Sunday, June 26, 2005

Daddy's Girl

Forgive me readers, this was to post last Sunday.


Over six years have passed and I still can't get over my Father's death. I never will.

Now, I was lucky. First off, I had a Father. Second, I had a Father until I was 22 years old.

I knew my Father, he was married to my Mother my entire life and he was a wonderful provider. He had wisdom and kindness and compassion. He terrified any dates into treating me with total respect. They knew my Father would be waiting up for me, just behind the front door with the porch light on. And he always was.

My Father told me that I was smart, intelligent and that I had talent. He enjoyed my fearlessness, encouraged my creativity and taught me how to overcome intimidation. He taught integrity by example, the value of a strong and healthy body and to defend myself from attackers (and teenage boys who got a bit randy).

He made me feel safe when he was home, protected. I knew that if anyone was stupid enough to want to harm me, they would have to go through him. And to me, no monster was big enough or bad enough to take my Daddy on. He taught me to appreciate sunsets, rescue animals and promised me he would never die. But things didn't' turn out that way.

My Father's suicide surgically removed a piece of my soul that I can never get back while on this earth. Surgically you ask? It didn't tear through you, rip you to shreds or knock you over like a ton of bricks? No, I very distinctly remember feeling a laser beam go through my heart, right to the part where Daddy's girl was, and remove it. Quickly, concisely and there was no going back. The heat sealed, scared and hardened all that was around it until my heart didn't resemble a heart anymore.

I had no one to blame but my Father, the one I loved had killed the one I loved and there was no where else to go with that. No where else but God, and I was mad at him. I did not believe that you could die of a broken heart until that day. But now I know, it kills you softly, slowly, bleeding death into you and all around you.

I decided to just survive it, and I did for a few months. So I ate myself into oblivion, washing away my pain in chocolate and cake (hey it wasn't drugs). I just got really fat, so I tried some wine one night. I only ended up throwing up and the next day, HELLO, heartbreak and a hangover.

Then I did what the church told me and tried to just forgive. It wasn't real and that lasted a few days, until the pain came again. I gave denial a shot. Hey, if I don't admit it, it never happened! That worked just up until I almost purchased him a birthday gift, a gift he would never unwrap.

I decided to just get on with life. People told me it was time to move on. So I listened to all the sayings like "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and "God knows best". But this just began to build a slow anger, a rage that was overtaking me.

Desperate with what I was becoming, I figured I wasn't spiritual enough. I went to bible study and church and prayed empty prayers from heavily advertised books and listened to people who had no idea of my pain. I was fine there, as long as God didn't show up.

Then I got really, really, really pissed off. And I got pissed off some more. It was not going away. Nothing was changing. So I kicked and I punched and I lifted weights and I ran. I ran so hard and so far that I lost 80 pounds of retained rage and denial from my poor body. But the weight on my soul stayed and it was crushing and bleeding my heart dry.

Then finally, finally, one day the noise and rage was quiet. Just for a moment. And I let myself go to the one I had been advoiding all this time. It was time for a face off and I dared him to show up.

I lost myself and became the deepest part of me. My broken, crying soul. And I knew it, I felt God there and it really, really pissed me off. How DARE he let my Father kill himself! How dare he do this to me. I raged and screamed and begged. I believed in you! I KNOW you are God. I KNOW you can fix this, could have fixed this. I BELIEVE you have the power. HOW COULD YOU DO NOTHING!

But God didn't leave. He took it, listened to me for hours. He heard every word and never flinched. He stood in the room with me, with the ability to vaporize me, and listened to my threats and curses and didn't retaliate.

Slowly, quietly, I somehow found myself in his arms. I struggled and resisted and then exhausted I whispered my deepest fears.

I cried that I was a Fatherless child. He said he was a Father to the Fatherless.
I told him my heart was broken and no one and nothing could fix it. He said HE binds up the broken hearted. I told him I was lonely and had no one. He said he puts the lonely in families. I told him I wanted to die too, there was nothing left for me here but pain and betrayal. He told me "I will not die, but live and proclaim what that Lord has done." And he made me live, again.

And the devil did not win that war that day.

2 comments:

T. Suzanne Eller said...

This is beautiful and shows just who God is. I loved it. Suz

Jessie Ann Moser said...

Wow, that was beautiful. My father died in 2001. Yesterday, I saw an elderly man in the grocery store looking for round top sliced sandwich bread. His stance and demeanor were so reminiscent of my elderly dad that it took me two aisle lengths to control my emotions. God bless the ashes of the pain of death. Perhaps the seeds of your post will become a book that will help others--I think it could.
Jessie