I sit here on Father's Day with all my children and grandchildren gathered at my house. I can hear a compilation of laughter, yelling, and crying as each child cycles in and out of each phase. These are all the sounds of fatherhood; these are the sounds of my life.
As I celebrate Father's Day, I’m laughing on the outside and crying on the inside. I do so because this is the first Father's Day in my life that I don't have a dad to celebrate Father's Day with. After 50 years of celebrating this day with my him, there is now a great void in my life. For me, it is a bittersweet day; I struggle to celebrate while still morning his passing.
We all believe we have more sunrises and sunsets to experience in our lives. We are mesmerized by the cycle of the sun and the moon without realizing that they are an ominous sign of our own mortality. Like most people, I’ve not given much thought to my own end. Even though we all face the eminent reality of death, which we have little control of, we faithfully rise each day and repeat the same cycle of life, at least until we lose someone close to us. Today, I understand life's cruel game.
Life can be like listening to a song on repeat until someone comes along and changes the tune. The death of my father changed the song I hear. I now have a heightened sense of reality brought on by the watershed event of losing my dad. The loss of a parent, or both, places you next in line for the sequential events of life.
Four months after he passed, I have stopped looking at pictures of him every day. I’m not trying to forget him; I’m trying to stop the tears so that I can move forward. They say that amputee's can still feel an amputated limb for year’s afterword. Likewise, I can still feel his presence in my life. I miss him like crazy; every member of my family feels his stark absence.
