A Lonely Mourning
It was a Tuesday. March 19th,
2013, at 10 a.m. My phone rang and I didn’t recognize the phone
number, so it went unanswered. Curiosity kicked in because I thought
I had remembered seeing that area code before. So, I Googled the
number and to my shock, the search read, The University Inn, Tampa
Florida. This address I knew well. It was my father’s. I knew
something had happened to him. I felt it in my bones. And somewhere
deep down inside, I knew he had died.
It’s not something that can be
explained or rationalized or even truly understood unless something
so unexpected and devastating happens to you. It’s a sinking
feeling, in the pit of your stomach traveling to every recess of your
being; a dream-like state that is perpetuated by your own thoughts
and your own voice as you try to make fit, the magnitude of what has
happened.
As I have previously written, I was not
raised by my father, and in fact, he was only in my life until my
parents divorced around 1974. After that, he fell further into the
bottle, further away from his children and further into a lonely
existence. I was a 3 year old little girl at the time, far too young
an age to prepare for the loss of a father. Of course, as I sit here
today I am reminded that there is no age where you can actually
prepare for the loss of a father. Needless to say, I had little or
no contact with him most of my life, despite my effort to find him
and connect with him. For all intents and purposes, he did not want
to be found, nor did he want to be a father. In my mind, he didn’t
want me and there was nothing I could do to fix that. But life has a
funny way of changing direction, changing our outlook and changing
our fate.
My father did re-enter my life but I
was grown up with a child of my own. We took things slow because we
were not father and daughter, but mere strangers getting to know each
other. We exchanged phone calls primarily on holidays or an
occasional random weekday. I would talk about work or Mattie; he
would listen, barely uttering a word. I was sensing that all the
things I wished he could be, wished he wanted to be, just weren’t
within his capabilities. He was struggling being in my life and I was
just growing tired of it all. In that moment, I wanted to give up and
let go. I wanted to be set free.
It’s not in my biological makeup to
quit or to give up on anyone or anything that still holds a piece of
my heart. So after a while, I decided to shift my focus and change my
perspective on a situation in which I lost my grip. I gave all this
pain I had experienced; all the tears I shed; all the struggling to
“fix” my father, over to God. I had surrendered to my past. I had
surrendered to my father. I had stopped fighting for him and began to
fight for myself. The struggle was over, the tears gone, my pain had
retreated for the first time in 40 years. I left whatever was meant
to happen, in the hands of God, nothing more. And an amazing thing
began to happen. Things started to progress and the estranged
relationship my father and I shared for so many years began to
unravel. Despite his uneasiness to relate to a grown daughter, he was
making an effort to draw the stranger I had become, back to him, back
to his heart. We did grow very close over the last year of his life.
God had lifted me up and over the mountain of a wall that had
separated a father and daughter. I no longer saw him as an absent,
uncaring father, but as a man, a human being that could be no more
perfect than I could be. And after a while, the deadening silence and
one sided idle chit chat that used to fill the phone lines was
replaced with laughter, and my fathers’ stories; stories that made
him radiate from the inside out. He would often talk about playing
the piano, like he used to do, his missed audition with Julliard in
New York City, his now arthritic hands unable to grace the keys. He
spoke of his regrets, his mistakes with my mother, with his children,
with his life. On the other end of the phone sat a broken man who had
nothing except for a connection through a phone line with a daughter
that he knew had never given up on him. I could tell his heart was
opening, reclaiming parts of his past that he had wanted to keep
buried. He was coming alive probably for the first time in his life
and he knew I was the reason for it.
Our last phone call was about 2 weeks
prior to his death. It was one of the best conversations I had ever
had with him. We spent an hour and a half laughing, reminiscing and
complaining about the daily grind of life. As I listened, I smiled to
myself realizing that this imperfect, beautiful, humorous man finally
wanted me, finally wanted to be a father. I had given him the gift he
had always been looking for, true forgiveness, unconditional love and
acceptance. He was no longer unsure if a man like him, one that had
abandoned his family, deserved a child to love him this much; and to
have her be so incredibly dedicated to him. That sadness and regret
was gone. He was my father and in that moment, he was free. And so
was I.
The call ended the same way it always
had. I said “I love you daddy” to which he replied “love you
too baby”. Little did I know at the time, those would be the last
words my father would ever say to me. We never spoke again. I
suppose in a way, I should be grateful or feel blessed that I had
that precious time, that last connection with him and somewhere under
my sadness and pain, I’m sure I am. But in the bright light of day,
I simply want to hide away, find the dark and be sad. I don’t feel
blessed for having had him so briefly, but sadness for no longer
having him, for no longer having, TIME.
As the months carried on, I gained some perspective on my father’s death. I have learned that my father lived a lonely life, lived most of it without knowing the love and loyalty that comes with being a family. I have learned that possibly my father loved me as much as his heart was capable of loving anyone, that the time he afforded me was simply all he had to give. The hardest part of his death has been living in the loneliness he left behind, I am unable to share my grief with anyone. Life went on as it does and no one stopped to share my pain, no one knew the man I grew to know and love. So there were no tears but mine. Typically when a loved one passes, there are family members, friends, flowers filling the parlor, people hugging you and holding you up when the pain becomes too much. People cry for your loss, for their loss and they get through the process by telling stories, sharing photos, reliving the wonderful person he or she was and then knowing within themselves that the world was left a far better place because that person had lived in it.
It seems my father meant nothing to
anyone but me. I knew no one would make a big production over his death,
no one would cry or cling to each other because they felt the loss of an amazing man. There was nothing. No friends, no family, no
flowers. Just me, left to my lonely mourning. He was cremated and
shipped to me in a pretty wooden box. Not being able to openly mourn
his death or share this overwhelming pain with another
person who loved him, who cared for him, who finally understood him;
the man, not the father; for his betrayal and his mistakes. To not
have had anyone else on this earth to bear witness to his life or his
redemption leaves me feeling empty and alone. On the worst of days, when I
feel as if I am drowning, I think of him, I hear his voice as soft as
the wind, whispering that he is okay, that he made it, that I can let
go, that in his death, he is setting me free. For the last time.
I miss my father every single day. Some
days are better than others, it’s true, and time is doing its best
to heal the empty, dark place he left behind. But life presses
forward as it tends to do and I know that I have press forward,
without him.
My only hope and prayer is not that
this incredible pain lessens for me, but that my father died
knowing how very much I loved him. I hope he knows how much he meant
to me. I hope he knows that his life did matter, to me, his one and
only daughter. I am his truth and I am proof that he was here.
I love you daddy.
