Thinking about my dad today. He died of a massive heart attack over five years ago. When I think back to my childhood and early and late teens - Dad was my hero. I wanted to follow him wherever he went. Whether that was going to the hospital where he worked, or helping him do a special project around the house, or even going out to a field at 5am in the morning to hunt doves. Yes sir, Dad was mighty great in my eyes. I even told him that when I grew up I wanted to be a man like him.
Some of my best memories of Dad are when I would go with him to the hospital on weekends. Dad was a physical therapist, and his office had so many cool "toys". These included crutches and wheelchairs just to name a few. Playing with the equipment wasn't even the best part. No, the best part was watching my dad interact with his patients. He had this way of joking around with them, putting them at ease. He was so personable, so friendly, people couldn't help but like him.
A memory I have that isn't quite as pleasant is the time I went hunting with him. It was dove hunting season and, for some reason, when dad asked me to go, I decided it would be fun. Well, if you can call laying in a field at 5am in the morning, peeing behind trees every 30 minutes, (hey, I had to drink something to stay warm) and watching poor helpless birds fall from the sky then yes, I had fun. But my sensitive side couldn't take the carnage that was happening all around me. I even had this fleeting thought that I should try mouth to beak CPR to resuscitate one of the poor things. Needless to say, I never went hunting with my dad again.
Yes, I have many good memories of my dad. Unfortunately, things changed quickly once I was out of the house. A few years after I graduated from high school, my dad left my mom. He had formed a relationship with another woman. I was heartbroken. How could my dad, my hero, leave my mom like that?
One of the first holidays we "celebrated" after he'd left the house was Easter. It was just my mom and me so the house felt really quiet and empty. Hoping to pass the time, I decided to look through some of our old family photos. Taking time to go through them, sifting through old memories and pictures, was a lot of fun. Until I came to a photo of my family and me. It had been taken my junior year of high school. When I saw the picture, I was overcome with grief and began to cry. Mom came into the room and all I could choke out was "Why did he leave us, Mom? Why did he leave us?" She just held me tightly as we cried together over the loss of our family.
After that, I spent a lot of time stewing over what had happened. I was very bitter towards my dad and I wasn't afraid to tell him exactly what I thought of him and his new "girlfriend". His relationship with this woman ended rather quickly. But the bitterness I felt in my heart lived on. Until one day I realized that what I was struggling with wasn't hurting him as much as it was me. From that point on, I made up my mind to forgive my dad. I even wrote him a letter telling him as much. But the funny thing about forgiveness is that sometimes it takes time til you really mean it. Yes, I had made the conscious effort to let go of my feelings of anger. But, it was a daily battle to forgive in the truest sense of the word. It didn't come all at once.
Once I was married, I found that even though I'd forgiven my dad, I hadn't really worked at choosing to love him. To work on having a relationship that was relatively healthy was difficult for me. There were times when he would talk about a new woman in his life. Whenever that topic came up, I usually left my poor husband holding the phone. My dad would wonder why I wasn't talking, and my husband would have to explain that I'd left the room.
After my dad passed away I did struggle with some regret. I had forgiven him, yes, but I hadn't worked on having a relationship with him. In some ways, I was still really angry with him. When he talked about other women in his life, I just couldn't bear to hear it. Looking back, I know that I had forgiven my dad on some levels. But when it came right down to it, I didn't let that forgiveness guide me back into having a relationship with him.
The thing is, now it's too late. And I guess the biggest reason I'm writing this is to encourage you, any of you, to forgive when you have the chance - before it's too late and you can't reclaim the relationship you once had. One final thought. This comes from a facebook friend, Betty Hansen. She posted some advice her mother once gave her, "The vessel that holds the acid is eaten on worse than the vessel it is poured upon." 'My mother was a very wise woman.' Indeed.
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