My dad’s D-day anniversary is next week. How can it be 6 years already? I don’t know if I’ve even said goodbye to him yet... do I need to?
How would my life be different now if he were still alive? Would our relationship be different? What if he had never been sick? What if he had been sick but got better?
"Dad". The word still catches in my throat. I think it always has. It’s such a powerful and meaningful word even when a dad has been absent (or perhaps more powerful and meaningful if dad was absent?)
My husband is now a daddy. I love watching this whole new side of my husband with our son... playing together, laughing together, burping together... ahhh yes...
"Da-da" was my son’s first word. 3 in the morning we heard him say it through the monitor. That was worth waking up to, who cares what time it is!
This Father’s Day will take on a whole new meaning now that my husband is a father. It’s only been recently that I’ve been able to celebrate my father-in-law on Father’s Day. It was like the day was too sacred and I didn’t want anyone to take my dad’s place. Like walking down the aisle alone on my wedding day. If my dad wasn’t there to do it, no would else could take his place. Now I watch the wedding video and watch myself walking down the aisle alone and can’t believe I did that. I’m still glad I did; it still feels right. We got married on the beach so maybe it would have been harder having to walk alone down a church aisle? But now I think, what if he had been there? What would that have been like? What’s it like for a father to walk his daughter down the aisle to "give her away"? What would that have been like for me? It’s still painful to think about that, about what I missed.
During the last several years, my mom has been writing a book about my dad’s sickness, death and her first year as a widow. I’ve been editing her book. She has her story to tell; I have my own story to tell. I’ve known for awhile now that there’s a book inside of me about my dad, "the man in my life who got away". I just have to write it.
Today my mom was asking me what I remembered about all of us kids saying goodbye to my dad when he was in hospice. And I remembered taking hold of his hand, my father’s hand that was so familiar to me and yet now was paralyzed, along with the rest of his body. I could hold my dad’s hand but he couldn’t hold mine back. Fitting I suppose. My dad’s hand looked very familiar but did not feel familiar. I never knew what it was like to hold his hand. We just didn’t do that. My father was not an affectionate man, we barely hugged. But suddenly he was dying and I was holding his hand? I remember how awkward it felt. And I never did said goodbye.
