My Dad.
I’m spending the next two weeks house sitting/dog sitting for my parents. So staying at the house that I spent literally my entire life growing up in kinda gets the fuzzy feelings going. Sitting in my old bedroom that I was given liberty to paint as I chose (and I chose a celestial theme…kind of corny but very late 90’s/early 2000’s), Walking around the 2 acres, looking at the trees I remember planting as a little girl that now are huge and provide a windbreak to the whole property, seeing old photos of our pets who’ve passed. I’m lost in nostalgia-ville. A lot has changed at the house…my bedroom is still painted but no furniture, the “kids living room” is now a classy sitting room. Outbuildings, shacks, sheds that were never there have been built. The spare bedroom is now my dad’s new office; my dad’s old office is now my mom’s craft-topia. Now that I think about it, I should have taken my camera with me last night and snapped some shots. Maybe sometime before my 2 weeks is up.
I don’t get snoopy, but sometimes I just enjoy being amongst my parents, or my family’s things. I spent some time just looking at my mom’s craft room (she knows I do this. I covet her ability to maintain organization in a creative space…my craft area usually looks like a tornado has been thru). I sat out on the pool deck for a bit with some ice water and my iPad after dark, taking in the whining buzz of the locusts and admiring the whimsical solar-powered lights that come on after dark. And then I went and sat in my dad’s office, a place I haven’t spent much time in at all, really. Just looking around in there, his interests become apparent. Books, mostly non-fictional ones that are insightful, witty, organizational, or helpful. Authors that promote positivity, productivity, self-worth, and motivating others. A few snapshots of different things. All the numbers he’s worn from his marathons in recent years. A poster-sized print of a photo I took of an American flag leaning against the Vietnam War Memorial in DC sits atop a shelf. I don’t know why I even gave that to him, he was in the military, but not the war…I think he only displays it because he is proud that it is not only from me, but taken by me. Rolled up is the sign that I made for my niece and nephews to hold in 2009 at his first marathon, when we surprised him by all being there waiting to see him finish his first 26.2 mile race (I had flown in from Virginia to be there, and managed to keep it a secret for quite a while!).
What touched me the most, as I sat in his office chair and just looked around, was the shelf that is dedicated to his father. My Grandpa died earlier this year. I only found out he was sick in the days before he passed. I was in the middle of moving out of my home, severing ties with my foster sons, and my parents were probably not telling me because I was already on the verge of mental and emotional breakdown. When i found out how bad it was, I immediately tried to make plans to go up. But he had been sick and made it clear, he didn’t want a bunch of us coming to see him as he was dying. He wanted it to be quiet, he wanted to be alone. He had also been clear for a very long time that he didn’t want a funeral. He wanted to be cremated and for everybody to move on. No big to-do. When he did die, only a day or two later, only my older brother and my father made the drive to Michigan, had Grampy cremated, and spread his ashes. It was all kind of surreal for me. I cried quite a bit in private. Got a little weepy eyed the first time I saw my dad after hearing of Grampy’s passing. But that was really it.
But on this shelf, dedicated to my Grampy, my father has many of his items from his father’s time in the military. He has what would be the metal grave marker; I guess veterans get them regardless. There are a few other things. I glanced over and saw a photo of my Grampy next to my mother’s father (who is still with us) at my wedding in 2007. I began to weep. I got married in 2007, for the first time I had the realization that this was the last time that I saw my Grampy, almost five years before. I guess that not having a funeral made everything kind of seem like a movie, and having grown up a 9 hour drive away made it even more so. But for some reason this photo triggered so many feelings inside of me. The hole of losing my beloved Grampy sunk in. The guilt of not making it a priority to get up there to see him in recent years overcame me. And then the true fact that life is, and then it isn’t. That we don’t know when that trip we keep putting off making to visit someone we love…might just turn out to be too late. Or for a funeral. I felt so very, very tiny. I sat there in my Daddy’s office and cried. Alone.
Somewhere amongst the tears, I realized how much my heart hurt for this loss, and then my thought process began to shift. I remembered that I really hadn’t even seen my dad cry over this loss. My dad is not a hardass, but I can still count the times on one hand that I’ve seen him actually cry over something in my entire life. I had seen him emotional a bit the day we got the news, but other than that, he had held it together. And that’s Dad, always rational, calm, collected. Always there, always understanding. I started crying harder. I don’t know exactly why. I mean, I loved my Grampy very much, but perhaps I was weeping for my father. Perhaps I was experiencing the outward expression of what he feels on the inside. I became so sad that he had lost his father. How much I wish I could give him a day back with him, in healthier, happier days. And then, it was like my world went black, and my heart stopped.
I thought about how I will feel when my Daddy isn’t here anymore.
My heart and soul began to ache. I cannot even imagine a world without my father. He’s the only person who has always been here for me, never left me or, made me know and believe that I am unconditionally loved, no matter what, without question. I can’t even doubt or challenge that fact if I want to. My dad is the kind of guy who’s always looking out for everybody’s best interests. He genuinely cares about those who are blessed enough to know him. I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever heard words of anger come out of his mouth, and believe me, between my mom and my brothers and me, he’s had plenty of opportunities to be angry. He doesn’t judge others, and I don’t know him to harbor negative feelings towards anybody. He is giving, helpful, insightful, and ever-optimistic.
He is my hero.
I have to stop now. I can’t cry anymore! I have friends who haven’t had the same fortune of such a good relationship with their dad as I do. Or even some that have lost them, and already had to say the hardest goodbye. I know that at some point, there will be a world without my Daddy in it. But for now, I will cherish every day that I’m blessed enough to know we’re breathing the same air, watching the same sky, and only, at most, a phone call away.
I love you, Dad.
“They say that from the instant he lays eyes on her, a father adores his daughter. Whoever she grows up to be, she is always to him that little girl in pigtails. She makes him feel like Christmas. In exchange, he makes a secret promise not to see the awkwardness of her teenage years, the mistakes she makes or the secrets she keeps.” – Unknown
Me, Rediscovered. 