Dads

It suddenly occurred to me that just because I am fortunate enough to still have my dad, at this stage of my life, I am one of the very few who do.  One of my best friends just lost her dad in January. I know this will be a hard day for her.  He was 90 when he died and a WW II vet.  I look on facebook and see post after post of friends my age who are remembering their dads who are gone now.  Especially fun and touching are the black and white photos with my friends as children and their young dads with their Brylcream haircuts.  I notice that the passing of years doesn't seem to diminish the sense of love and loss, whether it's one year or twenty, or thirty.  We all get just one dad.

I can't imagine what it might be like to have a dad who died by suicide.  I had noticed when I was participating in one of the on-line forums that one of the women had lost her dad nearly twenty years ago, and was still working it through in her mind.  We say that losing a child is an aberration of nature, that parents should die first.  Yet, when a parent dies, it is devastating for a different set of reasons.  Our parents were supposed to be our security, the ones to help us.  To have them leave by their own hand, and what seems like choosing to not be there for us, must shake us to the core.  Especially if someone is young, they then have a whole lifetime of not having their parent.  The empty chair at graduation, the bride who doesn't get walked down the aisle, the grandchild that doesn't get held.

I don't want to say a lot, because I don't know how it feels.  I know parts of how it feels, and it always feels bad.  I know that fathers who lost sons are also feeling bad today, and I know my ex-husband is thinking of Erik.

So to all who are having a hard day today, I just want to say you are being thought of, and my prayers are with you.  God bless you.