Bits of String

I am remiss at keeping up with posting to my blog. And recent events have made it even more difficult to find words to put into a post. Yes I know it sounds impossible that I would be at a loss for words, but the loss of my father has recently taken many of the words out of me. I have so much I want to say, but nothing seemed to do justice to what I really feel or how much respect I really have for my father. And so this post will be just bits of string. I am unable to tie it all together at this time, but perhaps others can make some sense of it.

And also perhaps, just perhaps, I will be able to make more sense later. But for now, I offer these bits of string.

My father, Robert Farley, passed away quite unexpectedly July 29, 2007. Even now I find it unfathomable that he is no longer sitting in "his" chair, reading a book or watching the television, or out and about with my mother somewhere. He had been in the hospital since the beginning of May but was "doing better each day". We all had expectation that he would be home by mid August. Well, at least I convinced myself of that based on the physical therapists' descriptions. Such was not meant to be.

Its funny how in hindsight we see things so differently. Should he have had the bypass surgery in the first place? Should he have allowed the lung biopsy? Should I have gone to see him once more when I had the opportunity? Did I ask him enough questions? Did I talk to him enough? Did I listen to him enough? Did he know really how much I loved him and respected him? Thank God my father accepted Christ a few months before his passing. Thank God I had him as a father at all.

My father was 76 and a cancer survivor for some 13-14 years. He was tough. He was a fighter. But in so many ways, he was a quiet man. How long had he known he was seriously ill before he told others? On the day before his passing, he had such a good day according to my mother. Did he know then? There is so much I don't know. So much I want to know. So much I don't want to know.

My son turned 18 a few weeks after my father's passing. While speaking with my mother, I created a mental list of well over 100 individuals I have known since childhood that have passed away. I suppose now I am in that age where my older relatives will cease to exist. I could easily expand that list to several hundred if I thought about all the people in the communities around where I grew up. Death is common to me now it seems.

When it comes to my own family, I have no living grandfathers or grandmothers. On my father's side, there is only his oldest brother remaining. On my mother's side, only my mother and her younger brother. There are other aunts and another uncle, widows and a widower of my parents' siblings. But my "older family" seems so tiny now, when once it seemed so full.

Like I said, Josh is 18 now. I have for 18 years both looked forward to and dreaded his coming to this age. I never knew if I did enough or did right by him to prepare him for life. He is a senior in high school and doing well. He is well adjusted and for the first time in over a decade, I can honestly say he is a happy person. For so long he was not happy. For so long he was subject to an environment and situations that seemed to drain him. Like he was living with a real-life "dementor" for so many years. For so long he was angry, depressed, and very much not happy. But honestly, he is a totally different person now. More responsible, more confident, and more mature. I am quite proud of my son.

For those that do not read Harry Potter, a "dementor" was a magical creature that would "suck away all the happiness in the world" from a person.

My daughter will turn 16 next week. Likewise I have both looked forward to and dreaded her coming to this age. Same caveats apply with the added issue of I really don't understand the female gender. But she and I have a relationship that is to be envied by other fathers. She entered into the environment of her parents' divorce and her mother leaving unexpectedly as just an unknowing 13 year old kid, barely able to cope with the emotion and drama. And yet she has come out of that situation a delightful and wonderful young lady, more confident and stronger. I am quite proud of my daughter.

And going on two years now, we all are part of a blended family. I have three more daughters, all of them wonderful and delightful. All of them loving daughters of which any man would be envious to claim as his. They too were left by a parent when their father walked out on their mother and them. They too know the heartache of having all the happiness in their world being sucked out when their father left. But they too know the joy of family once more. And all of us are crowded into a house that many would think too small, but we think is adequate. If nothing else, we are all close. It resembles chaos, but we call it living.

I regret that my younger ones, blended in as resplendently has they have been, will never know how awesome my father was. I only hope that the older kids and myself can instill in them the same pride of ancestry and the same admiration for a man that none could ever say was "spotless". In fact, in his day he was quite the rascal, and worse at times. But even in that, there are lessons to be learned. And in maturity with two adult sons of his own, he settled into his role and settled out of the role of rascal. He persevered from sin all the way through to redemption.

Perhaps we all need to learn that lesson of perseverance even when we know we have fallen.

Reading this over, it seems somewhat melancholy. But it was not meant as such. And to that end, allow me to tie at least a few of these strings together.

It was from the lessons I have learned from my family, from my parents, from living, and from friends and relatives dying, that I am who I am. Had these people all not lived and died, I would be different in ways I cannot tell. But because I have known them, I am the better for it.

And so I will endeavor to be the best father I can be and the best husband I can be. I know that in the past I made many mistakes, like my father before me. I also did many things right, like my father before me.

So dad, thanks to you I can be a good father and a good husband. I can do these things because you taught me how, even when you may have not know you were doing it.

And to those that know what this means: watch out for those coal trucks.



Copyright 2007, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)