When it comes to this time of the year, my thoughts turn to my father with a mix of sadness, regret and yearning. It is coming up soon to the nine-year mark since my father passed away. How time has marched on solidly.
While I have learned to live with this great loss in my life, I remember too clearly those endless days of caring for him, watching him suffer, his body grow weaker and die a little more every day.
My good friend L who just lost her sister to cancer and was one of her sister's caregivers remarked that unless you experience what cancer can do to a loved one, you cannot quite understand the magnitude of the loss someone goes through for the journey with those dying of cancer is unique in its unrelentingly onslaught of loss, in every shape, form and shade imaginable.
I said it was like being able to see the thestrals in Harry Potter's world, the winged horses that can only be seen by one who has witnessed death at least once. Not many see them and they are often feared and misunderstood.
One is transformed irrevocably by this unwelcome experience of death. You become stronger. Wiser. More resilient. The ability to get on with it instead of falling to pieces has been honed. You have plumbed the depths of bitter anger, grief and incomprehensible suffering and risen above the darkness.
Even as Time places his healing hand over these grievous wounds of loss, you are left with scars that will pain you occasionally, but can be considered badges of honour.
While all the amount of wishing cannot bring my father back for me to undo the hurts of the past and to show him the love I never got a chance to, to right all the wrongs, he is never far from me for he lives on in my memory. And he lives most assuredly in my actions.
I can still love him by righting the wrongs in my other familial relationships; by being more forgiving, loving, caring, persevering and patient with my mother and my siblings, and the rest of the clan.
I can be the generous, hospitable, responsible, charitable, dutiful and God-fearing person he was.
I can seek truth as he did, unceasingly. Be the tower of strength he was. Live with integrity and honour as he did.
This is how I combat the inevitable remnants of sadness and regret I feel. My remedy for grief is to live with more courage, more wisdom and much more heart: to love unreservedly and fearlessly.
This morning A and I were talking about how much pleasure and joy we derive from watching plants we tend flourish and bloom, and how God must experience the same mix of emotions when He sees us blossom and come into our own.
I hope that my late father who now watches over me experiences the same.
While I have learned to live with this great loss in my life, I remember too clearly those endless days of caring for him, watching him suffer, his body grow weaker and die a little more every day.
My good friend L who just lost her sister to cancer and was one of her sister's caregivers remarked that unless you experience what cancer can do to a loved one, you cannot quite understand the magnitude of the loss someone goes through for the journey with those dying of cancer is unique in its unrelentingly onslaught of loss, in every shape, form and shade imaginable.
I said it was like being able to see the thestrals in Harry Potter's world, the winged horses that can only be seen by one who has witnessed death at least once. Not many see them and they are often feared and misunderstood.
One is transformed irrevocably by this unwelcome experience of death. You become stronger. Wiser. More resilient. The ability to get on with it instead of falling to pieces has been honed. You have plumbed the depths of bitter anger, grief and incomprehensible suffering and risen above the darkness.
Even as Time places his healing hand over these grievous wounds of loss, you are left with scars that will pain you occasionally, but can be considered badges of honour.
While all the amount of wishing cannot bring my father back for me to undo the hurts of the past and to show him the love I never got a chance to, to right all the wrongs, he is never far from me for he lives on in my memory. And he lives most assuredly in my actions.
I can still love him by righting the wrongs in my other familial relationships; by being more forgiving, loving, caring, persevering and patient with my mother and my siblings, and the rest of the clan.
I can be the generous, hospitable, responsible, charitable, dutiful and God-fearing person he was.
I can seek truth as he did, unceasingly. Be the tower of strength he was. Live with integrity and honour as he did.
This is how I combat the inevitable remnants of sadness and regret I feel. My remedy for grief is to live with more courage, more wisdom and much more heart: to love unreservedly and fearlessly.
This morning A and I were talking about how much pleasure and joy we derive from watching plants we tend flourish and bloom, and how God must experience the same mix of emotions when He sees us blossom and come into our own.
I hope that my late father who now watches over me experiences the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment