The Journey of Tears

Sharing again on the more personal side...

Oct 28th, 2006. It was still early. Kyle was taking his morning nap when the phone rang. Jon answered and handed me the phone. "It's your mom", he said. Her next 4 words would shape me forever. "Your Dad is gone", she said.

The shock, the horror, the absolute disbelief, the terror of it all hit me with a weight I can not with words describe. My knees buckled. My face hit the floor. In all of my 37 years I have never cried like I did that day. What? How? This just can't be. How will life go on?

He was 67. He was in good health. He died in his sleep.

The tears that rolled down my face that day and dropped to the floor not far beneath, are on a journey. They travel slowly and at times disappear only to reemerge in a moments notice. They don't give much warning but here they come and "POW", it's that moment all over again.

There are days that it seems like something outside of me takes me, and I end up going to Dad's grave. It's a powerful reminder to me of life's brevity and the unpredictability of it all. The life I now live, is it really under my control? When the world is black and white as it is on those days, it is clear. My life is not my own and the disillusionment I put myself under to pretend it is, only puts me at a disadvantage. It is a painful waste of time.

Thankfully, memories of my Dad are very sweet. Sweeter every day actually. Funny how the mind does that. I even had a dream about him last night. The pictures are unclear, but the sense of it all is not. He was kind and gentle and reassuring and he loved me.

The man my Dad was is something I find myself continuing to discover and in that I actually find more of me than I ever imagined. As embarrassed as I always was of him for wearing knee high white socks with white tennis shoes, or his dry sense of humor with waitresses at restaraunts that never came across right, it's the thing I'm now seeing beyond. Inside my awkward and unassuming dad was a fighter. Accolades did not come easily to him, but demand them he did not. Give up because of it. Never. Give in to mediocrity, not on your life. My dad fought his way through disapproval and invisibility with strength and character. Not because he thought much about it, but because I just don't think he cared. His concerns were much more noble, much more, "not of the here and now". So much richer and more valuable than what those temporary pats on the back might have felt like. I really, truly believe my dad lived not for the approval of man, but for the "well done" of God alone. His eyes were fixed.

Was it tough on him to not be "normal"? I have no doubt. Did he enjoy being looked at as a failure at times? I'm certain he wrestled. But did he give up? No. He fought on. And not for what I spend my energy fighting for; clamoring to be noticed and seen and deeply disappointed when I'm not; but for the right thing. The thing that lasts beyond today and beyond the grave. That's what I see when it's black and white. And that's what I want more than anything on the days that I see clearly. I can not change who I am. I can not change what or if people see me. But I can change Who I see, Who I care to please.

Oh to know his thoughts today. I miss him now just like I did that morning the phone rang. I have been in a battle ever since and I so wish I could call him and hear his voice telling me it's okay. I have proud moments with the boys and think, "I need to call Dad" and then I remember.

Today, Oct 24th, is his birthday and exactly 3 years since the day I spoke with him last. He would have been 70.

And today I cry the same tears I did 3 years ago. For as little as I know about my destiny, I hope that my tears for my Dad are teaching me. I think I'm learning. I'm not sure I'm changing yet, but I'm seeing more clearly and I thank the journey of tears for that.