| Why is it that in times of personal tragedy routine is so soothing? I have been diving into cleaning the house, playing with the kids, and cooking large meals as a means of coping. I know that if you read my blog (or used to, cause let's face it-I haven't updated in forever and a day) you'd be looking for a punch-line about now. Something along the lines of "socks on the floor" or "nasty bathtub ring of doom" or even "phantom odor in my car". But I'm not there today. Today I am in the place of dealing with the fact that my father-the one whom walked out the door when I was nine, walked out of my life when I was thirteen, came back to walk me down the aisle...has died. It's been over a week, but I am still dealing. I am finally at a point where I'm not just crying at any given moment, but somethings still can set me off. (I'm looking at you Body Pump instructor who thought it would be awesome to do some Cyndi Lauper songs then yell at me when I started to cry cause my dad loved some Cyndi.) But I'm also kind of...trapped in this place where I will suddenly, and very sharply be thrust into a place where I am a little girl, and all those scary feelings that go with it that as kids we never could explain. I am remembering good and bad about my father and I swing from moments of quiet smiles to even more moments of anger. The later comes anytime I see a man being a father, especially if he is being a father to a little girl. The strangest part of this entire thing is that in reality, for most of my life, my father was a non-entity for me. It was a vague concept to me, the word "father". It was that male figure on sitcoms who was usually well intentioned, but usually blundered. Father was not a word I could relate to. And now, yet again, I mourn the loss of that. A friend at church told me that I was mourning the idea of a parent. I accept that, but it still feels self serving-especially after the first time I "lost" him. My sister says that we mourn the relationship that will never be. The loss of hope that someday our dad will magically come to his senses and go, "I was wrong all along, lets be together as a happy family. Let me hold my grandchildren and we will laugh and eat and be so happily ever after." I can also accept this. What I cannot accept is this notion my mother seems to have that mourning my father is a betrayal of everything she did to raise us after he left. I understand her hurt, but as a mom myself I know that if my kids were hurting the way one does when a parent dies, I would never, ever let them hear me say something more hurtful on top of it. Even if I hated their father, he is a part of them, and to say something bad about him in front of them is to make them believe that that part of them is flawed, evil, and unloveable. I understand she's mad, and so am I, but I cannot look in the mirror and pretend that the man never existed-even if I wanted to. I look in the mirror and I see that I have inherited my father's nose, his chin, and his brown eyes. Good lord, both my children look like me, how can I not look at them and see the genetic legacy of that man? So I have to deal with this, and I have to accept it. And maybe here soon I can realize that even though I didn't have a dad, I am still mourning my father. And at 30 years old that is a hard hard thing to do. |
