Still Grieving: A Letter to Dad

 Dad,

I caught myself scrambling to catch air-bound pieces of your memory, to bottle them, preserve them. It was panic and frustration and grief when I realized even now, they wouldn’t comply. 

I felt like I was destined to fail, destined to continue to lose you, because memories are fickle. Frail. And time is a relentless current that doesn’t allow us to grab things swept past us.

But then I remembered the truth I believe.

The FULLNESS of you is with the fullness of Jesus. 

You are not less than. You have not ceased to exist. 

Still, the same part of me that insists, “Text me when you get home,” the part that obsessively spied on my sleeping babies before I settled into my own bed for the night, absolutely aches for the same sort of peaceful closure.

I know you are in Heaven, Dad.

I know that faith is a gift authored and grown by the Lord. We are called to walk by faith and not by sight.

I know that. 

Maybe I’ve grown too accustomed to immediate access to confirmation emails, texted pictures of successful 2-day Amazon porch deliveries, direct deposit payroll, instant digital photos on my phone…

But I would give anything for a glimpse of your safe arrival there, of you free from pain and standing, accepted, embraced by the Lord. Not because I’m worried about you, but because I miss you. Terribly. Already. Witnessing your body being delivered into a grave is a crappy substitution for seeing you, actual you, delivered into the arms of Jesus.

So I will wrestle with that for awhile, and God will work in this season, in me, through me.

And while he does, I will remind myself--again and again--

You are no less alive if memories fail me.

The words you spoke will still have meaning, even if I struggle to recall how your voice sounded as they were said.

Your impact is no less significant if I lose the words to name it.

Your earthly life did not mean less if our records fail to chronicle it well. 

You don’t slip away with our stories lost to time.

You were here for a time and purpose still unfolding.

Your mark can’t be erased from me, from any of us. 

While I want to remember you, to keep you tucked close to me, this sorrow is for me here and not you there.

We will catch up when I see you once more in glory and I find you vibrant, whole.

I’m not sure if group hugs are a thing in Heaven, but I like to imagine you, me, and Jesus in a big ol’ one, at least once. 

I love you like meeses to pieces, Dad.

-Lacey