Until We Meet Again

My dad and mother divorced when I was a sophomore in high school. Other than having to acknowledge their altered legal status, my day-to-day life really did not change. My dad was an Army officer who had spent much of my childhood deployed or stationed in remote areas that took him away from our family. When he was home, he spent his free time with a mixed drink in one hand and a book in the other as he did his best to hide from the demons that followed him home from Vietnam. By the time my parents separated legally, I had become used to life without Dad.

My sophomore year was also the year he decided to fight his demons. He gave up alcohol and cigarettes for Tab and licorice. He put in the hard work, created a better life for himself and somewhere in that process renewed his relationship with God. During my junior and senior year, we were able to start forging a new and improved relationship. 

And then I left home. I attended an out-of-state college just shy of my eighteenth birthday and married just shy of my twentieth. Over the next 26 years while my husband remained on active duty, I lived in 17 different homes spanning Georgia, Texas, Germany, Arizona, North Carolina, Kansas and Virginia. 

Our newfound relationship became victim to distance, time and life. Visits home often aligned with moves, but we found very quickly that a week did not go far when trying to spread our time across three sets of parents, extended family and hometown friends. At some point it became clear that if we were to spend more time together, Dad would have to come to us. We had been married about ten years when we started a new tradition. Dad began joining us for spring break visits every couple of years. 

Our last spring break visit together was Easter 2016. Within an hour of Dad’s arrival, I was called to the ER with my daughter. It was the beginning of a rapid decline that led to her diagnosis of moyamoya disease. It was also the beginning of my Dad’s slow decline. He had injured his knee a few years prior. The doctor advised him that he needed a knee replacement, but he had been putting it off. By the time we saw him that Easter, he was unable to walk farther than a block. Knee replacement surgery could not be put off any longer.

Delaying knee surgery exacerbated hip and back issues. Knee replacement surgery was followed by hip replacement surgery. Each surgery seemed to sap Dad’s strength further. Six months after his hip replacement, he contracted a bad case of the flu that landed him in the hospital. It was during this hospitalization that they discovered he had stage four liver cancer. Over the next 18 months, I traveled back and forth to Florida as Dad’s health continued to decline. It was not lost to either of us that we had spent more time together in those final months, than we had in the previous 20 years. 

Dad gained his angel wings this past August. Since his passing I have found myself marking many firsts. My first birthday without Dad. My first Christmas without Dad. My first trip home without Dad. My first Easter without Dad. Each first is accompanied by a new wave of grief. 

I was feeling that wave this morning when I decided to join my mom virtually for Easter services. The minister began the Easter message by telling a story about a son who had just lost his father to COVID 19. His dad had been admitted to the hospital 13 days before. Due to current restrictions, he had not been able to accompany his father to the hospital. Throughout the hospitalization, he could only call or text his father to see how things were going.  He could not be with him, as I was with Dad. 

As the days progressed, he could hear his dad’s decline. Confusion set in. On the tenth day his father stopped answering the phone and responding to texts. His son continued to send texts anyway. On the thirteenth day, he received the news that his father had passed away. Despite his grief he was able to also share his gratitude. Gratitude that he knew his Dad was reading his final texts in heaven. 

And there they were. The pieces I had allowed myself to lose sight of in my own grief. Gratitude for the time and relationship we did have. Awareness that my dad may have left this world, but he had not left me. Understanding that we are forever connected through our relationship with Christ. Relief that I don’t have to regret the conversations we did not have. Peace that I don’t have to feel sad about the conversations we are not having. Assurance that in God’s perfect timing, we will start the conversation again.

  

Happy Easter, Dad. I will carry you in my heart until we meet again.