What is Family?

I’ve been waiting to post this obituary while I try to sort out my feelings.  I just felt like putting it up without any comments because not only are my feelings complicated, but when it comes to some things I am ashamed of how I feel.  I‘m not proud of my personal pity parties or my thoughts of “It’s not fair.”  I would rather squash that part of myself and focus on the part of me that knows that there is a master plan and all things are as they should be.  I would rather only have grateful thoughts about how lucky I am to have a dad (Fred) who has loved me and nurtured me for nearly thirty years. But in an effort to be real, I am just going to lay it all out there.  Who am I to pretend to be perfect? (Especially when everybody who knows me knows that I am not!) Who am I to not allow others their grief, tears and weakness because I am not willing to admit mine? So here we go…

 
I think it is strange that I had to find out through an obituary things about my own father that I didn’t know. I am not mourning his death but rather a lifetime of missed opportunities.  At the funeral home there was a slide show of his life. I was in two pictures. One from a day when I was five or so that I didn’t even remember and one from last summer when we invited the whole family over for dinner. Why don’t I have a single picture of him holding me or of us together? At the funeral I felt like I was some sort of fake or an interloper; pretending to be a daughter yet only a few of the people there even knew who I was. When the coffin was being closed and his children and wife gathered around him for their final, tearful goodbyes, my place was not in that circle. And at the graveside there where chairs set up for his wife and children but none for Lex or me. Which was not only OK since I had no tears to shed for him but also very strange at the same time. I felt sorry that when he was eulogized and described as a man who was always there for you that he wasn’t there for me. I am sad and a little angry that I never got to hear his side of the story. What was his motivation in giving up his parental rights and allowing my sister and I to be adopted by my dad (Fred)? I want to believe that it was a gut wrenching, difficult decision that he made because he truly felt like it was the best thing for us. (And not because he didn’t want to pay back child support like I was once told.) I want to believe that he prayed about it, agonized over it and even sometimes mourned over it. I like those thoughts better than the nagging ones that come to me about how he loved the idea of a fresh start with a new wife and family and without living reminders of a time that was unpleasant for him. After all, although he rarely (if ever) initiated contact he was often willing when we did! (That must count for something right?)  

Ok, ok, I have given those feelings enough air time. There is no room for those in a grateful heart right? Really, how can I be grateful and feel life is unfair at the same time? Can I? Because despite all the strange, uncomfortable, sad feelings I had that day, mostly I just felt so grateful that even with this dad gone, I still had one, and one that is full of love and attention for me. One who claims me as his daughter in a thousand ways, and not just in name alone. One that claims my children who share none of his blood as his grandchildren. Last summer when the Howells were over for dinner, Sam and Lizzie just happened to be in South Carolina because dad had flown them out to come and see him for a week! There is so much irony in this. And while I am on the topic of Fathers, I must express how grateful I am for my Heavenly Father who through the spirit pretty much nagged me for a year to invite the Howells  over for dinner. We were together for the first time in five years this summer for a wonderful evening and now he is gone and I feel no guilt for having missed an opportunity to see him one last time. That indeed was a tender mercy.  

So what is family? Is it a connection by blood and shared genetic traits? Yes. Is it an investment of time? Yes! Time most of all. It is being there at the crossroads. It is failing, trying again, failing again, starting over together, forgiving, loving despite weakness, learning together and never, never giving up.