It’s been 33 minutes since the clock blinked midnight, and sleep is still escaping my grasp.
The heater vent just rattled to life, giving the darkly encompassed room a sense of ethereal ambiance. Even as I write, my wife lies beside me, her rhythmic breathing coinciding with the sound of my typing.
On a normal night, my mind would long since have taken the previous state of the vent—quiet, undisturbed, waiting till the morning when I too rattled to life again.
But my thoughts have decided to keep me up tonight, dancing randomly to the growing sounds of a busy mind. But I know the reason for this temporary insomnia lies in the thought of being a father to my son now growing in his mother’s womb.
A Distant Memory
I remember very little about my father, but some things are hard to forget. His personality was boisterous, and happy, yet tinged with a sense of deep thought and gratitude for all that he encountered. His collection of journals tucked away in his bookshelf revealed a sense of great contemplation not much different than my own.
But a weak heart and a bruised and battered body (the battle scars of his teenage duel with cancer) were slowly tearing down his chances at living a full and lengthy life. In response, my family’s energetic nature had been replaced by a sort of wandering existence.
Yet hope managed to survive right up until his passing. There was hope that his heart would stay strong. There was hope for medical technology and breakthrough research. There was hope that things would get better, and that somehow, someway, he would pull through. And for close to 3 years, he did.
He fought with all his might, and believed with all his faith.
Sorrow
I have often wondered how I dealt with such a loss. To be honest, I’m not quite sure that I did. You don’t really deal with someone leaving—someone departing the land of the living—it just happens.
You do, however, respond. And the difference is that the latter doesn’t always offer a sense of meaning or closure.
My response, like so many who suffer loss, consisted of crying, getting mad, screaming, yelling, cursing, blaming, being indifferent, rationalizing, and much more. All of them normal reactions to such an unfair tragedy, and all of them just as useless to change it.
And yet, all of them were just as necessary as I tried to make sense of it all.
The pain eventually numbed itself into a distant memory of someone that I greatly and deeply loved. Someone far off, and unapproachable, and yet someone that I know, in the deepest part of my soul, I will be reunited with someday in the future.
Some call this a way to cope with loss; that there will not be a reuniting with those lost to the dust. I’ve considered this honestly myself, and have found that no matter how hard I try, I cannot bring myself to believe it.
The difference between me and those who say “no” is a deep and prevailing sense of peace and tranquility that is rooted in a faith stronger than death. I have chosen to live the rest of my days in hope and in trust of a loving God.
Fatherhood
So, as I write this, thoughts of fatherhood crash around me, and the helpless feeling of being unequipped for such a responsibility threatens my confidence. I know for a fact that fatherhood is learned by example—it’s the reason we become our parents, generation after generation.
I am left knowing that my own example stopped early in the days when I was becoming and being modeled from a boy to a man, and I wonder, Was it enough? Did I pay attention? Will I know how to lead by example?
I could declare myself at a disadvantage, and parade this as an excuse to my own failures, both current and future. Some fathers are absent through neglect or indifference; is it much different if they are absent through death?
As I reflect on my father, I realize that he was none of these things. For the first 14 years of my life, he poured his heart and soul into mine, and I realize that there is something to be said about quality over quantity.
All the years in the world with my father wouldn’t prepare me for the task of fatherhood if he wasn’t interested in showing me the way.
As I realize that this simple truth is so tragically a fairytale to the little boys and girls of today’s world, I know that I have been deeply and greatly blessed. I know that I, in the midst of feeling robbed and spit on by the reality of this broken world, had a shining light to show me the way. Though brief, it was strong; though taken away, it was bright when present.
And with this perspective as my vision, I will lead the way for my children. I will lead and I will not stop, and I will know, that quality is all that is needed.
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