I’ve never written about my Dad before. It feels vulnerable, but really good.
Tonight I started reading The Council of Dads by Bruce Feiler. It’s his story of being diagnosed with cancer and not wanting his twin daughters, who are 3 at the time, to grow up without a father in their lives. So, he does something brilliant and so loving. He invites 6 men, who embody different parts of him, his story, his personality, etc. and asks them to represent his voice in his daughter’s lives.
In the midst of chapter 5 I read, “When you lose someone, the loss becomes the dominant memory. You have to build a rival memory.” I realized how true this has been in my life. When I think of my Dad I am immediately sad because of the reality of loss in my life; what still feels like a gaping hole in my heart at times even 14 years after his death. Instead I want to build a rival memory. So I started remembering….
His grin. His twinkling, smiling, loving eyes. His bouncy step (especially early in the morning.) Singing & playing guitar. Playing basketball in the wonder building. (He would have been a fantastic coach.) The way he’d come home from a long day at work and fall asleep in the middle of the floor. Wild family games of football-basketball in the living room. The way every kid in the park was attracted to him as he swung from the monkey bars. Rough-housing, or as he liked to call it “toughness training.” Rescuing us from the little gardner snakes that found their way into the basement by picking them up with his pliers while we shrieked and watched. The peace he found in the midst of his battle with cancer. But mostly I remember his eyes, and the love I felt when I looked into them.
….and as I remembered I found myself overflowing with thankfulness for the blessed years I had with him. He wasn’t perfect, but I believe he did the best he could to love God, to love us, to provide for us, and to be a good neighbor and friend to his community.
