Loss Control

I went to sleep last night with loss on my mind. My mom died when I was 17 years old, and that loss burdened my heart and soul for a long time. Grief and sorrow were a painful journey; letting go of her was monumental. When I finally released her, she’d been gone for four years. Until I let go of her, though, my heart was not ready to heal nor move on with life. She died before I was ready to lose her, but I had to let her go, anyway.

Since when does anyone we love die when we’re ready to lose him or her? Mum was dying of cancer and we were losing her for a few months before she was gone, but it was still all-too-soon. She was only 51; I was still in high school. It was just a few months before my sister’s wedding. The heartache for all of us could not be measured, but for one saving grace: Mum’s suffering as over and she was with Jesus. She knew “Whom she believed, and was persuaded that He was able to keep that which was committed unto Him against that Day.”

That loss was 32 years ago. The one on my mind last night concerned someone else. My father turned 86 earlier this month. My interactions with Dad boil down to this: I love Dad and he loves me. Whenever we talk we tell each other that. Due to various reasons, we don’t talk or visit often, but when we do, I make sure to tell him that.

Dad has had a number of health issues arise in the last few years, and with each one, his recovery has been a little less full than the time before. I recognize that the ravages of time and disease are taking their toll on his body. He is a strong man, but he is weakening.

In the six years between Mum’s death and Dad’s remarriage, I enjoyed a special relationship with Dad. He and I had never been close before Mum died, but we grew close–partly out of necessity, I suppose, but it was a genuine love as father and son that I greatly enjoyed. I realize that he spoiled me, even to his own detriment at times. As Dad begins to weaken now, and as I see him much less than I used to, I treasure that time that I had with him, much the same way that I treasure the early years that Mum and I had together, and the time she and I spent at the Christian school in the early 1980s.

As our interactions have changed in the last few years, I have recognized that while he is my dad and I am his son–and that will never change this side of eternity–the nature of our relationship won’t return to what it was in that six years when he was a widower. He has a wife who takes care of him. Their life is different from mine was with him, and as those differences have played out, I no longer have the roles in his life that he needed from me 30 years ago.

I’m thankful for my dad, and for the life God’s granted him. I’m sorry to see his health weakening, and that I cannot be more involved in helping him at this point in our lives. At the same time, given all the circumstances involved, I’m beginning to let Dad go. The nature of the relationship that he and I had when we were closest will never return to that point, so there’s no reason to wish for that. I’ve let that go. He is never going to return to haying like he did even five years ago, so there’s no reason to wish for that. I’m letting that go. He’s not likely to return to using his workshop, so there’s little reason to hope for that. I’m letting that go. The list goes on and on, really.

It’s HARD. But this world isn’t his home, so there’s no point in hanging on to the things that hold him in it. I’m not ready for Dad to leave this world, but when God calls Dad to his REAL home, Dad’ll go, and I’ll have to let him go.