In the past forty-eight hours, three friends have emailed with news of the death of a parent. In each case, the death was a quiet end of a long illness and decline. My friends knew the deaths were blessings. Their families knew it.
I know it, too, for my own father’s death came after a prolonged decline in a nursing home. He and all of us were ready for him to go. We wondered why God waited so long to set Dad free. I spent fourteen years before his death grieving for the loss of the father I’d once known. So I was surprised by how much I grieved the loss of the man he’d become, confined to bed and a wheelchair, a man who hadn’t recognized me or remembered my name for a decade.
It took a while for me to understand the object of my grief. I wasn’t so much mourning the loss of my dad as the loss of my identity as a child. When Dad died his memories, like his memory of the birthday when my friends and I swam in a tiny inflatable wading pool in our back yard, died too. (I’m the hatted one furthest to the right. My little brother is in front of me, and my little cousin is in the bottom left corner.)With the loss of his memories of my childhood, I became an adult, whether I wanted to or not. I didn’t see that coming.
Those of you who have lost a parent know what I’m talking about. You know what my three friends are facing in the weeks and months will experience. I’ll be praying for them and asking them, now and then, if they’ve been surprised by grief.
And since I’m pretty sure what they’re answers will be, I’ll keep the Kleenex handy.
