Father's Day without Your Dad: Overcoming the Grief and Sense of Loss

 

 

Father's Day without Your Dad:

Overcoming the Grief and Sense of Loss

 

 

Father's Day like Mother's Day and other special days presents challenges to those who are dealing with the death of a loved one.  This time I'd like to focus particularly on those who are sharing the last days and hours with their fathers.  There must be thousands of fathers who will die in the next three or four days.  

For those who are keeping vigil at the bedside or are traveling to say their goodbyes, please know that my thoughts and prayers are with you at this time.  Although the words of a stranger may be of little comfort, I hope that you will find people around you who are supporting you right now.   

My own dad died many years ago, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I remember thinking that he waited until the Christmas holidays to let go so that I could be with my mother.  I was coming from another state and in those days lived on an academic schedule.  Even when I saw him at Thanksgiving, he was terribly sick and unable to breathe unaided.  He held on for three more weeks.  How do dying people do that?

Since his death, almost thirty years ago, I have missed him terribly.  He did get to see my baby and know her until she was almost ten.  But he would love the lovely and loving young woman she has become.  She would enjoy him too.

He taught me so much and protected me from so many of life's dangerous places.  An old fashioned man who would have been shocked to know that I ended up working outside the home for my whole adult life.  How much I wanted to fit into that Southern belle home, children, and church world.  Didn't work at all.  So maybe we saved him from some hard experiences.  But I like to feel he would have been proud in his own way. 

So to those of you who have your fathers with you, I hope you will find a way to celebrate and honor your dads.  Those of us without our dads here, take time to find those good memories to cherish.  Happy Fathers' Day.