One Year, 2 Months and 6 Days Later

My dad died a little over a year ago and, far and away, it was the most difficult thing I've ever navigated.  I feel blessed that my first major tragedy arrived at 30 years old.  For so many, it happens so often and so early.  But, that's for another blog.

I still miss the heck outta my dad.  He was so great...he just really was a great man, father, friend, mentor, tax adviser  math tutor, softball coach, etc.

But things haven't progressed as I might have imagined, so I figured I'd share a little about my experience of grief and its after-life.

First of all, there are lots of people who have dealt with their own fair shares of grief, and they all genuinely want to ensure that I know that my own grieving process is good and special and need not be identical to anyone else's.  And, in some ways, that must be true, since I'm the only one who had the specific relationship that I did with Dad.  But, in other ways, that advice makes for a very lonely grieving process--to believe that I have to get through things alone because other people grieve differently--and so I am grateful that, while I have cried over some different things and really missed some different things from my sister and mom, we still share enough of both our grieving process and our love for Dad and the unique relationships that we had with him, to still be able to share in that.

Also, the whole "move on from it"/"move through it"/"get past it" thing is bunk.  And, I've grown to dislike the term "new normal", but it seems more accurate than any of the others for describing life now, as opposed to life when Dad was here.

My faith helped me get through Dad's illness and death.  My faith--and, more importantly, Dad's faith--help me get through things right now, too.  Yup, I like God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  I'm in the fan club.  I happen to think it's worth an awful lot of my time to figure out why I like them and why I want to be like them and why I say that it'll be totally awesome to hang out with them for all of eternity once my life here is complete.  And, I think I do a pretty good job, most of the time, of investing my energy in those things.  But, I also think it's really important to acknowledge how imperfect I am, because the grace that comes through Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection can't be truly understood and valued without taking the time to recognize our own shortfalls.  Perfect people don't need grace.

Anyway...all of this is to say that I'm really glad that I know fully that Dad recognized that he was an imperfect person.  To ask him, he would've probably had even more humbled terms for himself.  I'm also really glad that I know that Dad, too, was a fan of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  And, furthermore, i'm glad that we both knew that a byproduct (read: NOT the sole purpose...just the SOUL purpose...HA!! Just thought of that...) of his faith and identity in Jesus is defeating death and finding life again.  It's really nice and exciting and even fun to think about what Dad's doing in Heaven.  If I didn't have my faith, I wouldn't have access to such nice thoughts, and they are thoughts that are more than just comforting--they bring me joy.

But, another thing that I've learned is that all of this--great as it is--doesn't eliminate the need for me to just miss my dad from time to time.  And, by time to time--at least, now--I mean every day.  And there are certain things that make my longing for him to be back even more pronounced.  Bob Evans, airports, Jeopardy, tax season, the Financial Times, anything in the Bible by or about Paul (so, you know, a lot), driving past the place that used to be Damon's in Collier Square.  Sometimes, I just want to call him.  I want to hear him tell me how proud he is of me for losing 40 pounds and I really missed hearing him make comments about egg nog (though I didn't have any) over Christmas.  And I hate that he never saw my kitchen or my Jeep or my shutters after I painted them blue.

And, I mostly miss his hugs.

And his chance to spend time with Andy, who misses him, too.

And Joe, who misses him, too.

But, I guess it's further testament to Dad's awesomeness that one year, two months and six days later, so many people still miss Dad so much.  A legacy, indeed.