My dad died May 20, 1985--four months before my third daughter, Annie was born. She died April 5, 2010. I like to think of them together, getting to know each other while they wait for the rest of the family. He was only 59 and had been a stellar soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division. Two days ago, my father came to me in a dream:
A phone was ringing; when I answered it, my dad's voice said, "Hey, how you doing? You doing okay?" It felt so amazing to hear his voice, as if, even in my dream, I knew it couldn't be true--but maybe it was. Our conversation continued; I told him I was coming to see him soon. We then chatted about one of my cousins coming to see me and that I should call my aunt (his sister, Mary Louise, who died recently in real life) and tell her I'm coming.
I woke up with that melancholy feeling that happens often after having an experience you don't want to end but you know it will. Every year, on May 20, my husband and I send a balloon to my dad. His father died about fifteen years ago, in 1997. He was in his late 70's; a gruff and loud man who liked laughing and traveling and being with family. I'll never forget how he arranged for us to meet former Galludet administrators when we found out our Annie was deaf; he even tried to learn some sign language. We were glad our fathers had a chance to meet each other a few times over the short years their lives overlapped.
I feel blessed that the man I married over thirty years ago has been the kind of father we both were fortunate to have: loyal, generous, smart, and loving. I'm grateful that he's loved his five girls as much as any father could; he's worked long and hard for them to have as much as he could give (when our youngest was a baby, she would say, "You're going to work to buy me toys, right Daddy?"). There have been a handful of times I've seen his heart broken; of course when his parents died--but those losses, although painful and sad, were expected in a world where parents passed on and children carried on. But then there are those unexpected events: a toddler developing diabetes, a baby becoming ill and losing her hearing, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis...events that felt like punches. But he worked through every one, providing a job with benefits that cared for us all and doing all he could at home. There wasn't a diaper he couldn't tackle; there wasn't a school project he couldn't build or a field trip he couldn't chaperone. He was there when I went to school and graduate school and back to work.
Losing a daughter, though, has broken both our hearts in ways we still can't grasp all the way. We take turns having our harder days, days we feel responsible. Recently, I listed all the motions I should have made to help Annie fight for her life. He said, no, that he was the one who couldn't help her. But that is how it is right now with a loss this great. It is with us every minute of every hour of every day; "it" is like a dark and dangerous monster we work to keep at bay--the pain of it, the sadness of it. But it's stronger than we are sometimes. We help each other through, we try anyway, and then just take it on a breath at a time and keep moving.
So Happy Father's Day, Peter. You are the father I loved, the father you respected, and the father our girls know will always find a way to be there for them.
Whenever I see you with our grandson (the first of our grandchildren to come), I know we both go back in time and remember the unbearable joy in hearing "Daddy!"
Mwah!