Father's Day.
Didn't expect it. It hit me a wall of bricks.
The wound and loss of my dad just hit me Sunday morning before church and I was an emotional wreck. I didn't want to go in sobbing and just felt like I was going to lose it.
I think the struggle with grief is that it's cruel. It's cruel when the inside of you is dying and the world goes on it's merry way. My Facebook pages have my friends declaring 'Happy Father's Day' to one another. They have cute kids, and I am truly happy for them. I see some of the cutest baby pics with some and the happy smiles of fathers. I paused, deep in my heart I asked, 'Do they remember that I was a father....and I lost one?' I don't hold it against anyone to celebrate it, because we CELEBRATE WHAT WE BEEN BLESSED WITH not what we don't have. Perhaps that's why it's that much more painful.
I think days of remembrances are important because it's a community. When you grieve, you tend to grieve privately. For me it's been normal. I worked my butt off on a website the last month for about sixty hours a week and the energy was there with my diet, exercise and life went on. However when there's community there's kinship and healing. You have to grieve with people at one point or another.
*****
I take time to see my dad from time to time, and then I realized on Father's Day, I'm a child without a father. Married professional with many blessed friends and I feel the loss. It's a wound to the soul and it doesn't ever go away.
In addition, the reminders of my two children who died gives another layer of grief that I, as a father have lost.
It's moments like this where I go crazy: I know we're not born randomly, I refuse to believe loss, grief is a natural cycle of life. The emotions we feel gives insight into something more planned. I also believe that I will see my dad again, but that doesn't make it any easier.
Yet in all this: I thank God there's still things to be thankful for: a good man who was my dad.