Yesterday, June 24th, marked the one month anniversary of my father’s death. The numbness and shock are just beginning to wear off, which means the pain and sadness of loss are just beginning to settle in, making themselves at home within the recesses of my soul. They nestle close to the surface at times–sometimes embarassingly so–and at others weigh oppressingly heavy on my chest and make it difficult to breathe. The tears come quickly, easily and at the most inopportune times; the triggers are many and varied–from a stray thought while driving in traffic to a glance at the walkers and canes in the medical supplies aisle in the local Walgreens store.
The most difficult day this past month, though, had to be Fathers’ Day. For the first time EVER, I wasn’t able to make my customary phone call to my dad. It’s the little things, the routine gone awry, that really throws a body off balance. As my husband chatted long distance with his 86-year-old father about baseball and the hot weather, I was so, SO jealous of him yet happy for him at the same time… and then I heard the rest of the story.
My husband’s father lives with one of his sisters. It appears that his other three sisters are not currently on speaking terms with her. Because of this ongoing feud, none of them contacted their father to wish him a happy Father’s Day because they would have had to call this sister’s number to reach him. WHAT A HOUSE DIVIDED… We are what we do. Love is much more than a warm fuzzy emotion. Their resentment and anger toward their sister is greater than their love for their own father; their action (or inaction) bears that out. I can personally attest that life is far too short to engage in these petty grudge fests. Regret is a bitter pill and the time will come when it is too late to make amends. It’s best to make peace when the person is still around because it’s much easier to face yourself in the mirror each morning after he or she is gone.
My father’s massive stroke was sudden and he died within 24 hours. I am very grateful that he knew how much I loved him. Our relationship had been complicated and full of twists and turns from the word “go” because we were so very much alike. Sadly, we had allowed life experiences and circumstances to conspire and set us at odds against each other. At one point, we were estranged for over a decade. Then, in early 2006, my former husband and father of my two children died prematurely and very unexpectedly. I decided to ask my dad how to reach out to my children because he, too, had lost his father while still in his twenties. This was how we found our way back home together–through a mutual love of my children–his only grandsons. We starting finding out that we weren’t so far apart on much else, either. In the five years we had left, we rediscovered our mutual joy of intelligent conversation, verbal gymnastics, digging below the surface for any given situation be it the political scenery, moral or ethical absolutes, and finding out that simple truths can be quite layered. The profound truth of it all is that without learning that I loved my dad more that I disliked any negative “things” between us, I would never have had those precious five years. This time could never have been recaptured; it is my pearl of great price. I look at the prior decade as an investment period for those five years and the amount of quality interest I recaptured more than paid the debt of time.
My house may now be divided (my heart is broken) by my father’s death but at the same time it is united by cherished memories that no one can take away. Better that by far than to slowly wither under the burden of unredeemed time with family members still among the living. For what can these people turn to for comfort when their world as they now know it comes to an end?
myhousedivided 