I set you free from everything you couldn’t be for me. And I set myself free from everything that I couldn’t be for you.
I am posting this with hesitation. It is perhaps the most vulnerable thing I have ever written. It took me two days to even be able to share it with my husband. Even then, I told him that he wasn’t allowed to react, or give me sympathy, but I just wanted him to know what has been going through my very muddled head. He put on his straight face and read. When he was done, I caught him wiping his eyes so I gave him permission to share his thoughts. He encouraged me to share it because it might be healing for me, and it might help someone else who is dealing with the same kind of confusion and grief. If you are in my circle and you didn’t know anything about this, you are in good company. I told almost nobody, except for those with the most intimate knowledge of the complicated history.
I post now not for sympathy, but in the hopes that it will help me or someone else.
To my dad.
You died on August 1. The frayed thin thread that connected us was severed forever. I have been waiting to feel something – some kind of grief, some kind of loss, some kind of void. There have been no tributes on my feed, no announcement to friends and coworkers, no interest in a funeral. Every once in a while, I get a feeling in my stomach, and I feel a well deep down (like when I was getting ready to post this), but there is a part of me that won’t let it out, won’t or can’t face what lies beneath the surface. I don’t know what feels worse — the nothingness or the threat of something big and powerful that I’m not ready to face.
As I’ve tried to make sense of the void, I have thought a lot about grief and what it looks like for you, a person who had already left my life. Is the size of the grief connected to the size of the connection? Do the ties that bind us, also unravel and turn threadbare; and does the grief that follows match the size of what is left? Is there a finite amount of grief that a heart can hold? Did my heart hold all of its grief for you when I was born, and instead of it being released all at once at the end, did it release itself over time? Or is it still there, looming, waiting?
When does grief come? Can it set me free?
As a child, I grieved when you left. I grieved the loss of the family I was promised. I grieved the loss of trust and security.
When I was in elementary school, I loved the times you picked me up before school and we just drove around talking. This is when you introduced me to your love of classical music. In all my life, that is when you felt most present to me. You told me these visits had to be secret because “[She] wouldn’t like it.” Even then, I knew that a child should always feel like they are worth fighting for. I grieved for you then, when I lost the sense of belonging without limits.
As my school years went on, there were moments of connection and disconnection. Visits were regular, but the time between was a void. In those times, I grieved the loss of your presence. Jim did his best to fill the gap that you left, but the absence of you became a constant presence for me.
On my wedding day, you spoke about the tapestry of life and how we are connected. I felt your apology and love that day. I don’t even remember exactly what you said, but I know that a piece of me healed. This was the first time I forgave you. There were many times after that, but that was the first.
At my college graduation, I grieved not just because you didn’t come but because when Steve called you on it, you said “I didn’t know it was important to her.” This is when I realized that forgiveness must be tended to, revisited, peeled back. I grieved that I didn’t have a father who would know me without being told.
You weren’t there when your grand daughters were born. Physical distance was a good reason the first time. But when the second birth came, and you lived 20 minutes away, I grieved when it took two weeks for you to meet her, to visit me. You came late and without excuse. I told myself then that my daughers would never feel left behind, unimportant or disregarded by me, and I wouldn’t let them feel it from you either. I learned in time that in order to hurt someone with our disregard, there has to be a relationship. You took away your own power to hurt them by staying mostly away.
When there was trouble in your marriage, I saw you nearly every week. It was the first time in my adult life that you were a regular, every day presence in my life. I felt bad that it was because you were so lonely and sad, but I still grieved when the visits stopped as abruptly as they started. Your marriage was restored, and there wasn’t room for me in it. A child should be more than filler in a parent’s life.
As an adult, we always had Christmas, as fraught as it could be, clouded by memories and past hurt. Until one year, we didn’t. That was the year that I called over and over asking how I could help, when we could gather. I never got an answer. Then Christmas Eve came, and for the first time, I didn’t call. I needed to know if I would at least get that from you. Your phone call didn’t come, then or any other year after that. I never saw you or received a call from you on Christmas again. Some cursory gifts were mailed in both directions, until they weren’t. The year that Christmas wasn’t was the year something broke in me. I stopped trying, because to try inevitably meant re-opening old wounds and trying once again to forgive. My grief was bigger than the holiday that year and has held a place in every holiday since.
Later, when you had surgery, we connected again. I showed up. I visited. I called. I hoped that this time the connection meant something. I didn’t jump all the way in though. Caution and fear and good advice held me back. I needed to see what you would do. You didn’t do anything. What was broken remained broken and I vowed “never again”. I would answer. I would respond. I would go when invited. But I wouldn’t extend another rejected invitation or connection that wasn’t returned.
On your retirement day, you invited me and I came. I was proud of you that day. You lead your church well and they loved you for it. Your family showed up to celebrate you. I got emotional watching you give your benediction for the last time in that sanctuary. I still have the video on my phone. Then, I grieved because you could be so much to so many, but not enough for me. Now, watching that benediction feels like good-bye. I will do my best to hold onto the pride I felt that day, and not just the grief.
After you called me to tell me you had dementia, we did better for a short time. I called, you answered, you updated me the best you could. But then you stopped answering. She wouldn’t answer. It finally occurred to me, that the time for reconciliation and healing had passed. When you were no longer a reliable narrator of your story, when staying connected meant passing a human barrier, I knew you were lost to me forever and I grieved. I released myself from more hurt and more fighting and I grieved.
When I found out you were in your final days, I broke down. I sobbed for shattered dreams, for unmet expectations, for not being worth fighting for. I grieved for the father that you could never be. I grieved for the little girl and the grown up girl. I grieved because of the absence of what every girl wants – a dad who is present, who fixes things, who gives advice and knows what is important in his daughter’s life. I grieved for you – that you didn’t know us, didn’t get to build a relationship with your amazing grandchildren. I grieved for the passage of time, and the reliving of old hurts and all of the things that never were. I released myself from my own guilt with gut wrenching, wracking sobs. As my husband held me, and the sobs died down, I also released you. 10 days later you died.
To borrow some paraphrased words of Rob Bell from his podcast about the death of his father, I offer this to you:
I set you free from everything you couldn’t be for me. And I set myself free from everything that I couldn’t be for you. I will try to make peace with what we had, and all that we didn’t.
I said good-bye and I’m still saying good-bye. I’m letting go and I already let go. I hope for the time that I can feel relief that it is over and grief because you died, and whatever peace I can make from that. (source: https://robbell.podbean.com/e/still-the-son-of-a-judge/)
I forgive you and I will forgive you, as many times as it takes.
I love you because you made me, and I accept the love you were able to give in return. It was your best and it will have to be enough.
A Time for Everything – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and us always. Amen. (Your benediction, November 3, 2013)
Go in peace.
You will always have the love of the little girl who never stopped wanting a dad.
With all the love that I have left to give,
Joy
One Joyous Heart 