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06/21/2009
Father's Day
I'm sorry; I'm just a bit goopy today. I'm missing my dad, like always. The last time I saw him was Father's Day weekend in 2007, so he's very much on my mind. (Nothing out of the ordinary, that visit, unless you find it sad and kind of freaky, as I do, that his children's gift to him that year was a Kevlar bulletproof vest. Yyyeeeeah. So much for Project Keep Dad Alive.)
My father loved his community and served it energetically. I'd known about some of his efforts, like his membership in the Sheriff's Auxiliary (hence the vest); others I found out about only later. Learning that he'd ridden with the Patriot Guard, a group of motorcyclists known for keeping Fred Phelps and his ilk at bay at the funerals of U.S. service members, made me cry. (So did the presence of those good men and women at his visitation and his funeral, standing silent in respect. God, did I cry as I thanked them.) I'm sorry I didn't know that before he died. That fact adds a dimension to my understanding of him that I didn't have while he was alive. Even now I feel like I'm still learning who he was two years after he died.
What I did know — was fortunate enough to know — while he lived was how much he loved us. I'd thought I knew it all along, but, hello, generational recapitulation, I now feel I didn't truly get it until I had kids of my own. I remember so well when I had that epiphany. I was sitting across from Charlie in the car of a Ferris wheel as we looked out across the fairgrounds a few summers ago. His face was utterly alight: incredulous, a little bit apprehensive at the rocking of the car, so bright and observant, alert and, I don't know, just alive. And I remembered doing exactly that with my dad, sitting stopped at the top of the wheel. I was always disappointed to feel the ride lurch back into motion. When I was a kid, that time at the top never lasted long enough. Sitting there with Charlie, I felt that way again for entirely different reasons. And so, I suddenly realized, had my dad. He watched me with the very same pride, affection, concern, amusement, wonder — he loved me the way I loved Charlie.
If I hadn't had the chance to feel it myself, I wouldn't have fully appreciated it. Last year at the fair, on the Ferris wheel again, I cried, understanding.
I am grateful, but also sad. Infertility takes so much from us, starting with children conceived and born easily, of course, but continuing down through trust in our bodies; social connectedness; a feeling of purpose; and, oh, pretty much everything else you'd expect. It can also put us at an impossible remove from our parents, the people who once knew us best. As a consequence — and others may be more perceptive, so I speak only for myself — it can keep us from knowing, on that visceral, experiential level, how much we ourselves were once loved.
Infertility did not, in the end, rob me of that precious knowledge. But I know what I might have missed, and how lucky I am that I didn't. Lucky to know how loved I was. And terribly sad to have lost it.
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I'm sorry for your loss. So nice to have such loving memories of your dad.
I am sorry for you loss. I, too, have lost a father and you have mirrored my own feelings. Thank you.
Sitting here with tears dripping down my face. My own dad has Alzheimer's. He lives with me and I am losing him daily by inches. I miss him horribly already.
You are so right about generational echoes. I never understood how much my parents loved me until my son was born. My dad used to tell me he loved me more than I could understand. I understand now...
Sorry for you loss, thank you for sharing.
This is my 8th Father's Day without my father. I share your pain. My father never met my kids. They're now old enough (4.5, 3)to start wondering why they only have one grandfather, but too young to really explain it to them. What a pang in my heart. It's tough to buy the father's day card from the kids for their other grandfather and not feel like they, and I, are missing someone and something.
And I wholeheartedly agree that infertility takes things from you that go beyond the obvious, many times for the better, sometimes no.
Wishing you a wonderful day celebrating your children's father.
Well you made me start off the day crying when all I wanted to do was come on the Internet and find my pancake recipe and instead got sucked into blogs. What an incredibly moving post.
My heart is with you today. I am so sorry about your father.
I can only imagine your sorrow and I am so sorry. Your father was a wonderful, amazing person. I'm thinking of you and sending my love.
What wonderful words...and oh how they made me cry. Of course, I'm someone who is also feeling quite goopy today.
I woke up today and immediately thought about all of my friend's who have lost their fathers and how in the Father's Days past they were feeling what I'm feeling today. I wish I had thought about that before and made a point to let each of them know I was thinking about them.
Today - I think about those friends, online and off.
Well said, as always.
Thinking of you on fathers' day.
I am sorry for your loss, and glad that you have such wonderful memories of your father. It sounds like he was a very good man.
what a beautiful post, Julie. i am so sorry about your dad, but how wonderful to have those memories, and still learn great things about him after his death.
my own father has been out of my life for many, many years - his choice - and has not met my child nor even my husband of almost 5 years. every father's day is tough on me, but, i am lucky enough to have a wonderful maternal grandfather still around, and a truly loving father-in-law, so i try and focus on that. it is also wonderful to me to see my husband as a father to our son - that is a really special gift that i feel lucky to have - especially when we struggled (only a little, comparatively speaking) to get that.
I just lost my Dad in January, and this is the first Father's Day without him. It's sad. In the past, it was always a pain to remember to buy the card and mail it in time. This year, I didn't have to remember. Ugh. I wish I could have had one more opportunity.
I lost my dad last April, so this is only my 2nd Father's Day without him, too. It hurts so much that infertility has not only robbed me and my husband of so much, but that it robbed my dad the chance to be a grandfather and my (maybe someday) children a chance to know the wonderful man he was.
You are ridiculously fortunate to have had such a great dad, and to have had the additional gift of finding out incredibly cool things about him after he died. I'm sorry that you and his grandkids lost him too early, because that is just plain unfair. The good ones should live to be 100 and die peacefully in their sleep.
Ben was 1 when my dad died, so he didn't know him. But my sister's kids knew him, and that was fraught. He was the alcoholic grandpa that upset their mom sometimes. My dad didn't have a tragic life, but it wasn't too happy either. Father's Day for me is much easier in the years since my dad died, because it's about my husband (a terrific and loving papa) and his dad (a total sweetheart of a grandpa), not about "what can I get my dad for Father's Day that isn't liquor or ammo?" I may sound like a heartless bitch but I'll bet those who have had similarly conflicted and difficult experiences with their dads can relate.
I am sorry for your loss, Julie. Your dad sounds like a wonderful man. It's awful that he isn't here.
He sounds like he was a lovely man.
I'm so sorry for your loss and thinking of you and everyone else who's missing their dads today and every day. Thanks for such a beautiful post.
I'm so sorry for your loss, Julie -- I'm lucky enough to have both my parents still (and at 40, still have a healthy, wonderful grandmother!). It's hard to imagine how I'll feel someday on Father's Day, hopefully in the distant future, when that is no longer true.
It's not the same, and it doesn't even begin to make up for the fact that he's not physically with you -- but he is with you still in a very real way, every time you look at your beautiful boys and think of him. I'm really glad you do that, bittersweet as it is. Hugs to you and your whole family.
Ah, and now I'm goopy right along with you. What a gift, to have such a wonderful father and to now be in such a position to keep enjoying and appreciating his love for you through your love for your son. Beautiful.
I imagine that, once we are (hopefully) grandparents, we will have a similar epiphany watching our children be parents and witnessing their realization of our deep love. Thanks for your post. I need to call my dad now, while I still can, and tell him how much I love him.
This post hit close to home for me...........yesterday would have been my father's 70th birthday.............he's been gone for 12 years. Father's Day is hard, but I know I'm lucky to have had the amazing, loving dad that I had. I'm sorry for your loss and I understand a lot of what you wrote today.
Beautiful post. Thank you.
Beautiful post. Last year, the day after father's day, we found out my dad had stage IV pancreatic cancer. He died less than a month later on July 13th. I know the pain of losing a father too, though I wish I didn't.
It is amazing how kids help you understand that love, isn't it? Our daughter is 3 and we have another on the way in August. Just tonight DD asked me if I "still" missed my dad. Yep, I still do.
Peace to you through the miles.
Thanks, once again, for sharing.
Julie, this cut me to the bone. But only because it is so true. Infertility has robbed me of all of what you mentioned, yes, but sometimes the most wretched part is that it took away the chance to carry on the biology of my wonderful father, who I lost unexpectedly and much too soon in 2001. The thing is, he wouldn't have cared about the genetics part -- he would have just wanted me to be happy and have a chance to be a parent, like he was. That's why we're adopting. I hope I'm half as good.
It's one of my biggest sorrows that my father and my daughter never got the chance to love each other. I so wanted that, for both of them.
I first read the post this morning, and have been trying to find the words ever since. Only to realize that, like with all things grief, there aren't any fancy ones.
I am sorry.
That's all I have, and, I think, all there is. I am sorry your dad is not with you today, and all the days. I am sorry he never got to meet Ben. I am sorry both boys are missing out on the pleasure of his company. I am so overwhelmingly grateful to him for having ridden with the Patriot Guard. The evil he was protecting people from showed up near here a couple of years ago. The only reason I do not go stupid with anger every time I think about that is that people like your dad prevented that evil from impacting the day that was already full of so much sorrow by standing between the church where the funeral took place and the evil, bodily blocking it. It likely shows me to be both cynical and sentimental at the same time, but the image of that guard that day is one of the most hopeful things I can think of, and it makes me tear up every time I think about it.
Julie, I don't know how you do it - you make me cry & smile at the same damn time. I'm so sorry for your loss, and I can't fathom how it rocks your world. But I sure am pleased to know that there are 2 young boys in your home who keep you and Paul on your toes - challenging you to relish the easy to enjoy moments, as well as the more trying times of parenting.
Thank you for taking the time to share your sorrow and your joy. I hope the sharing helps, if only a tiny bit.
xoxo
Hi Julie. I'm delurking for the first time to say that I know what you are going through. This is my first father's day without my dad - he passed on 1/2/09 - and I found it especially difficult.
Thank you for writing this.
Yes, it's sad and weird how a holiday that was once a holiday isn't any longer. It was a pain to find the cards and stay up late to call (time differences) but I really miss them now that I don't do it. It's been almost four years and I still can't believe it sometimes. I look like him and I walk like him, though, so in some ways he's still here. Just not with me anymore.
Thinking of you and your family on this anniversary
I feel the same way about how you don't really understand how much your parents love you until you have children. And I have a great relationship with my parents, and never doubted that they loved me...you truly just don't understand the depth of that until you love your own children the same way.
Great post.
I love my father as the stars - he's a bright shining example and a happy twinkling in my heart. ~Adabella Radici
I miss my father too...
I am sorry that yesterday was tough for you. I remember when you blogged about that horrible, horrible day. I wish I could tell you that grief would eventually end....but, yeah, not so much.
I sincerely cannot believe it has been two years, Julie. I cannot imagine your grief intermingled with your joys of Charlie and Ben and simply the magnitude of emotions you have experienced over the last few years. I miss hearing from you as often as we used to, but I think of you there in your life with your moments of contentment, your tasks of tedium, your bursts of delight, your struggles with sadness and longing, your belly full at night with your family around you, your sparks of laughter...and I just like knowing you're out there. I think we all feel less alone and a little more hopeful overall when we think of someone who is both as extraordinary and normal as you are just going about it like everybody else.
Thanks for sharing your father with us, Julie. I'm out here too.
Jennifer in NC
I have a close friend who lost her father at the age of 17. Just this year she found out some less than wonderful things about him and it was really hard for her. She always had this idea of who her father was and to have it shattered like that was incredibly difficult for her. I think we all think of our parents differently when we are kids and even when we are younger adults. When you get a little perspective on adulthood is when you can really appreciate the decisions they did or didn't make. I know it's hard, but smile and remember what a great dad you have.
I was here when you told us the story, and it never stops moving me. I had just 9 father's days with and 29 without. I daresay it never stops sucking. I'm glad your father's life keeps on giving, I believe most of them do, if we let them.
What a wonderful man, and what a wonderful legacy he has in his daughter and grandchildren. And I had no idea the Patriot Guard existed; that brightened my day.
Hi Julie. I typically don't comment on blogs, as I use them as more of an informational source, however I felt inclined to comment on your Fathers Day post. I am 29 and lost my father two weeks ago - was a heart attack. I can identify with how you feel more then I can express in words. I spent Fathers Day watching funny movies with my hubby and kids. I also stumbled across a hilarious You Tube video that really cheered me up. This is pregancy humor at its finest. I'm so glad I found it-all moms should get a kick out of this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iURGJpoEcn0
Hi Julie. I typically don't comment on blogs, as I use them as more of an informational source, however I felt inclined to comment on your Fathers Day post. I am 29 and lost my father two weeks ago - was a heart attack. I can identify with how you feel more then I can express in words. I spent Fathers Day watching funny movies with my hubby and kids. I also stumbled across a hilarious You Tube video that really cheered me up. This is pregancy humor at its finest. I'm so glad I found it-all moms should get a kick out of this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iURGJpoEcn0
I never had a good dad (long story involving neglect and abuse), but I am always glad to hear that others have been far more fortunate.
I remember your blog entry about his accident--I'm just so sorry that you lost such a wonderful father. He sounds like an exceptional person--the Patriot Guard paragraph absolutely moved me to tears. People like that never really leave us, but enrich us with a legacy of love.
So beautiful. Thanks for writing this.
-A fellow Vermont mama.
You made me cry. And, yes, on the infertility thing. I have come to be reading some living-without-children-after-infertility blogs, like Pamela Jeanne's, and yes, of course. It is possible to have a wonderful full life without the children one wanted. And yet, and yet. There is so much I didn't "get" until I had the privilege of becoming a mom. I struggle with how to get my head around this.
(Ironically, as I type this I'm home sick with the flu feeling like hell and dreading the moment my 2 y.o. returns from childcare, just in case anyone needed a little more ambivalence in my comment)
Having experienced a loss like yours, it is so very encouraging to know that I will (God-willing) one day experience in my own child the kind of love my father felt for me. Thank you for sharing.
This was my first Father's Day as a father--as such, it was a great day. It was also the third Father's Day since I lost my own father, and that fact added some bittersweet to the mix. Thanks for chronicling the depth and complexity of the loss of a beloved parent. It made me think of how every time I hold one of my sons in a certain way, I'm reminded of a photograph of my father holding me as an infant in that same way, and somehow there's a connection made; not one that he can share, but somehow I can.
Having children has truly opened my heart to what love is. Your post has made me ache to know what having a good father is like. I will never know. Your father sounds like a truly remarkable man, and a wonderful father. You are truly blessed. As hard as it was to overcome infertility, overcoming having an abusive parent has made far more of an impact on my life, and my husband as well. The shadows of my father and my father in law hang over us still.
I had no idea that people were protesting at military funerals. That is such an un Christian thing to do it boggles my mind. It has left me with a terrible feeling that I can't shake. It is a comfort that there are good people, like your dad, riding to protect those families...but still...Just awful :( Well, my dad was a lot of things, but at least he wasn't a religious, homophobic nut job. That's something, anyway.
Dear Julie and friends,
I am a long time lurker and occasional poster and I am desperately in need of some perspective. This relates to some degree to Julie's post about fathers and how their true importance comes to us later, if at all. I'll try to make an extremely long, complicated story short(er). My father was an abusive alocoholic sometimes and an amazing man, by all accounts, during others. He committed suicide when I was seven, the day after my mom told him she couldn't live with him anymore. Needless to say, my family was pretty severely damaged by this. My older sister always blamed my Mom, and my brother sadly inherited his father's alcoholism. I always thought my dad had actually done right by us by removing his violent influence from our lives until I got older and was saddened beyond belief by what I'd missed in my missing father. We lost our beloved Mom 2 years ago to terminal brain cancer (glioblastoma), but not before I was able to give her a grandaughter ( after 5 years of infertility treatment). My mom's death and the birth of my daughter had a miraculous effect on my sibs and I. We have become extremely close and my sister and brother have both worked with therapists to overcome their troubles. Alot of this has had to do with pulling together the remnants of our small family and forgiving and forgetting. My sibs adore my daughter and after much thought, my husband and I had a second daughter (with help again) last September which thrilled everyone. We have all spent alot of time going over our family legacy and talking about how much we all mean to each other. One of the reasons we wanted a second child was so that we knew the one would have a sib to be with during difficult times.
So... everything has been going well (other than that we lost our house, savings and jobs and are only now barely back on or feet) until this week when I discovered that, at 45 years old, I am accidentally pregnant again. After years of infertility- I cannot believe I got pregnant by accident and I am freaking out about what to do. I know that there is no way we can make it financially with a 3rd child, but I have this gut wrenching sense that my children are my whole family's children and I can't get my mind around terminating a baby that could be a sib to my daughters, the way my sibs have been for me. I feel the presence of my Mom and Dad these days like never before and keep feeling that, were it not for the horrible financial situation we are in, this wouldn't even be a question. We would have the baby. The reality is that we are hand to mouth every month and my sibs have been helping support us. They don't have anything left to give. My brother's house was just taken by the bank and my sister is down to a part time job. I have these delusions that "everything will work out", but there is just no way I can figure out how to make that happen.
To add to all of this, my two close friends ( in their forties) have been trying to get pregnant for over a year and I have this terrible feeling that a baby in the womb ( even if it's my old womb) is such a prize that I can't just throw it away. After 7 years of infertility it is even hard to think about intentionally giving up a pregnancy. I should be clear, I am entirely pro-choice and had an abortion at 16 that I've never regretted, but now-with two daughters, sibs who will care about what I do as much as I do, and the legacy of a sad family history to overcome- I just don't know what to do.
I would be so happy to have some feedback from all of you. I can't really talk to anyone about this who hasn't suffered infertility.
Anyway- sorry to intrude on this post, but... it seemed somehow relevant..
Julie, I am beyond happy to have my 2 children (via IVF). Sadly, they lost their last grandparent last September. I felt that all of the delays caused by infertility robbed them of the ability to really know their grandparents and to benefit from that extended family.
Interestingly, my 3-year-old said to me the other day, "Mom, we have a big family, don't we?" I was shocked; our family is small and scattered. He mentioned the aunts and uncles who live far, the friends nearby, and the Afghan refugees we help. It's not the same as having my parents around, but I'm glad he feels that he's part of a big circle of people who love him and whom he loves.
Yvonne, I am moved by your post and your predicament. I do feel for anyone who feels for whatever reason that she should perhaps end a wanted pregnancy. This economy is brutal and harming so many families. Only you and your husband can make the decision that's right for you. Perhaps, being 45 (I'm 42 myself), you should consider early testing (ultrasound to check neural tube, blood test, and/or CVS, like early amnio) to be sure everything is OK. I'm sure it's crossed your mind that, being 45, there are risks.
I think after having spent years trying to get pregnant, it would be tremendously hard, if not impossible, for me to end a pregnancy, unless there were serious health considerations. But that's just me.
You're in my prayers.
And it can go the opposite way too. Having had a disgustingly abusive childhood, looking upon the face of my beautiful, innocent. so very much alive boy, I weep at the life I could have had. I ache so very much with love for this little boy whose mom would move the very mountains for him. Infertility only trebled my commitment to him.
My parents simply never knew. How sad that they died without that knowledge
julie, thank you for this post. i especially appreciated and loved the part at the end about charlie and the ferris wheel. we have a little boy about the same age as ben. i found your blog during my first round of IVF, which happened to be days after your dad died, and i read the whole thing in like 2 days. it was filled with such perspective and insight and humor and hope (still is). anyway, now have to comment to both of you--
julie and yvonne--
both the post (especially the part about charlie) and yvonne's situation remind me of a passage from one of my favorite books, gilead, by marilynn robinson. i am quoting it below, because i love it. (in a nutshell, the book is written from the perspective of an old man--a minister--who had a child unexpectedly very late in life, and is writing basically a memoir so that his young son will know his father, since the father anticipates dying before his son is grown.)
"I'd never have believed I'd see a wife of mine doting on a child of mine. It still amazes me every time I think of it. I'm writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you've done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle to me. You may not remember me very well at all and it may seem to you to be no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you."
i, too, am completely pro-choice. that said, i think if you want this baby, it can happen. i am in NO WAY trying to minimize the seriousness of your concerns and reservations, which are huge, but at the same time, there are people who have babies every day who have even less (no home, no family, no job skills) and i think that if you want this child and know you will love this child, that is permanent. the money situation can change, can improve (even if not overnight). and maybe this really hard stretch will one day be only a blip in the story your kids share with each other about their childhoods. (think of all the big families during the depression...my grandma was the second of 7 born in 1929, and now she says "it was hard but we got through it" and she still lives in the same small town as 4 of her siblings. they are really close, see each other often, and are a HUGE part of each other's world.) even if the financial situation takes a long time to turn around, your kids will very likely have each other for much, much longer. of course, you have two now, so this is true no matter what you decide to do, but i am just trying to point out that even REALLY REALLY hard situations (as I agree yours is) are usually temporary, whereas the love you have and help create with and for and about a child is, i believe, truly infinite. also, i too had an abortion at 19, which i do not regret. but at least for me, i think that an abortion at that age, before i wanted kids, before going through infertility, before having a baby myself, was a TOTALLY different decision emotionally. so--that is my two cents, and that said, i would completely understand and support any choice you made, because it is a really hard situation. you and your family will be in my thoughts...