March Sixth Two Thousand Seven

hey! check out what i found on my myspace page. i forgot that i'd written my thoughts down LAST march. thought i'd copy & paste where i was last year at this time. side note: this has been a good few weeks for me. and a p.s.: i told the kids on saturday night that it was Grampa Rob's birthday in the morning...

"Are we gon' go there?" (birthday is synonymous with par-tay for my babes)
"No, we're not going to go there. Remember Grampa Rob died?"
"Oh, well so..." Bryson says, "So, he's gon' have his birthday in heaven then?"
"I don't know, Buddy. But we can tell Jesus to tell him Happy Birthday from us. He would like that."


Friday, March 02, 2007

a Father's love... Current mood:
thankful Category: Life

wow. i woke up today and thought about the date. march
2nd. you know, march always rolls around. once a year. and
with the cold rain comes a flood of bittersweet memories and the promise of
spring. the last time i talked to Dad was March 3rd, 1996.

he said to me, "you look beautiful, rocket." (tears coming
now...)

he died 3 days later. alone.

11 years later. There are days I still feel the rawness of losing
him. The grief overwhelms me at times. Like today, when I found the
celine dion song to put on my page. That was a song that released just a
couple weeks after he died and so it became my song. It became my song for
him. And I found it today and put it on my page and it brought me to my
knees again… sobbing and weeping over this man whose death I'll never get over…
kneeling, holding my tummy, sobs wracking my body, I was that 17-year-old girl
again with my heart ripped in two. Oh, my God! Oh, Lord, I miss
him! Tell him I miss him. I know you can tell him I miss him.

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'cause you believed
I'm everything I am Because you loved me

I loved that song and I still love it. And now I sing it, knowing
that it's about two Dads. My daddy, the
rockstar-didn't-come-here-to-have-no-bad-time-radical-hemispherical-dad who
believed in me and was so proud of me and had such high hopes for me. I
could talk to him and feel understood. The one who I played tackle
football with in the front yard of our white trash doublewide trailer (I didn't
know it was a trailer until I was in my early 20s). He was the one who let
me drive the minivan on Sundays… the one who saddled up my horses and held my
hand always. Always reaching for my hand!!! And greeting me at the
door whenever I came home. So sweet and tender.

For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see
For all the joy you brought to my life
For all the wrong that you made right
For every dream you made come true
For all the love I found in you
I'll be forever thankful baby
You're the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You're the one who saw me through, through it all

But this song is also true of the Father who knew me before the foundations
of the world. The One who knit me together in my mother's womb. He
knows the number of hairs on my head and has more thoughts toward me than all
the grains of sand of every beach in the world!!! This Father loves me,
too. It took me years to accept His love. It took me years to see
him as a Father. But He is. And even though my Dad lived his life
and passed away… his words and laughter are there in my heart – only a memory
away. And the Father, my other Father, holds me still, with a perfect
love… one not stolen away by circumstances. But constant! Never
changing. Faithful and never forsaking. My times are in His
hands. Those tears I cry over my Daddy, he bottles them up. Those
tears that won't stop… he writes them in His book. My Father loves
me. LOVES me.

And... HE. WILL. NEVER. LEAVE. ME.

He is my Beginning and my End.

What's so amazing about my Father's love (earthly and heavenly) is that
they both reached for my hand. They both greet me when I come home.
They both believe in me and have hopes for me… and they understand me.

You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach
You stood by me and I stood tall
I had your love I had it all
I'm grateful for each day you gave me
Maybe I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because I was loved by you

I cry today and I'll probably cry tomorrow and the next day and prob'ly
on the 6th, (the day he actually died), and on the 9th when he was buried.
But then spring comes. New life. Celebrating his birthday on the
16th and then my sister, Kristy's, and her daughter Macy's. There are new
mercies every morning. And so here I am 11 years later, thankful for all
the tears. Because I was loved by a strong and gentle Dad, a funny and
thoughtful man, whose eyes always shone bright with his pleasure in me.
Thank you, Jesus, for the gift of being my Daddy's daughter. It's a
precious thing. And thank you, Father, for calling me your own, for I am
bereft without You!

You were always there for me
The tender wind that carried me
A light in the dark shining your love into my life
You've been my inspiration
Through the lies you were the truth
My world is a better place because of you

Through my tears today, he spoke to my heart, a verse in an obscure book of
the bible. A tiny verse hidden away…

"He will quiet you with His love.." Zephaniah
3:17

Oh, Jesus, thank you thank you thank you for this heartache and for the
healing that tears bring and for the love you rain down on me!

And to my family & friends, may you ever know that the Father also
loves You!