Losing Dad – Finding Me

Beach day for Dad and me

How do you work through the loss of a parent?   You don’t.  It just happens.  Then you realize that in the loss there is a gain, a richness of what you’ve become, what you’ve grown into from what that parent has left inside you.

Dad passed away last month after an eight year battle with heart disease and complications of chemo therapy for newly discovered lung cancer.  And a battle it was.  My father made Superman look like a wimp.  He never gave up, he followed his doctors orders to the letter, and he went out fighting.  I was by his side for dozens of doctor appointments, clinic appointments, MRI’s, emergency visits, hospital stays and zillions of errands.  I really thought I’d be ready?

Can anyone be ready for the death of a parent?  I don’t think so, not even with all the medical drama we were involved in for the last few years.  After all, our parents are always there for us.  No matter how old we are, there’s something comforting about Mom or Dad telling you “It’s going to be all right.”  It’s one of the first voices we hear as babies.  If you’re blessed like I am, to have loving parents, they become for you an example of “Unconditional Love”… something you learn, model for your children, and they, in turn, learn to reflect your example.  Who can ever be ready for the absence of that love?

Love at first sight

His death was encumbered with all of the complications and set-backs that he suffered, but his life was simple.  A young man from Cuba coming to America in the 40′s looking for a new exciting life.  He learned a second language, married, fathered two children.  He was most gratified by the career he built with Standard Register, a business forms company, where he traveled the globe as a liaison setting up and servicing new accounts and translating for spanish-speaking countries.  He was proud of his children, intolerant of injustice and was obsessively neat and tidy.  “A place for everything and everything in it’s place.”  That was the motto I ignored as a teenager and live by as an adult.

Both my parents have a knack for making their children feel special and important.  Dad took it one step further.  If I wrote an essay, I was the next Jane Austin.    When I sang in the choir, he insisted I would be a star.  My clay ashtray from art class proved to him that I could rival Picasso.  He came to every high school football game because I was a cheerleader.  It didn’t bother him that he knew nothing about the game.  He supported my every whim and notion and made even me believe in myself.  I’ll miss that.

I’ll miss all his little quirks and idiosyncrasies.  The way he emptied his pockets into neat little piles with his coins sorted and stacked just so.  He collected stamps and business associates, whose friendships he cultivated for years.  He was the first person in America to complete his income tax return every year or renew his auto tags.  Speaking of income tax returns, he had a copy of every return he had ever filed stored neatly in a large box… along with the mileage record for every car he had owned.  A tad obsessive you say… well guess where I inherited my organizational skills from?

at a party celebrating

He was a wonderful father, a great friend to my husband, a doting grandfather to my children and step-children.  This very small man has left behind a big hole that no one else can fill.  I see what I am and what I’ve become because of him.  I see him in everything I do, I see him in my children and most of all,  I look forward to that day when I will see him again… healthy this time and probably busily re-organizing everything in Heaven.

Posted by:
 Linda Hawkinson