Loss

A dear friend of ours just lost his father.  From the sounds of it, the circumstances are so much like my own father's passing that I have been feeling heavy and sad.  Both for him and for me, I suppose.  Often times, the journey to another's sorrow is through our own worn paths of old pain.  What I know is that one is never ready to lose a good parent. 

It's nearing a decade that I've lived without Dad, and I still miss him, every day.  I was 29 when it happened and nowhere ready to lose my protector.  The man would have slayed dragons for me; this I know for sure, and there were some big ones waiting down my path.  When he died, we were just beginning our maiden voyage to the land of infertility, that savage, undiscovered country that stole our dreams one at a time and broke our hearts before giving us our life back.  How I needed his wisdom.  His assurance.  His humor.

And then, when we finally became parents, I missed him all over again.  I want my children to know him.  To hear his voice tell stories only the way he can.  To hear him say, "Are you going to be a straight arrow?"  To get wrapped up in one of his giant bear hugs and hear him whisper fiercely in their ears that he loves them with all his heart.  I want them to experience his faith, his mirth, his perspective, his loyalty, and his joy; knowing that their lives are poorer because he is not here breaks my heart.

I have had a difficult time talking about the death of my father.  I can tell stories about my dad, but I can not communicate the loss.  It was nearly a year before I could simply write it in my journal, and even then, my description was brief.  I do not have the words.  Not to describe the searing pain across my soul that is the missing of him.

It is with this understanding that I stand near my friend, unable to heal what hurts.  I can not take his pain, but I can share it.  Sometimes that is enough.