Pappa Do - I love you

"Life is the first gift, Love the second and understanding the third"

Marge Piercy

This quote says so much.

We are given life - a blank canvas, or a blank screen, or a blank sheet of staff paper. We are taught values, letters, numbers, speech.

We are taught HOW to love. And how to receive love.

But understanding as a gift? Many of us don't receive that until it's hind sight.

So it is with some hindsight understanding that I write this particular post.

A man helped create my life. He was my father. He helped raise me, thought not always in the conventional sense. Though he was the more conventional of my parents, circumstances didn't always allow him to raise us in the conventional method.

"Whatever is Flexible and loving will bend and grow. Whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die."

Lao Tzu

Some might say that my dad was far from flexible. In some respects that is true. He refused to bend on commitment - you either made the commitment and followed through with it or you didn't, He didn't bend on striving for excellence - meaning he wished things to be as good or as excellent as possible but not perfect. He was very flexible when it came to some life lessons and very flexible when it came to loving his family. He was very flexible in loving God.

My dad and God had a huge falling out when I was about 8 years old. That was the year he moved out of our home. My father was raised by a very religious Methodist family. So for him to decide that he and God were through was pretty rough. He maintained his jobs with the churches but he did not take us.

My father felt that God had abandoned him when his marriage fell apart. As an adult, I can completely understand how he got to that conclusion. I really can. I can't imagine being in his shoes.

"You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you to give."

Eleanor Roosevelt

My dad would not have met my stepmom if he hadn't accepted the hand dealt to him in the divorce. Two people who spent their lives together having fun. Each one alone would not have had nearly the adventure that the two of them created together. To be sure, it wasn't always fun and games. But the pictures that I look back on, and they are considerablem are full of fun, happy faces, jokes being told.

" I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth, and truth rewarded me."

Simone de Beauvoir

In looking back on my relationship with my dad, I had a good one as a small child but there were a number of years in the middle that I can't speak to. My later teens and early 20's more specifically. It was when my dad called me and asked me if I would sing in his church choir as a favor to him and the choir that I have just resigned from, that our bond re-formed in a new fashion. A good Fashion. We had our music and that's what our center or truth was. When things didn't go right, we always had that to return to. I can honestly look back at having two very different relationships with my dad. Once I was willing to give up the emptiness of his not living in our home anymore, I was rewarded with a new, better relationship.

Loss is tough to deal with at any time. There is a common misconception that over time the wounds heal, we apply bandaids and promise never to look again, but they don't heal. The wounds stay there but they change. They become wonderful memorials to the person who is gone. Memories replace the pain. The pain in dulls into something manageable on a day to day basis.

I have been beastly for the past few weeks. Thoughtless in some cases, angry and defensive in others, weepy in still others and wildly happy at other times. Each emotion was a 'times 10' to the normal reality of my life. And while I do have certain circumstances that helped pull those along, I reacted to even the most mundane things more vehemently than I normally tend to.

It was a bit of a shock, when I sat in the bar Friday night listening to the last strains of "my life" by the Beatles die down as my best friend finished strumming his guitar. I got a little bit choked up. It took me by surprise because he had played that at another friend's father's funeral - not my dad's. But still, it really hit home.

I blinked back the tears as he started on his next tune and it dawned on me that Saturday was the 4 year marker of my dad's passing. I am not the type to dwell on those dates and things. I know the month perhaps, but that's usually it. I commented to my friend on his break that I was surprised it snuck up on me like that. He commented that I may not have conscioulsy known it but my behavior has been giving me away. Everything was not just reacted to but over reacted to, nothing negative - it just was. It's also a sign that grieving is ending and living and acknowledging my dad's life was beginning.

I miss him still. I know that he is proud of me. I know that he loved me on earth and loves me still in heaven. I miss and love him so much. I have so much I would talk to him about right now if he were here. I know the things he would tell me too.

So Pappa Do - I love you!