My dear dad's been gone three years this week, and it feels like it's been more like forever. It seems like a lifetime ago since I heard his voice or saw his face. I suppose a lot has happened and changed in the past three years. One of the hardest things this week that I remember also experiencing after losing mom was the realization that very few of the people in our current lives ever met or knew dad. To most of the people in our daily lives, Dad never existed. Our church is our work and life and ministry and 80% of our community, and Dad never met it, never knew it, was never known. That makes him feel extra far, I suppose. It keeps the Malcolm stories and memories among us so few.
It fades him.
I hate that.
And it's not true...he is far more real and as he should be NOW than he ever was among us. Even if Emma doesn't know who we're talking about. Even if I only have a very small handful of people in my life who knew Dad, and an even smaller few who ever knew Mom. It's His reality versus how it feels...and His reality is always the one I'm trying to orient to.
So I ask the kids what they remember and we eat graham crackers, honey and milk, and I miss having someone to call when we get there safely, someone to bring peace and wisdom to uncertain situations, and someone who called and cared about all the little things with each kid. I miss the man who came when we needed him, who checked on me and then asked to talk to Matt for a while, who always came looking for a to-do list, and the man who always joked after a long conversation that we had "fixed all the world's problems"...and it always felt like we did.
My dad was an imperfect, really good man and dad and grandpa.
I'm trying to remember until it's all things new and better, and bottomless, and there is no end.
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