An Unpleasant Anniversary

In the hustle and bustle of school starting for the kids, soccer starting for me, school starting for me, a new job for Beth (leaving the old one and starting the new one), I missed posting on a significant event. A year ago, my dad passed away suddenly. I blogged about it here and here.

There has not been a day that goes by that I have not thought about my dad. I was just sent a reminder from FTD that Sunday is Grandparents' Day. When I read that, I suddenly got a tear in my eye, and thought, "My kids don't have any more grandparents." Well, actually, they do. My mom's husband, Kel, is still in Aptos, though we rarely see him. And Susan, my dad's wife, is in Minnesota. We are in more contact with Susan, and hope to encourage her to come for a SoCal Dizzyland visit sometime in the near future. Still, the four biological grandparents are now gone.

I am preaching at Eagle Rock Presbyterian Church this Sunday. I am reworking my two sermons on the prodigal son and the elder brother from Luke 15, that I preached at Aracadia Presbyterian Church in July. To hear them, click here, highlight "2006" and then highlight "July", and then the sermons on the 23rd and the 30th. But I digress.

Luke 15 has been speaking to me as I wrestle with it in preparation to preach, and as I wrestle with my dad's death. In the parable, a presumably irreligious son insults his religious father and leaves for the far country. He comes home, eventually, and reconciles with his father.

As I ponder that, I am struck by the fact that I was a religious son (though not always so), and I wound up insulting and leaving my own non-religious father. I left when my mom and brother and I moved to Californai after the parents' divorce. I "left" when I chose to become a follower of Jesus. I know that my dad was at one time a religious fellow. He had joined a church. I even have his read Revised Standard Version of the whole Bible, published, I think, in 1952. Ironic. The prodigal son, in reverse, sort of.

What caused my dad to walk away? Why did he leave the church? I know my mom left the Catholic church of her childhood in order to marry my dad, a Protestant. I guess these sorts of issues were much more serious then than now. But at some point, my dad stopped going to church. Why?

For years, my dad and I have done a dance. Since we are both men, we had between us four left feet, I suppose. In my own naive way, I had hoped at some point to be reconciled to me dad. I recognized that he had hurt me as a child, and divorcing my mom was the last straw for me. But as I matured, I came to understand that I had hurt him, too.

One night, while visiting him in Minnesota, I borrowed his car and drove to see my friends in St. Anthony Village, where I grew up. I came back quite late. My dad was already in bed. The trouble was, my brother and I were flying back to California the next day. And my choosing to spend my last evening in Minnesota with my friends evidently wounded my dad. And as an angry teenager, I suppose that was the point. I didn't really care at that time, but I grew to care.

When Beth and I got married, we send a wedding invitation to my dad, and did not include Susan's name on the invitation. Intentional? It probably was on my part. But it was stupid and foolish. One more nail. One more drop of blood. One more wound as payback.

Before my trip in August to pick up my dad's tools, a friend asked me if my dad tried to keep in touch with me when I was still in Minnesota. I know that my brother used to see my dad and Susan quite often, but I did not. I had no memory of being invited over to their house. So when I got back there, I asked Susan about it. She said that she and my dad cooked up all sorts of ways to entice me to come over, but all to no avail. She then said something about me probably not wanting to disappoint my mom, since I was her favorite.

All of a sudden, I was 13-14 years old again. Since neither of my parents were very good at talking to us kids about meaningful or hurtful issues, it was left to me to decipher what was going on. The vibe I picked up from my mom was something like this: "I do not mind you going to see your father, but I will be very hurt if you do." So, I felt forced to choose between my mom and my dad. And, as luck would have it, I chose my mom.

It is unfair to put a kid through that sort of choice, but my parents did not know any better. My mom was bitter and angry that her lover, her husband, had abandoned her for another (in her eyes). My dad was most likely hurt and puzzled that the mother of his children was trying to punish him through them. It didn't work with my brother, who was either too young to know any of this, or just wired not to care. He had two parents, what was the big deal?

The thing that brought me up short in response to Susan's question was this: I feel like I am still having to choose. I am here, in my dad's house, talking with his wife in their kitchen, and my mom suddenly is the bad person for doing this bad thing. Ouch.

Anyway, back to the parable and the dance. I have a box of letters I wrote my dad over the years. He evidently thought them worth keeping. That's my hope. My suspicion, though, is that he just wasn't very good at throwing things away. In those letters, a very young me tried his best to convince his dad that he loved him, and had forgiven him. The response to all this outpouring of emotion, silence. Oh, I got bithday cards, many very humorous, signed, "Love, Dad". I got Christmas presents each year, and the grandkids did, too.

The first person I called when my son, Mark, was born, was my dad. "Hey, dad, I have a son, too. And you have a grandson."

But I never got any confirmation that the letters had been received. I never got an acknowledgement from my dad that he was sorry for the hurt I experienced, whether he was to blame directly or not. I never received a word of, "It's OK, son, I forgive you."

Perhaps my dad was not good with words. He was, I think, better at his actions than his words. But he did write several very glowing letters to my brother, Dave. Dave has one framed on his office wall. So I know my dad could write. So why not? Isn't this what parents do? Don't parents love their kids no matter what? When the kids are surly teenagers, and will not talk, don't parents keep trying to talk? Keep trying to affirm the good, and chastise the wrong? Isn't a parent's love an anchor for kids to cling to through the terrible emotional upheavals of adolescence? (I know, this appears to be descending to a massive pity party, doesn't it?)

The deal is, I made some pretty feeble attempts to reconcile with my dad. I didn't work on it very hard, because I thought there would always be more time. He was, after all, only 74 years old, and in pretty good shape for a man that age.

As the prodigal son came home, what sort of "welcome" was he expecting? Folded arms and a frown? A lecture? A scolding? He got the last thing he ever expected: a father who embarrassed himself in public by running to him, and giving him a great big hug, and kisses, and tears of joy, and a robe and a ring and sandals and a huge party!

From my end, I tried coming home several times, and was met with silence. I perceived the silence to be arms folded. Shut out. A formal welcome, yes. Come in, stay a while. But we can't talk about anything in the past.

In my head, I imagine my dad tried to reach out to me, too. Though I am not sure exactly how. He did pay the alimony and child support each month. He remembered my birthday.

He once called me when it was not my birthday. When the Simi Valley trial of the cops who beat Rodney King were acquitted. And the LA Riots began. The TV was full of pictures of fire and smoke and guns and looting. My dad called and asked if we were all right. I told him we were close to the action, but not that close, and we were, in fact, safe.

In my head, I can believe that I greeted my dad's attempts with folded arms and silence.

So there's the dance. Feeble attempts to reach out, not exactly rebuffed, but certainly not met with open arms. So each of us would retreat behind our old patterns.

I am not sure how much my dad thought about me, but I thought about him all the time. And I still do.

And I have decided, that come hell or high water, I will try as best I can to be open and welcoming to my kids. I do not want to be the arms folded sort of person I can be, quite easily. I want to be transformed by God's amazing grace into a more grace-filled person. And I want the pain that I feel to remind me of the consequences for living an unforgiving life.

I am sorry, dad, for the hurt caused you. I wish we could have just an hour to go fishing together, or to just talk over spaghetti at Vescio's, or a sizzling platter of steak at Lindy's. You once told me that all you wanted was an hour with your father, to ask him all the questions you now had, but did not consider important while you were younger. I know know what that feels like. I grew up angry at you. Rejecting you. When I became a Christian, I learned to love you. But I also learned to judge you. And you know, dad, that being judgmental comes as a family trait. Like Ray Kinsella in "Field of Dreams", I wanted to "come home", and never knew how.

Perhaps someday, we will have that chance to go fishing, or to have that chat. I miss you, dad, and I grieve the lost opportunities. And as usual, I condemn myself for the pain. My penance, my atonement, is to love Susan and the boys, and to love my brother Dave and his family, and to love the wife and son and daughter I have been so graciously given. But nothing I do will replace the hole in my heart, and knowing that some of that hole is self-inflicted only makes it worse.

It has been a year. And it feels like this morning.