Finally...

I asked God Thursday to show me how to deal with the sudden death of my father 17 years ago and how I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I was relieved but distraught.

An inkling of the answer to my prayer came to me later that night. I was not sure it was what I needed. But Friday morning it became very clear that it is.

Last month, my class visited a hospice. It was nothing like I expected it to be. I thought it might be a dreary place, full of despair and sadness. It was far from that. It was warm and peaceful, with a sense of the Divine so profound I could reach out and touch it. We spoke with the Chaplain, a wonder lady who is very in tune with God and with the needs of people. She is very self aware as well. I was so taken by the atmosphere. I got nudges that it might do me good to volunteer there, but didn't pay much attention to them. Friday morning it all made sense.

I have this deep intuitive feeling that I will meet someone there, someone who is dying, with whom I can form a friendship. I enter into that end of life experience and make it my own. I can imagine that person is my father and in my heart and mind, work through the "saying goodbye" process, and finally say my goodbyes to my Dad. I don't know how I know this, I just do. I know that once it is complete, I will finally be at peace within myself. Just knowing the source of my anger after all these years has started me on that journey.

I am in awe and am deeply grateful.

Thank You, my Lord and my God, for once again answering my prayers. You never abandon us, but always seek to bring us to wholeness. I am beginning to learn that You only do it when we can be fully open to that wholeness, when we can handle it.

"Life is always a good. This is an instinctive perception and a fact of experience, and man is called to grasp the profound reason why this is so."

Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae

Amen and amen.

KaraLynn

What Now?

On August 30, 2007 my father will be gone 17 years.

It's only today, after watching a movie called Tuesdays with Morrie, that I realized why I have been angry all of these years. I have often agonized why I've carried around this rage inside of me; why I've been so sad a lot of the time, that movie helped me to understand it. For the first time in 17 years I understand it all.

Tuesdays with Morrie is about a man dying from ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. The movie deals with tying up loose ends, making peace where needed, facing death with courage because he (Morrie) new how to live. He lived by knowing how to die. Truly inspirational because it was not a movie about euthanasia and the "indignity" of wasting away to a terminal disease. It was about making every minute of life count; every, every minute.


When the movie was over, I could barely contain myself so I told my instructor I had to go for a walk. I left class, walked to the convenience store and bought a package of cigarrettes. All the while it was running through my head--I didn't get a chance to say goodbye.

As I sat behind my school at the picnic table smoking, I thought, 'I feel cheated. I'm angry at my dad, I'm angry at God, I'm angry at me, at everyone'.

I couldn't wait to get home and talk to Steven about it. There I sat, crying and telling him what happened. I told him everything. I told him I didn't know what to do now. How do I say goodbye to my dad? How do I finish this business 17 years after he was laid in the ground? I don't know. I don't know.

Right now I'm exhausted. Exhausted by somewhat relieved that I now know the reason for all that anger. I know it and I have owned it. Perhaps after a little sleep the answer will come to me how I can finally say goodbye to my dad. My dad was everything to me, my whole world. He was gone in the blink of an eye without warning. I didn't know how to deal with it at 14 and I still don't know how to deal with it at 31.

Oh please God, show me how to say goodbye...