Of course, these thoughts are not rational. These are the thoughts of a disordered mind and a still-grieving heart. The most evil place of all is, of course, the Hallmark store. I try to avoid it for as long as I can but I need a card for Casey and Toby to give to Bill. I find what I am looking for and sprint past the father cards like I used to run past the stone wall outside of my childhood home because I was so afraid of the snakes that were hiding in the wall just waiting to reach out and attack me. Or so I thought. I would gather all of my energy and run past that wall like my life depended on it. So I run past those father cards as if one of them will reach out and wrap itself around me like a serpent, squeezing out even more sorrow than the past ten months have summoned forth as it taunts me with the knowledge that I have no father I can buy a card for. No dad to whom I can deliver a gift. No face that will light up with pure joy simply because I baked him his favorite raisin cake.
I used to tell people I was not a crier. This was not a source of pride or a badge of stoic honor, it was simply the truth. It took a great deal of raw emotion to get me to form those droplets of water I saw falling from other people's eyes. To the typical human, I may have appeared cold and unfeeling. That's just the way I was built. But after my dad passed away, I realized I was wrong. It's not that I was a non-crier. It's just that the room that held my tears was locked so securely it was impenetrable.
My dad, being the carpenter that he was, knew just how to unlock that door. As he passed into the next world, his kind, gentle soul gathered itself into a swirling ball of energy and blew that door wide open. And in doing so, he unlocked a tidal wave of emotion more than fifty years in the making. So now, I cry. I have shed more tears in the past ten months than in my previous years on earth combined. Time has not lessened my grief, it has merely altered it. That tidal wave has been reduced to the kind of wild and unpredictable wave that surfers seek and risk their lives for. But I don't know how to surf and I'm a poor swimmer, so the waves of grief rush against me and knock me over with their unrelenting force. Before last August I wouldn't even have felt these waves. Now I have no power over them. And so I cry. And Father's Day? Father's Day is one hell of a tsunami.
But beyond the tears, though, and beyond the cards and gifts and cake-baking that are no longer part of this Fatherless Day for me, I believe there is more. Because beyond what we can see and touch and understand, I believe what remains is love. And maybe, just maybe, this love can be felt beyond the realms of existence we are able to comprehend. Perhaps if I love deeply enough, my dad will be able to feel that love. Even now. Even in death.
And that would be the greatest gift of all. For both of us.
But beyond the tears, though, and beyond the cards and gifts and cake-baking that are no longer part of this Fatherless Day for me, I believe there is more. Because beyond what we can see and touch and understand, I believe what remains is love. And maybe, just maybe, this love can be felt beyond the realms of existence we are able to comprehend. Perhaps if I love deeply enough, my dad will be able to feel that love. Even now. Even in death.
And that would be the greatest gift of all. For both of us.
