The Fifth Year: The Children

Fair warning…you may want to grab a Kleenex.

Last Friday marked a rather significant milestone for me and my children. It was the 5^th anniversary of their father’s passing. At the time, they were 10, 5, 3, and 1. Ashlyn and Conner have no actual memories of their dad, just borrowed ones from others or from home videos or from pictures. For me, this day has meant one thing. For my children, quite another. Let’s start with the children.

At the grave sight the day of the funeral.

For them, it is what they have missed. They want a dad more than anything. They have never known a life in memory with a father, and for them it just screams of injustice. It’s never fun to have to tell someone your dad died before you can even remember him. And then to watch all the other kids your age enjoy their fathers and have not even a memory of a moment to draw on. For Conner and Ashlyn, the grieving process has just begun, because it’s finally something they can understand. It comes in bits and pieces and spurts and we try and deal with it as needed. But again, its what they have missed by the simple thing of being fatherless. I figured it up; 1800 goodnight kisses (Unless your Ashlyn who demands 8 per night and then it’s more like 10,000), 2000 bedtimes stories, 30 birthdays, 2 baptisms, 2 ordinations, 250 family nights, 4000 family prayers, 15 first days of school, and 2 daddy daughter dances.

And those are just simple moments.

Things that most people take for granted, precious jewels of time that most of us cast aside because they seem so common place. And yet it is in those simplest of moments that lifetimes are created. And lifetimes are lost.

My children have lost a lifetime.

Maryn wrote this poem a few days before the anniversary.

February 18^th

February 18^th is my

least favorite day

It reminds me of

horrible things it

reminds me of

my Dear Daddy’s

Death and how

he is no longer

on this earth with

me. I know he is

safe with the all-

mighty god who toke

his last and long breath,

but there I

stand by his beautiful

grave asking him the

best.

These pictures were all snapped by my aunt. I find it significant that this one was on the CD she gave me.

The day after Dave died, I had the job of telling my children their dad was not coming back. Conner and Ashlyn were too young to understand. But Maryn did. I pulled her on my lap, and shared with her the news. Tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she looked up at me as her arms wound around my neck.

"Will he still be my daddy in the resurrection?"

I replied that he would. She pulled me closer and whispered;

"Then I will be okay."

He died that we might live again. That those relationships we build and hold most dear in this life might still be associations we keep in the life after this. The pure and simple faith of a 5 year old who had just lost her father taught me that. It will all be okay. Because He lives, and loves us, it is all truly okay.