribs back together on the left side, a piece of wire was an outsie instead of an insie and if I hugged him there, it would break through the skin and he'd hurt and bleed.
As I became a woman, I found out more about those few days and read the medical report the family physician gave Mom that was sent to him by the heart surgeon (Not sure if he was Dr. Skillet or Dr. Kettle - but Mom called him by the wrong name and that became a family joke). The heart's valve, that apparently should have been large enough for a man to put two fingers in, had been reduced to the size of a pencil lead opening. After they opened the valve that was extremely damaged from rheumatic heart disease, his heart was still working hard to try to push the blood through the narrow opening but was pumping too much blood through the new big opening - it was more volume then the heart could manage. He blew a hole in the side of his heart and the doctors had to do an emergency surgery to repair the hole. I remember as a child he told me they fixed it like he fixed inner tubes in car tires. In my childish wonderment, I figured they took it out, put it under water to find the bubbles from the leak and then put glue and heat on the patch to hold it together. It was age appropriate understanding that brings a smile to me as I remember by naivety.
Not only was surviving the two surgeries a miracle, he got malaria from tainted blood. This was back in 1957 before blood was screened like it is today. Apparently one night his fever spiked at 106 and God pulled a miracle of a hail storm. They rolled him outside and rubbed him down with the God-given ice to lower the temperature. He was careful to hide from us children the recurring issues of malaria.
Since it was experimental surgery, there was no fees except repaying the many units of blood that were used and for any food he ate. Back then, hospitals weren't as expensive as they are today; but I am thankful for Canadian socialized medicine. The men, and a few ladies, from Kensington and relatives, would go to Kansas City and donate blood so he didn't have to pay for the blood used. Of course, it was a given when in Kansas City to watch the Kansas City A's play a game of baseball. yeah, I know that team moved decades ago but it still sounds right to have Kansas City As.
The first year home, Dad obeyed the doctor and took it easy. He made model planes, bought a television and rested on the couch a lot, read, and about drove himself crazy. Mom worked to provide. That meant Pat and I did the cooking for noon meals and were often scolded for not being as quiet as church mice. Pat had a leg-up on being quiet as she was content to hide behind any piece of furniture and read; but that didn't go with my personality so I was always on the carpet - and not the red carpet. I remember Pat teaching me to put rubber bands around my sleeves so when I cooked dinner, my long sleeves didn't catch on fire from the natural gas stove. I was too short to see in the pot, so she had me stand on a chair so I didn't burn the food. She was just as quick to get me in trouble as she was to help me -- and that's what big sisters are for. I think that's their job description! I love her dearly and she's my bestest friend still.
After the second year, Dad went back to work. Things felt normal again. Mom ran the children's clothing store she bought and later sold it to be the office manager for dad's business. I was a Pollyanna and life went on and that year of the surgery was interpreted as a glitch that reset itself.
Pat remembers those years differently. She would talk to Dad about how he felt about his sickness, his future death and what it would be like to die and to live without him. I rode bikes, played dolls and roller skated (I still have my roller skate key). I'm blessed she's told me some about their talks. Since turning 50, I try really hard to not be a Pollyanna but to accept reality; I don't think I'm very graceful at that yet, but it's a good skill for me to learn.
Dad did try to help me face his future passing. I remember times when he'd have to go to the next town for his monthly heart medication. I'd ask why he didn't buy several months medication and he's day, "I buy one month at a time because I may not be alive next month." I interpreted that as something silly and not serious. I knew Dad didn't lie, but I couldn't wrap my childish brain around a life without my Daddy.
Sunday, January 20th, Pat and I went to Sunday School and were to come home afterwards. Dad hadn't felt well and had spent the night on the sofa with lots of pillows so he wasn't laying flat. We get home and exchange a few words (I was on the carpet once again - my normal spot it seems) and he died. For me it was a danged quick passing - but to others, it was slow because they had been in touch with reality of his slow death throughout the years.
The next part is going to be hard to put into words and I don't want to cause distress to others. But the next few days were what turned me into an atheist and satanist for about a decade. As people would come to the house, stop me on the street, or greet us at the funeral - they had no clue what to say to this blue-eyed child with tears running down her face and fear enveloping her like a halo. So they would open their mouth and say the most ugly, horrid things. Some of them I remember was "God loved your daddy more then you could so he took him to heaven." "God wanted your Daddy so He took him." "Don't cry, it makes God sad." When you see somebody in distress and don't know what to say, please don't say stupid things - just hold their hand and be still before the power of their grief - be with them in their pain. Cry with them. Hold them. But don't lie about God or minimize what they are experiencing. Don't say anything that could even possibly shake their faith that may already be on shaky ground. I couldn't love a mean God who'd willfully and selfishly force a a child to be fatherless - even men on death row for atrocious crimes know the power of a parent/child bond - yet so many people passed a faith death sentence on me by their uncaring and stupid words. I have forgiven them; but after holding it in for half a century, want to say how I feel.
So at a time when God could have comforted and encouraged me; I turned my back on him. I didn't need the uncaring, selfish bastard of a god these people touted - I shudder evening thinking of a perverted deity like that. He'd be more like Moelech then Jehovah. I did find comfort in sitting on Daddy's gravestone (thank you Mom for getting him a flat stone that was sit-able instead of a tall one that wouldn't have given comfort). For a decade or more, I'd ride my bicycle the two miles to the graveyard and talk to Daddy, or just sit quiet and absorb the peace of the prairie surrounding the graveyard. I don't know how many times throughout my adult life I'd like to have sit there and talked to Dad and God (after I found faith years later) about life and challenges.
It still strikes me as odd the times when I feel sucker-punched and almost brought to my knees in grief. When I had my first son, I grieved because I wanted Dad's blessing on my precious son who was named after him; the grief hit as hard with the second son, but it wasn't the raw pain because experience taught me to expected it. It sucker-punched me when my youngest son had his first bio-son and named him after dad; I wanted to share that glorious moment with the baby's namesake. When I graduated from university (all three times) I wanted his smile of blessing of a job well done because he was a supporter of education; my mom was proud of me but didn't even know what I'd majored in because higher education wasn't her interest but his. When I was in my 20s and dated a black man, I knew Dad would have approved and probably grinned that he'd had such a positive influence on me; because he was so inclusive that our first doll was black because he didn't want us to see race but humans. Recently I've gone through a re-grieving of my absent father; I would love to show him my little house. I know he'd be proud of me for how I've picked up the pieces of my life and am making life work for me.The Phoenix has arisen from the ashes; just as it did for him after his surgery.
There are times with my own disease, that I can look to how Dad handled his disease and feel I'm handling it well. It's hard to step out of my comfort zone and discuss it; but I know it is healing and relationship building to share. I remember Dad's well-worn Bible was by his bed and his illness brought him a closeness with God that he may not have developed had he not been sick - and I try to look at my own disease that way. But I'm at an advanced age where a serious disease is "common" but had it been 20+ years ago, I don't think I would have handled it as well as Dad did at that age. I admire him for that. So many set-backs in his life and he kept moving forward and enjoyed life anyway. I think he understood the set-backs are really stepping stones that make us more who we are. In his quiet way, he embraced life from the core of his being; but embraced it in a way he wasn't afraid of dying - but was concerned how his passing would affect his loved ones left behind.
I see so much of Greg and me in our youngest son. He's a good daddy; having been a house-husband he's also a good and fair disciplinarian; things and appearances aren't very important to him. He's had his share of health, financial and family issues and he keeps moving forward with life. I think Justin looks like me in the face and height, but he's got his Dad's stocky build with wide shoulders and lots of facial fur like his dad. His feet are like his dad's - cute, chubby baby feet in man-size. He's married to a smart lady who knows how to help him open up and see the inner depths and layers of who he is.
I see so much of Dad and Harry (my ex's dad) in Mark, my oldest son. He looks like a combination of both, his body build is similar to theirs at that age, like Harry, he's a go getter and business leader; like my Dad, he's inventive and creative and a good dad - like his dad and his grandad (my dad). He's married to a smart lady who knows how to help him schedule his busy life so he has time for all of their large family's obligations.He's smart enough to recognize that her people skills can be a great benefit and he listens and learns from her. I sense that when Mark was faced with his own mortality in 2008, there was a major shift in his life that mellowed him and turned into a blessing.
I'm grateful for my children, my children's dad, my mother but especially for my father. I am blessed my father was a shining example of my heavenly Father. From the cradle, Dad was instrumental in starting me on the path to God.
Thank you Dad. Thank you God for picking my Daddy to be my daddy; he did more in 12 years to earn the name Daddy then many men achieve in a long lifetime.
Specifics: I remember riding home on his shoulder from work. When we walked into the back yard - winter was over and summer was there. Twigs were lush green, lilacs smelled wonderful, tulips added colour... it seems every spring the re-life after winter catches me by surprise and I am once again the little girl riding on Dad's shoulders with him holding my hands so I don't put them over his eyes thinking I was being funny.
Specifics: I remember him finding make-work projects at his business. Cleaning old car parts or scraping an old rubber runner off the floor. Things to help me feel special, needed and competent.
Specifics: I remember taking an old blanket (pink & white with embroidered autographs??) and laying it on the ground and looking at the stars. He'd tell me about each constellation, why it was named, what the story was behind the name and the name of some of the more special stars. Then we'd come inside and he'd "dope" (put medicine on) my mosquito and chigger bites.
Specifics: BRC (Bike Rider's Club - Janeen, Brenda, Pat and me) cleaned off the cement slab beside his shop to roller skate. He said it was too hot. We wouldn't believe him. He put a thermometer out in the sun and said if it's over 100 there would be no skating... it reached 110 that day. No skating.
Specifics: After fishing many Sunday afternoons, and putting my pole and bobber in the pond and then walking around exploring. The day we heard a schoolmate died in the pond when a bank gave away, Dad sat at the kitchen table and cried and cried; then called us to him where he held us girls and cried some more.
Specifics: I remember him crying when he heard a local teen was going to be an unwed mother. He wasn't mad at the girl but at the boy who had "taken advantage of her." Okay, this was the 50s and there was quite a social stigma and ostracism back then; but he had compassion on people who others were shunning. Mom made maternity clothes for her.
Specifics: I remember when a tourist's car broke down, he helped them set up our family's tent in the back yard of his shop (in the grove area behind the office where the outdoor toilet was), and they lived there until the parts were shipped in. Mom invited them to our home to shower a few times why they were stuck in Kensington. Although they never met again, apparently they remained friends for years after Dad had died and them and mom corresponded.
I know that next to God, Dad's family was everything to him; not only his wife and children, but his birth family and their families; but the family of community in Kensington and his love of the whole family of God's creation.
As a kid, I liked May Day. Our family tradition was to make May baskets out of construction paper, filled with candy and flowers from the yard and deliver them to everybody on our list of who we'd went to get Halloween treats. That meant we chose to just visit about a dozen people at Halloween. That's a tradition I handed on to my children. I remember them trying to figure out people to give May baskets to who they hadn't trick or treated. But May Day didn't end on May 2. I remember more then once that Dad would drive the jalopy (what he called the car) down the street from some family, leave a bag or two of groceries, ring their door bell and run off and hide in the bushes to make sure they got the food and then sneak back to the car. He took such delight in giving. I was so thrilled when I got old enough to go along and stay quiet in the car so he could give in secret. Then on the way home he'd caution us to not tell anybody because the receiver needed their dignity. Even at those tender single-digit age, he trusted me to know something and handle the information in secret.
At age 7, I remember the family did it's normal nightly routine. Dad read us an age-appropriate story about nature then we'd discuss how lovingly God made the universe and how we could see God in nature. Then he'd read a Bible story and we'd discuss it. Then we'd kneel beside the bed and pray. But one night was different. Dad went through the form, but his heart wasn't in it and he often would stop to wipe his face with his white hankie with brown plaid edge. I thought his hay fever was acting up. But when it came time to pray, he didn't kneel down but sit on the edge of the bed and cried. Eventually Mom lead him out of the bedroom and put us little girls to bed. I understood Dad was going to the hospital again, but instead of Sadie Gudd babysitting us in our house, we'd spend time with Aunt Madonna and Uncle Joe, Donna Jo and RoseAnne and Butch, the dog who drank out of the toilet and looked like the then popular "Shaggy Dog."
We arrived to find Madonna's nieces were also visiting. That was 6 or 7 girls and since I was 7, I was the only one who wasn't old enough to wear a bra. I was spoiled, especially by RoseAnne who always did my chores because, "But Mom, she's just a little kid." I loved the attention. Uncle Joe would let me sit on his lap when he got home from work and that was comforting because he reminded me of an extroverted version of my quiet Dad. He also taught me to gamble!
I remember getting into trouble because I told Dad that Grandpa Kaba was in the hospital. They didn't want Dad to know that his Dad was sick. I was too young to understand Dad was undergoing what was then experimental heart surgery. I was nick-named "Big Ears" by Uncle Joe and when Uncle Greg use to call Gypsy the Trix rabbit - it would bring back those memories of my childhood when I was the one with the growing ears.
After a few weeks Dad was back, Grandpa was home from the hospital; both were pale and skinny, so I didn't understand what all the hullabaloo had been about. The change for me was no more bear hugs because where they'd wired Dad's ribs back together on the left side, a piece of wire was an outsie instead of an insie and if I hugged him there, it would break through the skin and he'd hurt and bleed.
As I became a woman, I found out more about those few days and read the medical report the family physician gave Mom that was sent to him by the heart surgeon (Not sure if he was Dr. Skillet or Dr. Kettle - but Mom called him by the wrong name and that became a family joke). The heart's valve, that apparently should have been large enough for a man to put two fingers in, had been reduced to the size of a pencil lead opening. After they opened the valve that was extremely damaged from rheumatic heart disease, his heart was still working hard to try to push the blood through the narrow opening but was pumping too much blood through the new big opening - it was more volume then the heart could manage. He blew a hole in the side of his heart and the doctors had to do an emergency surgery to repair the hole. I remember as a child he told me they fixed it like he fixed inner tubes in car tires. In my childish wonderment, I figured they took it out, put it under water to find the bubbles from the leak and then put glue and heat on the patch to hold it together. It was age appropriate understanding that brings a smile to me as I remember by naivety.
Not only was surviving the two surgeries a miracle, he got malaria from tainted blood. This was back in 1957 before blood was screened like it is today. Apparently one night his fever spiked at 106 and God pulled a miracle of a hail storm. They rolled him outside and rubbed him down with the God-given ice to lower the temperature. He was careful to hide from us children the recurring issues of malaria.
Since it was experimental surgery, there was no fees except repaying the many units of blood that were used and for any food he ate. Back then, hospitals weren't as expensive as they are today; but I am thankful for Canadian socialized medicine. The men, and a few ladies, from Kensington and relatives, would go to Kansas City and donate blood so he didn't have to pay for the blood used. Of course, it was a given when in Kansas City to watch the Kansas City A's play a game of baseball. yeah, I know that team moved decades ago but it still sounds right to have Kansas City As.
The first year home, Dad obeyed the doctor and took it easy. He made model planes, bought a television and rested on the couch a lot, read, and about drove himself crazy. Mom worked to provide. That meant Pat and I did the cooking for noon meals and were often scolded for not being as quiet as church mice. Pat had a leg-up on being quiet as she was content to hide behind any piece of furniture and read; but that didn't go with my personality so I was always on the carpet - and not the red carpet. I remember Pat teaching me to put rubber bands around my sleeves so when I cooked dinner, my long sleeves didn't catch on fire from the natural gas stove. I was too short to see in the pot, so she had me stand on a chair so I didn't burn the food. She was just as quick to get me in trouble as she was to help me -- and that's what big sisters are for. I think that's their job description! I love her dearly and she's my bestest friend still.
After the second year, Dad went back to work. Things felt normal again. Mom ran the children's clothing store she bought and later sold it to be the office manager for dad's business. I was a Pollyanna and life went on and that year of the surgery was interpreted as a glitch that reset itself.
Pat remembers those years differently. She would talk to Dad about how he felt about his sickness, his future death and what it would be like to die and to live without him. I rode bikes, played dolls and roller skated (I still have my roller skate key). I'm blessed she's told me some about their talks. Since turning 50, I try really hard to not be a Pollyanna but to accept reality; I don't think I'm very graceful at that yet, but it's a good skill for me to learn.
Dad did try to help me face his future passing. I remember times when he'd have to go to the next town for his monthly heart medication. I'd ask why he didn't buy several months medication and he's day, "I buy one month at a time because I may not be alive next month." I interpreted that as something silly and not serious. I knew Dad didn't lie, but I couldn't wrap my childish brain around a life without my Daddy.
Sunday, January 20th, Pat and I went to Sunday School and were to come home afterwards. Dad hadn't felt well and had spent the night on the sofa with lots of pillows so he wasn't laying flat. We get home and exchange a few words (I was on the carpet once again - my normal spot it seems) and he died. For me it was a danged quick passing - but to others, it was slow because they had been in touch with reality of his slow death throughout the years.
The next part is going to be hard to put into words and I don't want to cause distress to others. But the next few days were what turned me into an atheist and satanist for about a decade. As people would come to the house, stop me on the street, or greet us at the funeral - they had no clue what to say to this blue-eyed child with tears running down her face and fear enveloping her like a halo. So they would open their mouth and say the most ugly, horrid things. Some of them I remember was "God loved your daddy more then you could so he took him to heaven." "God wanted your Daddy so He took him." "Don't cry, it makes God sad." When you see somebody in distress and don't know what to say, please don't say stupid things - just hold their hand and be still before the power of their grief - be with them in their pain. Cry with them. Hold them. But don't lie about God or minimize what they are experiencing. Don't say anything that could even possibly shake their faith that may already be on shaky ground. I couldn't love a mean God who'd willfully and selfishly force a a child to be fatherless - even men on death row for atrocious crimes know the power of a parent/child bond - yet so many people passed a faith death sentence on me by their uncaring and stupid words. I have forgiven them; but after holding it in for half a century, want to say how I feel.
So at a time when God could have comforted and encouraged me; I turned my back on him. I didn't need the uncaring, selfish bastard of a god these people touted - I shudder evening thinking of a perverted deity like that. He'd be more like Moelech then Jehovah. I did find comfort in sitting on Daddy's gravestone (thank you Mom for getting him a flat stone that was sit-able instead of a tall one that wouldn't have given comfort). For a decade or more, I'd ride my bicycle the two miles to the graveyard and talk to Daddy, or just sit quiet and absorb the peace of the prairie surrounding the graveyard. I don't know how many times throughout my adult life I'd like to have sit there and talked to Dad and God (after I found faith years later) about life and challenges.
It still strikes me as odd the times when I feel sucker-punched and almost brought to my knees in grief. When I had my first son, I grieved because I wanted Dad's blessing on my precious son who was named after him; the grief hit as hard with the second son, but it wasn't the raw pain because experience taught me to expected it. It sucker-punched me when my youngest son had his first bio-son and named him after dad; I wanted to share that glorious moment with the baby's namesake. When I graduated from university (all three times) I wanted his smile of blessing of a job well done because he was a supporter of education; my mom was proud of me but didn't even know what I'd majored in because higher education wasn't her interest but his. When I was in my 20s and dated a black man, I knew Dad would have approved and probably grinned that he'd had such a positive influence on me; because he was so inclusive that our first doll was black because he didn't want us to see race but humans. Recently I've gone through a re-grieving of my absent father; I would love to show him my little house. I know he'd be proud of me for how I've picked up the pieces of my life and am making life work for me.The Phoenix has arisen from the ashes; just as it did for him after his surgery.
There are times with my own disease, that I can look to how Dad handled his disease and feel I'm handling it well. It's hard to step out of my comfort zone and discuss it; but I know it is healing and relationship building to share. I remember Dad's well-worn Bible was by his bed and his illness brought him a closeness with God that he may not have developed had he not been sick - and I try to look at my own disease that way. But I'm at an advanced age where a serious disease is "common" but had it been 20+ years ago, I don't think I would have handled it as well as Dad did at that age. I admire him for that. So many set-backs in his life and he kept moving forward and enjoyed life anyway. I think he understood the set-backs are really stepping stones that make us more who we are. In his quiet way, he embraced life from the core of his being; but embraced it in a way he wasn't afraid of dying - but was concerned how his passing would affect his loved ones left behind.
I see so much of Greg and me in our youngest son. He's a good daddy; having been a house-husband he's also a good and fair disciplinarian; things and appearances aren't very important to him. He's had his share of health, financial and family issues and he keeps moving forward with life. I think Justin looks like me in the face and height, but he's got his Dad's stocky build with wide shoulders and lots of facial fur like his dad. His feet are like his dad's - cute, chubby baby feet in man-size. He's married to a smart lady who knows how to help him open up and see the inner depths and layers of who he is.
I see so much of Dad and Harry (my ex's dad) in Mark, my oldest son. He looks like a combination of both, his body build is similar to theirs at that age, like Harry, he's a go getter and business leader; like my Dad, he's inventive and creative and a good dad - like his dad and his grandad (my dad). He's married to a smart lady who knows how to help him schedule his busy life so he has time for all of their large family's obligations.He's smart enough to recognize that her people skills can be a great benefit and he listens and learns from her. I sense that when Mark was faced with his own mortality in 2008, there was a major shift in his life that mellowed him and turned into a blessing.
I'm grateful for my children, my children's dad, my mother but especially for my father. I am blessed my father was a shining example of my heavenly Father. From the cradle, Dad was instrumental in starting me on the path to God.
Thank you Dad. Thank you God for picking my Daddy to be my daddy; he did more in 12 years to earn the name Daddy then many men achieve in a long lifetime.
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