Good Grief Part Six: The Final Chapter Saying Goodbye to My Dad

A couple of years ago I picked up a birthday card for my dad. It was a very emotional one and before his birthday came, I misplaced it. I don't think that it was by accident. I made him another card and wrote in it like I always did and gave that one to him instead when we had dinner with them. I would always make dinner and have a cake for him and my stepmom. As they got older and had moved in with my stepsister, her daughter, we started combining their birthdays. They were only a month apart so it was easier to have them together. It was more and more difficult for them to get out of the house, into vehicles, walkers stowed, etc.

The card that I didn't give him, I ran across and set it out so that I could give it to him on his next birthday. It was of a little girl looking up at her daddy. They were dancing. She had a little party dress on and the look on her face was one of adoration. You didn't see the father's face, you could just see that he was holding her hands as if they were dancing. The caption inside said, "Little girls love their Daddies even when they are all grown up."

It was lying on the counter in my kitchen. Every time that I looked at it I got choked up. I had never given it to him. I almost took it with me to the nursing home, but didn't. It made it all too permanent. It was a birthday card after all.

He would say every year, "If I live through one more tomata pickin, I will be such and such years old." He made it through 87 tomata pickins.

We were getting ready for the funeral on Saturday morning. I had ironed our clothes for the funeral. My son and husband were going to be pallbearers. I took extra pains to iron their clothes. I sat down at the dining room table and took the card that I had saved for my dad's birthday and tore out the birthday message. I started to pour my heart out in words in the card. Tears were streaming down my face. I was sitting all by myself letting it all out.

My son came out not paying attention to what I was doing. I had my head down so he didn't see how I was feeling. He asked me where his pants were for the funeral. He is 21 years old. I looked up at him and he saw my pain. I stood up and he held me as I sobbed. He is my heart child. He is the best of his father and me. He soothed me with words and love. He told me what a good Mama I am. He told me how sorry that he was for my loss. He made it safe for me to feel and grieve. He cried with me and told me how much that he loved me. He told me how sorry that he was for all the pain that my biological family had caused me. He told me how lucky that he was to have me as his Mama.

It still amazes me how you can have such mixed emotions. I was feeling such gut-wrenching grief, and yet such overwhelming gratitude and love for my son, husband, and for the father that I had but now had lost to death.

Before the funeral, I took the card in and gave it to my stepmom. I told her that I wanted to put it in with my father. She read it and cried. I don't even remember what all that I wrote in it, but I told him how glad that I was that he found my stepmom and how grateful I was to her and how that she took care of him. I poured my heart out to him. She wanted me to let her daughter read it. It was private, but I was honored that they wanted to read it. My brother-in-law, who loved him like a son, couldn't look at me. He was choked with emotion. When he was done reading the card, I hugged him and told him that I knew how hard it was on them to take care of my dad and stepmom, but that he loved them, and that he loved John like a son.

I put that card in with my dad, between his folded hands. When I said goodbye to him, one final time, I kissed my finger and touched it to his nose, one final time. Goodbye Dad, I love you and I always will. We will meet again on the other side.