Maybe I Won't Win, but I Won't Quit!

Easter, 1972

Spring, 2016

Thoughts of my father are like a punch to the solar plexus...if I let those thoughts go too deep, the blow nearly knocks me off my feet (...and of course, it's me, so they go too deep all the damn time, but what are ya gonna do? I am who I am, for better or worse, and deep thought is the very nature of Amy-ness). He is a stubborn, proud, private man and therein basically is the extent to which I know him, except for one more thing...his time on this Earth is growing small. Someone recently asked me, "When he's gone, what will you regret?" The horrifying truth is...that list grows longer by the day. We got a raw deal, he and I, some of which was self-inflicted, while everything else was just life unfolding at our mutual exclusion. The sobering reality of that is, as with all things, there is no going back.

Mostly, I have made peace with what cannot be changed. It is the "now" that still plagues me. Here in the now I want to scream, "Let's make every day count! We can start from here and see where that takes us. It may not be far, but it will be something!" I want to scream this because...he is a stubborn, proud man, who digs his heels in and refuses to grab every scrap of life with a gusto! His lack of passion about anything except his own mulishness makes me crazy! I am ridiculously passionate about...well, almost everything, so it's extremely difficult to look through his eyes and see the world from his perspective. I mean, that's true of anyone really. We only know the order and shape of this world through our own lens, by design, and no matter what we think we know about another human being, or how close we are to them, it is impossible for us to process anything except through the filter of our eyes. In regards to my tenuous relationship with my dad, that fact, alone, leaves this gigantic chasm between us, one that I truly have no clue how to bridge except with the planks and rope of dogged determination. How well that will work is debatable, but what other way is there? Give up? Pffftttt! That is NOT a part of my genetic make up.

I could sit in my little corner and stew about what was, and what will never be, while he quietly slips from this world to the next...and I have done that, sulked about all that has been lost, more than I care to admit, wrapped in the cloak of my anger. While I'm not a fan of ol' Dr. Phil, his catch phrase is applicable, i.e. "How is that working for ya?" It isn't and no one would blame me if I kept doing it...no one, that is, except for myself. My mother once told me, "You don't let me get away with anything, but your father has always gotten a free pass! I just don't get it." Used to make her SO mad! And now it just makes me smile. Okay Mama, that finally sunk in. Sure, it took me, oh, like thirty plus years, give or take, but I got it now! And maybe wherever she is now, she's laughing at that and shaking her head at her slow-learning kid. But I can be taught! That old man of mine, he's NOT getting out of this life without experiencing the full force of the daughter he made. 

I don't know what kind of relationship any of you have with your own fathers, but with Father's Day just a blink away here in the United States, I offer you this...life is SO short. Every moment that ticks by is done and gone before we even know what happened, and those moments turn into years faster than it seems possible. Make those moments count. I believe we don't regret the chances we take, even if they don't turn out like we'd hoped. We only regret the ones we wished we'd taken. For me? I'm trying to keep those down to a VERY small number!