Life is for the living...
One week ago today I would go to the long term care facility and see my dad for the last time. I am sure that such a statement would seem to some a milestone laden with heavy grief, sorrow, and a modicum of melodrama. In some ways it may have been, but in other ways, not at all.
One week ago today I said goodbye to my dad, but only physically. I believe with all my heart that he and I said goodbye a few days before that when I had to leave Mississippi and head back to Georgia. I told him, "I love you... you know, you have been a pretty good dad and I thank you for loving me!"
He just replied, " I tried to be, and I love you more than you will ever know!"
Those were the last words we spoke other than goodbye when I was leaving, but the real message was summed up in a 51 year old son hoping that the 73 year old father knew he appreciated the life he gave him... and conversely, the older telling the younger that he hoped it was enough...
I really did and It truly was so much more than enough.
So as I sit here in my office seven days removed from saying goodbye to the rest of what was my dad, I do so knowing that his heart and soul were already focusing on something much bigger and greater than the here and the now! He was thinking about home! So, while there is some grief and sorrow, there is also joy and hope! He is home now!
I shared with someone yesterday a lyric from a song I wrote a few years back that simply states, "life is for the living, so live it all amen," and I think that is a fitting end to this one week removed from losing my dad.
When it was time for him to go, it was not about his dying... it was about his living. It is about the life he lived as wonderfully complicated as it was! But, also it was about the life he is living now! A life that today, we here don't fully understand or comprehend... but he is living... and more alive than anything he ever knew before! Amen!
The lesson for us all in such a loss as this, is that life is for the living... even for the ones that aren't with us in the here and now.
One week ago today I said goodbye to my dad, but only physically. I believe with all my heart that he and I said goodbye a few days before that when I had to leave Mississippi and head back to Georgia. I told him, "I love you... you know, you have been a pretty good dad and I thank you for loving me!"
He just replied, " I tried to be, and I love you more than you will ever know!"
Those were the last words we spoke other than goodbye when I was leaving, but the real message was summed up in a 51 year old son hoping that the 73 year old father knew he appreciated the life he gave him... and conversely, the older telling the younger that he hoped it was enough...
I really did and It truly was so much more than enough.
So as I sit here in my office seven days removed from saying goodbye to the rest of what was my dad, I do so knowing that his heart and soul were already focusing on something much bigger and greater than the here and the now! He was thinking about home! So, while there is some grief and sorrow, there is also joy and hope! He is home now!
I shared with someone yesterday a lyric from a song I wrote a few years back that simply states, "life is for the living, so live it all amen," and I think that is a fitting end to this one week removed from losing my dad.
When it was time for him to go, it was not about his dying... it was about his living. It is about the life he lived as wonderfully complicated as it was! But, also it was about the life he is living now! A life that today, we here don't fully understand or comprehend... but he is living... and more alive than anything he ever knew before! Amen!
The lesson for us all in such a loss as this, is that life is for the living... even for the ones that aren't with us in the here and now.
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