Hug Your Daddy

I wasn't prepared for Father's Day this year. The week before, my brain flickered for just a moment: "What am I getting the Dads this year for Father's Day?" Then came the floodgates of emotion, waves of the reality that there's a hole in the universe where he left us. We will see him again, but in the meantime it's hard to believe he's gone. 

I have the best men in my life, men who are hard-working, self-sacrificing, masculine and kind at the same time. I've also known some creeps, but thankfully didn't have to abide them. Almost married one, until I woke up from my college sleep-deprived stupor. I thank God for my husband. He's a bear and a sweetheart at the same time. Sometimes I want to kill him but then he's perfect. I can't explain it. We birthed and raised three man-children and a daughter. The boys have become wonderful fathers and the daughter won't marry until she's sure a dude will pass the same muster. It's apparently a problem.

I was touched Sunday at church as I looked around, weepy. There's nothing like tragedy to open your eyes to the others around you. You see, for the first time, hearts that bear scars similar to yours. How did I not see this before? There is an empathy that crosses the room to those that also know that pain. We cry together. We remember together. It is a comfort, just knowing that you're not alone. We laugh, when we remember silliness. We muse at forever, wondering if our Dads know each other now. I think about Moses, Jesus, Zaccheus, Uncle Buddy and Daddy all there together. We really have no idea what it's actually like. God doesn't do anything the way we think He's supposed to do it. He defies imagination and our boxes. I really love Him for that.

Before Daddy departed, I was afraid of a lot of things. Death. Pain. The uncertainty of the future. It's changed me, his going. I care a whole lot less about peoples' opinions of me. I laugh more at minutiae, at things that don't matter. I'm less intimidated by silly, self-important people (bless their hearts). When it's time to rest, I find it easier to shelf my work. I look deeper into my grandbabies' eyes. Life is short. Eat it up.