Thought of you with love today, but that is nothing new. I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too. I think of you in silence, I often speak your name. All I have are memories and a picture in a frame. Your memory is a keepsake, with which I'll never part. God has you in his keeping, I have you in my heart.
My dad passed away April 3, 1999, the day before Easter. This time of the year is always full of reflections and a little bit of sadness. Grief is a weird thing, like everything it changes over the years.
At first you miss the tangent presence of that person in your life. You miss putting quarters on the railroad tracks and watching the trains run them over, you miss watching them tie flies, you miss them teaching you things. As their presence fads you start to wish that they were there to share and celebrate events with you. High school volleyball games, graduations, college, weddings and buying houses. Then you suddenly realize that you can get through an event and enjoy it with just a hint of longing, knowing that they wouldn't want you to be sad on such a happy day.
Right now I long for him to know the important people in my life. I grieve for the relationships that aren't there. The relationship that he would have had with my husband. The excitement and joy he would experience in a grandson.
Dad, we miss your smile by our side, sitting in the living room late at night talking. We missed you at our graduations and our wedding. We long for your knowledge and love, we miss your joy for life and your crazy ideas. We miss the fights and disagreements that we would have had. We wish that the people in our lives now could have known you and could be shaped by you, just as we were.
We go through our days honoring you by living life to the fullest just as you did and would want us to do. We laugh at our mistakes and take pleasure in the big accomplishments and the small perfect jewels of life. We take joy in the knowledge that you are still present in our lives through the lessons you taught us before you left and the memory of you that we carry in our hearts.
My dad on the left and his brother.
2 comments:
What lovely words - a wonderful tribute. Made me tear up!
... so many thoughts can't really organize them... As God keeps our dads until we all get to meet again how wonderful and amazing is it that they already know our babies long before we do. I picture the people in heaven watching over us smiling as they wish they could do it all for us. Remembering them is what they enjoy us doing. God creates e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g right?! Well, every thought about our loved ones is a gift of the happiness we'll get to share some day again.
Awesome little boy/brother picture... who's little G gonna look like?! :)
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