My dad died when I was 26. He had been unwell for a long time by that point. Before he became ill and disabled, he was a great dad and always played with me after work when I was a kid. We played cowboys when I was very small, then later on we played whiffle ball or a sort of modified basketball/ catch game, or badminton, in the yard, almost every night. His idea. I went along with it not because I was really into playing ball as I didn’t like sports, but because it was a chance to spend time with my dad and he made it fun.
Before he died, Dad did get a chance to meet my future husband who was also really helpful in getting me to the funeral because I was living three states away when Dad passed and I was kind of a wreck.
By the time Dad died he was a shadow of what he used to be. I know it sounds awful to say death can be a blessing but I think in many cases it is. That didn’t stop me from missing him. I don’t talk about my dad much because it is painful in a lot of ways due to having to watch him decline as he got sick and feeling like I was left kind of without a father and having to do a lot of things on my own that (I felt) other girls had fathers to help them do. At the same time, I know many people who didn’t have a father at all, or had a father who was not loving or who was abusive in some way, and I know I was lucky and blessed to have the father I did. He has been dead almost 30 years now and I can’t believe it has been that long. I do think of him every Father’s Day but don’t post pictures. I’m glad the Church has shifted some of its focus recently to honoring the souls of our late fathers and mothers on Fathers Day and Mothers Day. It didn’t used to be that way and I felt very left out on many fathers Days.
