Daddy's Girl

So the circle of life continues.

The man partly responsible for bringing me into this world, is by all accounts about to leave it.

I don’t know this for a fact, as he left my world some 30-odd years ago, when I was about the same age my daughter is.

But I’m told that the same disease my mother was battling at the time he left, is attacking my father now.

See, another circle.

To be honest, I’m not sure what I’m expected to feel about it.

Sure, I feel bad that Cancer has reared its ugly head again- I don’t wish it on anyone.

Yes I am sorry that someone is suffering, with no brilliant prognosis this time.

True, there is concern that people dear to me are upset about it.

Of course I should be sad that someone I know is in pain.

But the whole what-am-I-going-to-do-my-dad-is-dying thing, well I just can’t come at.

Because - truth be told - I lost my father a long time ago; I’ve done my grieving already, aged 8.

A lady I know recently buried her dad with whom she had a…shall we say challenging relationship. Without breaching her privacy or her pain, it was a similar story: he left, didn’t have a lot to do with them, and time ran out before the break was properly healed.

Yet she had the bravery, and inner beauty, to speak a Eulogy for him. She revisited the good times and the bad, and bid him farewell the best way she could: with honesty and humour.

I wish I could say the same thing for the man I know as father.

If I do get to talk with him before he goes, I might say thank you for having me. After all, without his input I wouldn’t be here now.  And I might smile at a cherished memory or two that survived the fallout that befell our family. I would even wish him well for the next part of his journey.  But I cannot tell him I love him. (Nor do I loathe him, just for the record.)

And hopefully one day I can find the words to explain to my children why they never met their grandfather, for all his faults.

So all I can do is this: support my family as they support him, and pray that when the circle of life rolls around again, there is no break in the bond between my own offspring and me.

Daddy’s Little Girl (©1986)

daddy, aren’t i your little girl? aren’t i your ‘supa-kid’?

well, then, why did you leave me here, wondering what i did?

your clothes are gone, your cupboard’s bare, not much is left behind.

your crucifix stays on our wall, one thing left to remind.

please daddy, won’t you come back home? we all miss you so much.

my friends still have their daddies here- a real daddy to touch.

but daddy’s gone, he left me here, he didn’t want his child.

so now it’s just the 4 of us, one less reason to smile.

my daddy’s gone away, you see, he doesn’t really care.

‘cause when i cry his name at night i know he’s never there.

but daddy, i’ll grow up someday, i hope with no regrets-

but when you leave your little girl

the pain’s hard to forget.

Jx

©2011

Angel's Wings

There’s a 12 year old girl on the other side of the world waiting for God to take her home.

I’ve never met her- or her mother for that matter- but my heart is breaking for them both.

As a parent, you never expect to outlive your children. It’s just not the way it’s supposed to be.

And as a mother, you simply never expect there to come a time when your child decides it’s time to stop fighting, and asks you let her go.

But as I write this, that’s exactly what’s happening in a home and a hospital at the opposite end of the earth to where I sit.

You know, I can feel their sorrow from here.

Miss M is 12. She has been in pain her entire life. She was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta and Cerebral Palsy. She also has Juvenile Arthritis (a disease we know only too well and the reason I ‘know’ this family) along with the Uveitis that can come with it. Miss M has also suffered Primary Immune Deficiency and Disseminated Histoplasmosis, Diabetes and Behçet's Disease. Plus other things too horrible to imagine.

If there was a lottery for drawing diseases, this little girl had the winning ticket.

She has had too many broken bones and countless operations, tried more medications than most of us combined, and spent too much time at her home away from home- the children’s hospital.

Now she wants to go to her ultimate home in Heaven.

Not many adults I know could take what this young lady has, and make the decision she has.

Practically no one could do it with the same grace and maturity.

And it is a decision I would wish for no child to have to make, nor for any parent to have to accept.

But after too many days of terrible pain, Miss M has asked the doctors to stop her treatment, and let her go.

So now we are taking what time we have to say goodbye to an angel, and wish her well as she finally gets her wings.

It’s often said that funerals are for the living. The departed don’t know what kind of fuss is being made about them, it’s more relief for the grief for the ones who are left behind.

It’s also been said that sometimes the ones we love the most feel they need permission to leave us, they feel they are being selfish by wanting to be free of the pain and find some promised peace.

I know when my much-loved Nana was close to her time (after a very-well lived nearly 94 years, mind you) and when our beloved Aunts were battling cancer, the family felt we needed to say it was ok for them to stop fighting; while we would certainly be sad to see them go, it was worse to see them suffer. Oddly enough (or perhaps not, depending on what you believe) once we said our goodbyes and thanked them for being part of our lives, each one went quickly and peacefully. Still cried our eyes out at the funerals, but our hearts weren’t quite so heavy knowing that they didn’t hurt any more.

And 10 years after a favourite cousin was killed, I know another Aunt still suffers for having to bury her only son, much too young at 27. I sure miss Mick still.

I can only guess how the family feels of this brave little girl who has asked to be set free.

So now we wait for word that another little angel has taken flight, and instead try to imagine how happy she will be to finally be free from the pain that has plagued her earthly existence. To think of her soaring high and happy as she watches over her family while she waits for them to join her.

In the meantime, I am hugging my kids a little tighter, and a whole lot more often than is usually possible in the day-to-day scheme of things. And I’m making the time to pause what I’m doing whenever they want me, no matter how important all that other stuff can seem.

Heaven forbid I ever have to say goodbye to them.

Jx
©2010