How do we remember someone?
Seriously, what governs this?
Is it our last interaction with them that controls it?
Is it a culmination of all past experiences, like a moving average, that shape those memories, highlighting whether it’s been an overall positive or negative experience?
Is it our plans for the future together and our shared hopes that determine the attitude and trajectory?
Are we left frozen at the point in time where the disagreements and misunderstandings paused relationship from growing?
Is it the last words we said or the next words we intended to say?
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I am still processing my Dad’s death. It’s hard. Last week there was a memorial in the park that my family - including brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, most people from my Dad’s span of life except the last few years - were excluded from. Excluded on the basis that he supposedly requested that “because we weren’t involved in his life, we can’t be a part of his death.” Additionally, I had people “reach out” and say that I caused him to die of a broken heart. Seriously.
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I last saw my Dad in September 2008, introducing him to our 4-month old Dayvanee. I last talked with my Dad in December 2009, where there was an unfortunate “knocking of heads.” He said at that moment that he was “f’ing done”, to which I snapped back, “when are you going to even start?” Not the greatest talk.
I stopped communicating with him for many years. There was a season I stopped praying for him. I stopped sending emails to check in and update him on life. I stopped but I didn’t remain there.
These last couple years, I have been stirred to reconcile with my Dad. Much of this is attributed to faith, to learning to see God as a fatherly presence. The other half is probably attributed to being a father, knowing your kids should never earn your love but should respect it. When there is a realization that you have been loved unconditionally, it leaves minimal reason to hold onto bitterness. There is less desire to make things “right” and more to make things “good”. It enables you to attempt to love others in a similar way.
I reached out. We never stopped sending him Christmas cards. I no longer had the current email address and Dad didn’t accept my “friend request” on Facebook, but that didn’t stop me. I had his cell, so I texted, typically on his birthday. I typically wouldn’t get a response, but this year...of all the years... I did.
And I got a text from him on my birthday.
On Fathers Day this year, I texted him with the last photo of us together 20 years prior. I shared that although we have our differences, I still appreciate what he did for me and do love him, and if he was up for it, let’s get a beer together soon. He responded by complimenting that Alli and I have started a great family and he is regretful to not meet his grandkids. He shared that hopefully I have gained perspective that even parents can make mistakes.
Seriously.
Contrary to his wife’s bitter words towards me and Alli, his message held the substance more of a regret than a bitter, hard, and closed off approach. So what’s truth?
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Since I heard of my Dad’s death, I have gone through the past emails, letters, journal writings, photos, all of it. I recognized that my Dad and I had a complicated relationship, and although I would feel vindicated to say that he didn’t love me or my brother or desire relationship with us, giving full explanation to past events, I am honestly (and gratefully) unable to reach that conclusion. I believed he loved us because he was a father. Others may argue, especially those that “knew” him the last few years, and all I will say is that “you didn’t know him like I knew him.”
The grieving process seems to bring more questions than answers.
But you don’t get answers until you ask questions, and a good question rarely brings up a good answer. Instead, it often creates more questions, deeper questions, sometimes painful questions. And this, I am convinced is a good thing. It’s the real thing.
If anything, in my geologically short time on this earth, I have realized that the present rarely provides the most truthful (accurate/full/rich) interpretation of current circumstances, and that time (i.e. life experience and maturity) is the key to really unlocking and understanding past events. And the adage that “good judgement comes from experience. Unfortunately, experience comes from bad judgment” is true and is on a continuous repeating loop.
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Therefore, as the forever (albeit stubborn) optimist, I am choosing to remember my Dad in the lens of all our interactions together - the good, the bad, the ugly, the ridiculously funny, the painful - knowing that all these experiences have a role in shaping me. Similar to a mosaic, our relationships are constructed of fractured and broken pieces but with some hope, patience and love, every fractured piece will find its place to making something beautiful.
This is my perception of the truth. It doesn’t negate the past, doesn’t resolve current conflict, nor remove the effort needed to build healthy relationships with others. I will own that. However, no matter what’s occurred, I still have the pen and paper, I am writing the narrative, God’s adding the characters, and I believe that this is an opportunity for a damn good story.
So Dad, I remember and honor you as the Dad that you were when present, while also remembering and forgiving you for the Dad you were when absent.
Picture from Summer 1992, North Fork of the Yuba River, near Downieville, CA.
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