It's That Time of Year: Reflections on My Father's Passing and Flannery O'Connor

It's that time of year again, when I write about love, loss, and God's eternal grace.
It's the time of year that I write about my dad.
February 5th is coming up in a few days--eight to be exact. I only know the exact count because my  baby is due two days after that.

It's been seven years since I was a fifteen year old girl, trying to learn how to drive a massive SUV well enough to meet my father's standards. His standards were impossibly high and I was the type of driver that gives girls a bad reputation. It took me days to learn just how to drive straight. It seemed too daunting of a task at first. How was I ever supposed to maneuver a vehicle in a straight line! Laugh if you must, but my fifteen year old self discovered her own Mt. Everest in that simple task.

Eventually, I learned--as everyone must--how to drive in a straight line. How to brake at a reasonable rate. The joys of driving the golden state freeway in rural northern California. The laws and customs of the road. And, since my father was the lovable scoundrel that he was,  just how to talk myself out of a ticket.

And just like driving, the death of a loved one is a process that everyone must endure. At first, it seems impossible and cruel, lonely but chaotic. When my father died, I felt like the only person on the earth that had truly experienced pain. Surely no one else endured a tragedy as severe. Grief can be selfish at first, isolating us from reality.

Then, it becomes a daily, yet still painful, experience. It is familiar, omnipresent, and we grow accustomed to the discomfort. I hated my driving lessons, yet I knew they were necessary to reach the next step in life. I loathed the daddy-shaped hole in my heart an life, yet I no other recourse but to continue on.

One day, we realize that we've become accustomed. Driving no longer terrifies us; it is the norm. Grief no longer paralyzes us; it is there. The terror of driving alone has faded, occurring only in an unsure moment. The pain of loss flares up sometimes, as something trivial strikes a memory. But life has gone on, and has reached a new normal.

Now, seven years later, driving is simply a method of transportation. The permit my father insisted I get at 15 and a half (to the day) turned into a driver's license, which has stayed with my for seven years. The name on the license is different, showing my married status. I am different, changed, and thankfully, a better driver than I was at fifteen. (Just don't ride with me in a strange city. Country roads and open freeways for this girl, please.)
Seven years later, my father's death is just a bullet point in my resume of life. I've brought it out for scholarships, or talking points, but it's there. I'm not longer a girl on the cusp of turning sixteen, but a woman-- nine months pregnant--who happens to be turning twenty three.

I'm acutely aware of the morbidity of the road. Of traffic lights missed and crushed metal. Of careless drivers and blown tires. Of the danger in the necessary act of getting in a car.
I'm acutely aware of the tragedies of life, that everyone suffers. I know that our loved ones can be taken from us at any time, that children, parents, grandparents, and friends all die.
I pray for the safety of my loved ones and myself.
I pray for protection from tragedy, and for the strength to cope with it when it comes--both for others and myself.

I do not miss being a worried fifteen year old, trying to steer a giant SUV. That is a phrase I am too happy to have left behind.
But, I do miss my father. His laughter. His view of life. His stubborn ways that lead to both joy and trouble.

I wish he could meet his first grandchild and hold him in his giant arms. I know he'd be thrilled that his children followed in his stubborn, hard-working footsteps. Life is different than I imagined, than I planned.

But I know this now. Tragedy strikes every person. I was never alone in my grief. It comes at different points in our lives, but eventually, the world's brokenness catches us in its grip. I've found the proverbial beauty in the ashes, and now try to not fear the next refining fire that might strike my life. Whatever it may be.

Losing my father gave me empathy, the ability to mourn with others. I can recall the shock and heartache of losing him and mourn alongside someone. I can better pray for healing and comfort because I've experienced sharp grief. The world is less golden than it was seven years ago and more realistic. The demand for the savior's grace is evident every day, as a degenerating world seeks for conversion. One of my favorite writers, Flannery O'Connor, is renowned for her grotesque, dramatic, and seemingly illogical stories that point a twisted world to a perfect savior. She once wrote that "All of my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless, and brutal."

Seven years after my father's death, that idea resonates with me. My life had to be ripped apart to show, teach, and reveal God's grace. I was a Christian before my father's death, but a young one, a weak one. It was a hard, hopeless, brutal crisis point, but it bettered me, my family, and prayerfully, revealed God's love, mercy, and provision to many others.

And visual aids just for fun

Summer 2006 

(Stephen Joel and I didn't like smiling)

Christmas 2013

(Yes, my mom seems to have gotten younger)

Faith: Six Years Later

February 5, 2013 will be the sixth anniversary of Daddy moving from Earth to Heaven. I'm posting this today because I need to be reminded today, and because I just can't wait to share this. 


I've started and not finished so many blog posts about the six year anniversary of Daddy's death.

I thought about the idea of mourning turning into joy...

Phrased a few ill-written paragraphs about grief as a lifelong journey...

I still have a Prayers of the Widow project looming in my mental "to do" folder...

But today, I found my theme, my subject, my tale.

 
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). 

Faith has always been the story God wanted me to tell, for my family to live. Faith will be the central theme of that book I've sworn for years I'd write. Faith is the reason to live. 

Faith is trusting God to hold me through that first year after my dad's death when sobs wracked my body, mind, and heart.

Faith was believing God would provide food for our table...every day, month, and year.

Faith was trusting IN God's provision, NOT any particular person. It is easy to blur the lines between trusting in God, Himself, and trusting in the people  He uses as His instruments. 

Faith is not bemoaning a lack of hours at work, but striving to earn and find more hours, and trusting God to provide when a bank account fails.

Faith is not relying on  any person's kindness, but being thankful for that kindness and knowing that it is God who provides for that person, who in turn, gives. 

Faith is  knowing that no recession, president, job, or change in fiscal status can keep God from providing for those He loves.

Faith is clinging to Jehovah Jireh, trusting him when life changes dramatically. When terror strikes and you fear for your family.

Faith is rejoicing in the blessing of work, of being thankful for the kindness of others, of acknowledging the sovereignty of God.

Faith is continuously trusting in God, day after day, month after month, and year after year.

Faith is trusting God for six years, and never ceasing to trust Him, even when dire circumstances reoccur. 

Faith is holding to the promise, the promise of Jehovah Jireh, His love, His omnipotence. 

Faith is the most frightening, most humbling, most absurd to the human mind experience a person will ever encounter.

Faith is a lifelong struggle.

Faith is a lifelong journey.

Faith is a lifelong reward.

On the six year mark of my father's departure from Earth to Heaven, please pray for my family.

Pray for God's provision this year.

Pray for continued emotional and physical growth.

But pray most fervently for our faith to strengthen and grow, for without it, we are nothing. 

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Losing Daddy

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27)

The world is a cruel, nasty place. Children lose their parents to a host of different problems and have to fight through life on their own.

I just never thought that world would come to me.

I grew up in middle class American. In the fields and orchards of northern California, beside my ever-growing number of brothers and sisters, and alongside my dad's businesses. Life was fun and we were full of dreams.

I remember that morning clearly. It was five days before my 16th birthday and I was obsessed with what (I thought) were the important matters at hand.

In fact, when I received the news that shattered my world, I could not believe the words. Literally. My brain would not let me process that my father, so full of life an hour before, was no longer with us. I fought the realization with my entire mental arsenal. Even when I saw the cold, white van take his body away, I expected it to turn back. It never did.

The next week was a flurry of brutal activities: funeral arrangements, hunting for funeral clothes, being with out-of-town family and kindness givers, birthday parties for my four year old sister, three parties for my sweet sixteenth,the viewing, and the funeral. Yes, we had to celebrate life and death in that week. Daddy died four days before my little sister, Joanna's birthday and five before mine.

But it was after "funeral week" as I so morbidly named it that reality set in. Daddy was not there. Oh, we thought he was there. His coffee cups, chair, mail, clothes, keys, and everything that said "Daddy" were still there, but he wasn't. We looked to each other and wondered what we were to do. Going on without him seemed sacrilege, yet we had to.

The days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and the months into a year. Every day, our Daddy-free routine grew more defined, and every day, we realized with amazement that we were still surviving.

It has been five years, an anniversary that seemed impossible that blustery day in 2007. Our family has grown, changed radically, struggled, and survived through these years.

Many people have asked us how we have made it, what we have done--what our story is. In truth, we had to allow our family to re-shape, change from the two parent system, to a one. For us, that meant that "us kids" now had more of a vote in the family, and though our mom was still the head, we all contributed to decisions.

These five years have shown the extreme blessings and power of God. My sister, Rachel said it best:( “A father of the fatherless, a defender of the widows, is God in His holy habitation.” Psalm 68:5. Five years ago today, my siblings and I became fatherless, and my mom became a widow. Our daddy was gone, and our lives felt as if they had been turned upside down. Yet, through these five years, God has done amazing things for my family. From provided in ways that seemed impossible, to even allowing my two older siblings and I to attend Christian colleges this semester, God has been faithful. He has taught me that every day is a gift from Him, and a chance to experience Him and learn to love Him better. As Horatio Spafford wrote after the passing of his daughters, “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, It is well with my soul.”)

Truly, God has used so many people, believers and non-believers to give assistance to our family in so many ways. I sincerely thank each one of you who has given something, or prayed on our behalf. After Daddy's death, there was an outpouring of kindness from our community, but many feared it would not last long. However, God has used individuals in the past five years to continually show His mercy and love to us. For those of you reading this who have, in some way, been used by God on our behalf, I pray God blesses you richly for your kindness.

Of course, there are still many challenges. Even five years later, we all feel Daddy's absence deeply. We still miss him. Still need him. Surprisingly, most colleges are not too eager to help Christian widows and the fatherless--seeing them as just another statistic. But, through God's help, individuals at schools come to realize our story, and try to help. For my siblings and I, every semester is a hard-won fiscal battle. We have so far succeeded in not taking out loans, and without parental financial assistance, have paid our own tuition. Sometimes, even working when everyone else is playing is still not enough, and we have seen God use so many different avenues to provide for us--even using different siblings to help another sibling out in a tough fiscal time.

My reason for telling our story on this sad anniversary is two-fold: first, to educate people on the pain felt by losing a parent/spouse, so that they may be of a comfort of them. The second: to tell the tale of God Almighty's continual love and his faithfulness in fulfilling his promise to be a father to the fatherless. It is a struggle, one that can seem without hope. However, my family and I rests in the knowledge that God is on our side.