Dad

My father passed away this morning. At times like this, you'd like to have something particularly profound to say, because your feelings seem so complex, but it's hard to say anything clear for exactly that reason. My mind has been a jumble of everything I ever felt about him all day today.

My father moved a substantial distance away when I was in my teens, which meant that we didn't see each other very often over a period of many years. I have a lot of positive memories of him from when I was relatively young, but our more recent contacts often felt as though we were living very separate lives. Distance and a lack of contact will do that.

And yet, as several people reminded me today, he was always my father, and there's a very real impact to losing him. I think of the times I meant to call him, but was just too busy and planned to do it sometime in the unspecified future. That can't happen now. Still, I can't think of anything I wanted to say to him that I didn't, or anything that I said to him that I regret, which is a very good thing, and something that not everybody in my situation can say. I think we could have been closer if we'd had the opportunity to spend more time together, and I grieve that loss more than anything else. My wife has said that some of her favorite parts of me obviously came from him, and I believe that's true, and it's to his credit that that's the case.

The nature of the obstacles we face in our lives has a lot to do with who we are, and he had more than his share of obstacles in a couple of respects. Life had been very hard on him, and in that sense he's free now. Wherever he is now, I wish him peace that I don't know he'd ever found in this life.