Today is my dad's birthday. He would have been 57 years old.
Six months ago, on September 1, 2019, my dad went home to be with Jesus.
For six months I've thought about writing this, and for six months every time I tried I couldn't get past the opening paragraph:
On Setember 1, 2019 my dad went home to be with Jesus. It was just an ordinary day for him. He went to church and did normal, every day things. In the middle of his ordinary day he was sitting talking with his wife, when all of a sudden he suffered a major heart attack. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, the beat of a heart, he was gone.
How do I put into words a man that was larger than life? How do I properly pay tribute to the one who loved me as his own, even though we didn't share a genetic bond?
Well, for six months the answer was I didn't.
But today, on the day of his birth, I thought it would be fitting to give it another try.
Losing my dad has been hard.
Missing him is hard. Wishing he was still here is hard. Dreaming about him and waking up and being hit with the loss all over again is hard. Coming to a place of accepting that I'll never see him or hear his voice again this side of heaven is hard.
For the past couple of years my dad and I often found ourselves on the phone in the early morning hours before our days began. Sometimes those calls were lighthearted and full of shooting the breeze, and sometimes those calls were full of my anguished cries or ragey rants as he helped me work through a crisis or talked me down off a ledge. For the past six months not being able to get on the phone to talk to my dad has been hard.
My dad and I didn't have a perfect relationship. During my formative years I adored him. He was my protector and my greatest advocate. Losing that dad, the one that chemically straightened my unruly curly hair when I was 11 because I wanted him to, the dad who worked his ass off tirelessly to support his family, the dad I spent a summer delivering papers with at 4 am every day, the dad who threw me the coolest sweet 16 party ever, the dad who had this great giant booming laugh, has been hard.
When I was an adult, he remarried and moved out of state. There was a lot of years, more than I like to count, where we weren't very close. We were both stubborn and prideful and part of my mourning has been for those years we will never get back now. The battle between the grief of a girl who just loved her daddy and the grief of a woman who felt abandoned by him for so long has been hard.
For the past six months I've wrestled with his faults and made peace with the fact that he was human. Just like every one of us. I think we all just do the best we can.
Losing my dad has caused me to think deeply about relationships and legacy and what being a family means. When I'm gone and my kids look back over their lives, I know they'll see my mistakes. But more than that I hope they'll see that they were loved. That they had a place to belong.
My dad's legacy looks different for each person. He was a loving dad, a grandpa, a brother, an uncle, a great love, a faithful friend, a mentor. He was so much to so many; a testimony to a life well lived.
Happy Birthday, dad.
Thank you.
I'll see you again one day.
I love you.
