In the End...

As a widow of a man who killed himself, I am painfully aware of suicide. Today is National Suicide Awareness Day. I’m aware...

I’m aware of the lonely nights where all I wait for is to hear the door squeaking open as he tries to sneak in after his shift...

I’m aware that I cannot walk down the beer aisle without glancing at the Blue Moon and fighting back the sinking feeling in my chest...

I’m aware at the days where I am so exhausted that I would like nothing more than my husband to be home so that I could hand the kids or dinner or laundry off to him...

I’m aware that my house and my yard are disasters because I am only one person and I cannot keep up with everything...

I’m aware that I have one daughter who is angry and doesn’t want anything to do with his memory and another who is crushingly sad that she doesn’t have a daddy and is the only one in her class that doesn’t have one...

I’m aware that I wasn’t aware of what was going on in my own household in the months leading up to his suicide...

I’m aware that I blame myself for a lot of things that happened and still have a hard time letting go of my guilt...

I’m aware that September and October get really hard to breathe and I fight to walk through those calendar turns every year, even though it’ll be eight years next month...

I’m aware that he will miss so many events in our lives and that my heart fractures if only for a second with each milestone we check off the list that he wasn’t here for...

I’m aware that I lie in bed at night, silently sobbing because the dream for our lives has been shattered and sometimes the pain in my soul is overwhelming...

I’m aware that I’m still paying for his choices, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially...

I’m aware that I’m alone and lonely and wish I had a partner, but that I want nothing to do with relationships or men or marriage...

I’m so so painfully aware of suicide. And I wish that I wasn’t. I wish no one was aware of it. But, we have got to do better! We have got to talk about suicide and mental illness and PTSD and loneliness and anxiety and depression. But we have also got to talk about God. And prayer. And faith. And loving each other. And being kind and understanding and supporting each other. We do need to increase awareness. We need to be aware of the risk factors and the signs and symptoms. We need to be aware of programs that are designed to help. We need to be aware of counselors and therapists and mental health providers. We do need to increase awareness. We need to be aware of the pain and the aftermath of suicide and the gaping hole it leaves in families. 

1 Corinthians 13:13 says this: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love. We all need love. And we all need to know that God loves us. Even when the whole world has turned their backs on us, we can still know and be confident that God loves us. The greatest single life-changing force is love. Please be aware of those around you that need love! Share love! Let’s love people with everything we’ve got so that the cycle is broken and suicide is no more. 

In the end, we all need love. And in the end we all need God. We have the power to end suicide. We have the power to increase awareness. Let’s turn a single day of awareness in to lifetime of love and compassion and understanding. We don’t need to carry things on our own. In the end...

I’ll Fly Away...

Our whole lives we are taught to run away from danger. Our parents teach us about stranger danger from an early age. They tell us if someone we don’t know tries to get us into their car, or give us candy, or lure us away that we are to scream and run. In schools we practice locking down and running away from intruders. We are to put as much distance between us and the bad guy that we safely can. Run away. Get away. One large portion of the adrenal mechanism that we are created with is flight. Running away in moments of life-threatening danger. Run! Get away! 

Often in this journey that I am on, I have wanted to run away. To get in my car and leave. Drive for hours. Start over. Don’t tell anyone where I’m going and just begin again. I don’t. Well, I don’t anymore. There were some points in my journey that it just got to be too much and I did “run away.” One time I went to the office of the school where I worked and told them I needed a half day of sick leave. I needed to go home and I wasn’t feeling well. But I really just needed to run away. To get away. To get in my car and go sit on a beach for a few hours and just forget the world. 

We all run away in our own way. Brian used to drive to SeaTac and sit and watch the planes taking off and landing. This thought occurred to me while I was at one of my favorite “run away” methods - in the middle of the Zac Brown Band concert with my friend. Music is one of my run aways. And in the middle of the concert time froze for just a second as I watched the airplanes flying over the top of Safeco Field one after another. For one moment my husband’s “flight plan” intersected with my “flight plan” and time stood still. Tears filled my eyes as I remembered him in his moments in the middle of mine. We all need to just run away. Get away. The pressure of dealing with it all can be so crushing. It’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to see the path. It’s tough to find the message in the mess. So we run away. Whether it be in music. Or movies. Or watching airplanes. Or sports. Or diving. Whatever our method is for hiding from it all when it all gets to be too much. 

Except my husband couldn’t find solace in the airplanes anymore. His running away got to the point where the only relief he saw was in suicide. Exiting this world became his plan. Leaving the wife and the children that were his family and his world was the only option. The planes weren’t enough. Why on earth weren’t the planes enough? 

Well, they should have never been enough. Hope has to be built on more than airplanes or music or movies. Those things are good temporary escapes from the responsibilities and emotions of life. But they are not enough to pull us up and out of the yuck. There’s only one thing that offers permanent hope, a permanent fix, a permanent solution to the pain or sadness or grief or chaos that we find ourselves in. We have to be anchored to our Creator. To God. To the one who knows us inside and out. Deuteronomy 31:8 says “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

Read that again. The first part especially. “It is the Lord who goes BEFORE you.” He’s there, waiting. Any situation you may find yourself in, He will be right there from the very beginning. Ready to catch you when you fall. Ready to wipe your tears. Ready to pick you up and dust you off and set you on the right path again. He will never leave us or forsake us. In our darkest hours, on the darkest path, He is right there in front of us, simply waiting for us to finally admit we can’t run away, we can’t do it alone, and we need to take His hand and walk through it all. 

September is National Suicide Prevention Month. I am painfully aware of the need for awareness to be brought to this topic. There isn’t a day, isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t sink back to 2010 and think about Brian. The increasing absences. The frequent visits to the airport. He was running away. Trying to find the solace in his airplanes. When that didn’t work, instead of turning to God and crying out for help, he chose to slip into a forever sleep. My heart breaks when I think about Brian, and the countless others who couldn’t run away far enough from their pain. There’s a fine line, I think, between running away for a while and running away forever. We need conversations around suicide. We need to talk about it. We need to be willing to speak with a friend or a family member or a coworker and let them know that you care, that there is help, that you are there to listen when the running away doesn’t work. And the other side of that coin too! We need to find a person, a friend, a prayer partner, to turn to when running away stops working and the darkness seems to be taking over. 

So, stop running away and instead choose to run into Heavenly Father’s open arms. He’s ahead of you, waiting in the mess, patient in the trials, pausing to scoop you up, hold you close, and carry you back to where you belong. So, I’ll run away to my concerts, or run away to the beach, but I always know that when I get there, my God is waiting and watching, filling me with His grace and mercy. He will never leave me nor forsake me, and I hope each and every one of you accepts this truth for yourselves too. 

Stand By You...

Revelation 21:4 - “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Tahlequah, or J35 as she is known to researchers, has released her baby into the deep. This heart-breaking story has been in the headlines of Pacific Northwest papers and news channels and Facebook feeds for 17 days. The killer whale named Tahlequah birthed her baby 17 days ago. The baby lived for only a brief time before succumbing to death. Her momma carried her, pushed her, through the ocean for 17 days at the expense of her own health. The debates have ensued with a lot of theories from people about animal behavior. Some say that she didn’t realize her baby was deceased. Others say that there must be something wrong with the whale, that it must be intellectually or cognitively impaired to be carrying her dead baby for so many days. And others theorize that she is making a statement about the pollution and the people that have ruined their environment and this was her own protest. 

As I’ve watched the news and watched this poor whale pushing her baby to the surface with her snout, I see pain. I see gut-wrenching sadness. I see grief. 

I haven’t lost a child. Many would say that I have no authority to speak on the grief of losing a child. And they would be correct. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child. But I do know what it’s like to grieve. I do know what it’s like to have people say that I should be over that already. Why am I still sad after all these years? There must be something wrong with me. I’m just looking for sympathy. In my eyes seventeen days is only the beginning for this momma whale. Just because she let go of her baby’s body doesn’t mean she has let go of her sadness, her pain, her kicked in the gut sobs. It’s just the beginning of her grief journey. 

Death can be consuming. Overwhelming. When Brian killed himself my head immediately started swimming. They hadn’t even found his body yet and my grief was starting. There’s panic and sadness. Fight or flight kicks in and in my case stayed on for a long time, and still rears it’s head from time to time. There’s the feeling like your heart is going to explode. Loneliness. Anger. Helplessness. Panic. Depression. Worry. Lack of sleep.  Feeling like you’ve been kicked in the gut.  Feeling sick and tired. Grief is hard, even when you’re not pushing around a 300 pound baby. 

One remarkable piece of Tahlequah’s grief journey was watching her pod respond. They gave her space to grieve but also stayed silently near her for when she needed them. They grieved with her. They fed her. They helped when they could. Her pod stepped in the help carry her burden for her and with her. Just like humans. My pod, my people, rallied around me. They watched my kids. They let me cry and scream and get mad. They helped make phone calls and sort paperwork. They walked me through things I had never thought I would have to do. They fed me. They stayed at a distance if needed but were right there if I needed them closer. My pod saved my life, just as that killer whale pod supported and surrounded Tahlequah in her moments of raw grief. 

Being someone who has been through the grief journey, my hope and prayer is that I can use my process for good. Either through these blog posts that I write, or through love and support of people in their grief journeys. My heart aches for everyone that I know that is going through this process. The feelings that I had, and still have, run rampant when I find out someone has lost a loved one. The grief journey is something that you share with others whether you want to or not. My heart aches when people lose someone important and oftentimes, it rips a little bit of my scab right off and starts the wound oozing all over again. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve lost a parent or a sibling, a child or a spouse, a grandparent or a friend, grief is hard. There is no sliding scale that determines who has a harder road. There’s no right or wrong amount of time to grieve. There’s no rules about when grief is over because honestly, it’s not over. There will always be a piece of you that is gone, that is missing. A piece that will never feel whole. The sadness gets easier and the waves get smaller. But sometimes they’re big and giant just like it first happened. It’s not a curve. It’s not a circle. It’s not a linear path through the stages. It’s a roller coaster and there’s no shame in being sad. There isn’t anything wrong with you if you grieve longer than someone else who went through a loss. There’s also  nothing wrong with you if you’re done with grief quicker than others. We all have our own timeline, our own pace that we go through. 

Seventeen days. That momma carried her grief physically for seventeen days. I have carried my grief mentally and emotionally for going on eight years. There is no right or wrong. The only recommendation that I have is to invite God into your grief. Let Him walk with you. Let Him carry you on the days that you can’t make it. Let Him comfort and console you.  And let Him lead you to the people in your pod. I have been blessed with the most amazing people on my journey. Friends and family, coworkers and neighbors, church family and even strangers. My pod has kept me alive, and kept the memory of Brian and others that I have lost on this journey afloat. Who’s in your pod? Let them swim the waves with you and help you through it. We all have burdens and struggles. We all have things that we are carrying that no one may even know about. But with Father God in our hearts and our pod by our side, we can walk this grief journey towards healing and recovery. We never forget our loved one. We carry them in our hearts forever. And there will be moments we don’t think we can move forward, but just remember the verse for Revelations that I posted at the beginning of this post: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He will wipe away our tears. Doesn’t say in seventeen days. Doesn’t say in eight years. It just says He will wipe away our tears...EVERY time we cry them. Our Heavenly Father is with us in our grief and our pain. It hurts Him to see us hurting. He is there to walk us through, to dry our tears, and to heal our hearts a little piece at a time. 

And just as Tahlequah’s pod was there for her, I’m going to stand by you if you need me also. My grief and my journey cannot end here. Father God has a purpose for my pain, a message in my mess, and I’m going to stand by you, whether you’re ready in seventeen days or eight years. I’m going to stand by you...

Everything has Changed...

Twelve years seems like a lifetime ago. Each passing year the memories get a little bit fuzzier. The hurt is still there when I wake up and realize what the date is. Twelve years ago I was in a nail salon and hair salon with my best friends. We were getting pretty for the day to come. I remember the happiness. And anxious pit in my stomach. Wondering what he would think of my dress. Hoping Pastor Pulse wouldn’t get too embarrassing with the sermon. I was excited for my friends and family to celebrate. The day had finally come. I was getting married. 

As we walked through that day I remember taking a lot of pauses to just stop and take it all in. Little moments throughout the whole day happened and I would stop, close my eyes, and be deliberate about that second in time, taking a little snapshot at that very second. It was a magical day. I was so happy. 

As I lay across my bed and ponder those moments twelve years ago the moments run through my mind. I see my sister and Miranda and Rachel and we’re laughing as we eat bagels and drink mimosas. And then the image slowly crumbles away, being cleared as if sand in a desert wind. I see my daddy waiting at the entrance of the church as I link my arm through his. His voice cracks as he tries to tell me how beautiful I look. And that image is erased clean, one swipe across a chalkboard. I see my soon-to-be husband standing up front in a crowd full of our people. He smiles and then disappears as if a mirage in the Sahara. Little moments, slowly crumbling away as I age and the years like into each other as time marches on. 

But the pain and sadness and grief. That I remember. And there are little moments that rose to the surface and I fight back tears throughout the day.  Kneeling at the communion rail, watching Pastor Brynestad bless my beautiful little girls and telling them they are saints in God’s kingdom and tears well in my eyes. Standing in the parking lot of church with my parents talking about where I’d like the go for breakfast to celebrate our “Family-versary”, the day we became the Duncans and I bawl like a baby no knowing what I want or where we should go. Laying on my bed because all I want to do in that moment is sleep and cry and forget that he’s not here, he won’t be coming in the door with roses and kisses and hugs. Sitting on the deck later talking about brunch, and tears finding their way back as I think of all he misses, not just today, but every day. 

Everything is different. Everything has changed. And not all of that change is bad! I firmly believe that most of the changes we have gone through, although painful, have been good changes. I have an amazing little family. We are strong and resilient and we have been placed on this path as God’s children, God’s army. We have been tasked with using our troubles for His good. He always makes good out of all of the bad that happens. There’s always a message in the messes. Sometimes they take a really long time to show up. But they’re there. The diamonds in the rough. The good out of the bad. He puts us on these paths and asks us to walk through horrible, terrible things sometimes. But the good that shines through outweighs the bad. 

Everything has changed. Just as God has promised! In Isaiah 14:9 it says “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” A new thing. Amelia and Emerson and me? We are new things that God is doing! He is walking with us through our moments of sadness and heartache and grief. He is making us new. He is making our situation new. He is using the hard moments to mold and shape and change us into who we are in Father God. 

Everything has changed. But God never does! He is constant and steady and there for us always! He is making us new. He is walking with us as we grow and change and become more like Him each and every day in our walk. And in the moments like today, where we just can’t walk another step, He carries us. He catches our tears. He reminds us of His plan and His grace and His mercy. And He is just there to listen to us vent, to catch our tears, to hold us and be with us and remind us who we are in Him. 

So, as I think about the beginning of my family, the start of the Brian Duncan family back on August 5th, 2006, I thank my God for starting that journey for me, for us. I am grateful that Brian and I shared in that day, and started the union that was to be our family. I’m thankful I was gifted with my amazing girls. And I am grateful for the four years we got to be a family together. Brian wasn’t in the plan for our family. I may never understand why that part of the plan had to end the way it did. It makes my chest hurt and makes it hard to breathe when I think about him not being here anymore, still all these years later. And days like today I cannot control the tears and the pit in my stomach feeling. But tomorrow is a new day! God is making all things new. And even this piece of my grief will be made new. It hurts tonight. And I just want to cry and go to bed. But I will pray. And talk it out. And write a blog post. And turn to my Heavenly Father for comfort for He knows that plans he has for the Duncan family. And I am thankful to be walking on the path He has planned. 

Everything has changed. And yet, I am so very blessed...

Dancing in the Dark...

Isaiah 9:2 The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.

During our pastor’s sermon yesterday at church, he talked about the high of the highs and the low of the lows. He talked about how you can reach a peak of euphoria and excitement one day and in the next moment be bottoming out, exhausted and plunging into the darkness. He spoke of God’s plan to put us into these dark situations so that we may learn to rely and trust and turn only to Him. 

I don’t feel like I’m in the low of the lows right now, but there are signs that I might be heading there. It doesn’t take much for me to swing from a high to a low. I spent many times on my therapist’s couch asking her if she thought I was bipolar. She assured me that I was not, but the swings that I experience sometimes are so rapid that no one sees them coming. Not even me. PTSD can do that to you also.  Sometimes I just want to forget that I have that. And then the darkness gets to be too much to fight off and I’m painfully aware it’s there. 

This last weekend was filled with fun and family and faith. We had a great time lounging by the pool, eating together, enjoying the Whaling Days parade, going to church, celebrating the sunshine and having a great time. There was no reason there should have been a low coming. But I’m working on it. And putting it out there because maybe I can press on the brakes and turn this around. Or, maybe I can help someone else turn their rapid descent around. 

“What’s wrong?”

“You sound sad.”

“Want to talk about it?”

I do. But I also so desperately don’t. I don’t want to admit that I am weak, because that is how I feel. I shouldn’t even be sad. I have an amazing life with an amazing family and amazing friends. I have two little girls that are the best things ever. I just finished a great weekend filled with my favorite things. What could possibly be wrong?

I quickly answer “I’m fine.” Or “I don’t know.” And change the subject. The conversation ends and I am immediately filled with regret. Not for not sharing. For feeling like I’m making my people feel like they’ve done something wrong. That they are not important. That I don’t trust them. Which then just spirals into more. I’ve gained weight. Let’s look at old pictures that don’t seem that long ago and ponder how it can take a whole year to lose 30 pounds but less than six weeks to gain it all back. I got mad at Emerson and said things out loud that I didn’t mean, or shouldn’t have even said. I question my skills and my place as a mother. School is starting soon and I don’t want to go back to work. I’m not ready. So thoughts of walking away from everything cross my mind. The walls seem to be closing in and the darkness is settling all around and I’m not sure I can do this ride one more time. 

I squeeze my eyes shut and listen for the music, HIS music, playing to my soul. Shining light into my darkness. Praise songs. His voice comforting me. Pastor’s words. God’s arms holding me and carrying me through this dark valley. It’s a dance that I have learned over the years of being thrown into the darkest of valleys. Laying in a broken heap at rock bottom, the music of His love and grace and peace begins, and we begin dancing in the dark. Swaying back and forth to the music, finding the words of the Holy Gospel filling the empty spaces of my soul. And I rise. I rise out of the darkness, towards the light, towards the sound of His voice, towards the space where I am at the high of the highs. I remember that I’m a great mom. I remember that I’m more than a number on the scale. I remember that I am putting in work every day at the kickboxing studio and there is no shame in gaining. I am strong. I know what I need to do. I remember that I am a daughter of the Most High King. I remember...

Those remember moments play a huge part in the peaks and valleys. Memories play and I plummet to the bottom into the dark, but those same memories can also drag me back up to the place where I can breathe and sing and dance. This right now is a low. Darkness. But because of the care and compassion and love of my Heavenly Father, and the people that He has gifted me with, I am dancing in the dark, closing my eyes, listening for His voice and remembering the steps to rise back to a peak moment. I know that He makes good out of all things. And I know that I am on this journey for a purpose, for a reason. I need to remember. I need to remember His purpose for me. I need to remember that I am not weak, but strong in HIM. I need to remember that He is with me, and He is carrying me through these darkness moments. 

So, today, the dark memories are winning. I feel fat. I’m ashamed. I’m sad. I’m remembering things in the darkness. But, the undying beat from Holy Spirit begins. And suddenly, I’m dancing in the dark. And as all my of the negative messages pile up and push me down until I feel like I’m drowning, I hear His voice telling me that I am His daughter. I am His creation. And I am made perfect in Him. 

Dancing in the dark...until His light eventually breaks through again. 

One Step Closer...

Acts 1:7 And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.

I’m not exactly sure where I lost my motivation. I had done well with my plan until I think Spring Break. Easter Sunday I was weighing the lowest I had weighed in a long time. My exercise routine was on point. I was drinking my water. Everything was going just as I had planned. I looked and felt great. People were complementing me. It was all going so well. 

Then seeds of doubt were planted. I started hearing old tapes being played. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t strong enough. I needed to give in to the temptations that confront me day in and day out. People say that food is the only addiction where you have to face it to survive. You can’t just stop eating cold turkey. You can’t avoid food. We need food to live and yet my relationship with food is an addiction. Another play by Satan to try and control me. To try and convince me I’m not daughter of the King. To try and completely derail the progress I have made thus far. 

For a while, Satan’s schemes worked. In the last two months I have watched the scale climb up and down a twenty pound span. So frustrating. So disappointing. So many excuses. It’s just a few pounds. I can get those off. It’s only ten pounds. Well, I’ve gained fifteen pounds. Might as well binge eat tonight. Shame. Sadness. Disappointment. And then the attempt to control the tailspin. Not eating all day. Working out in abundance. Drinking water in huge quantities. Tiny portions. Until I snap and visit the bakery and shovel cookies into my face before I have to pick up my girls, throwing away the evidence before they come out of the dressing room. Pain in my stomach from stretching it way farther than it’s used to in the last few month span. Shame at what I have done, but out of control enough that I’m already planning my next fix, the drive thru at McDonalds for breakfast in the morning. It’s definitely a relationship controlled by Satan. And, as I read in my devotion book this week, an idol. What?! Me? An idol-worshipper? Yup! Food becomes my idol. I worship it. Savor it. Allow it to fill my heart and soul, attempting to fill the breaks and cracks that sometimes show themselves in this healing process and grief process. Rather than turning to my Almighty God, I turn to Bic Macs and frosted sugar cookies, cupcakes and French fries. 

It’s a vicious cycle I am stuck in, probably in every aspect of healing. One step forward, then two steps back. I have a good run, and then I lose my footing and slide over halfway back down the mountain. I steady myself and climb back up, only to trip and dangle from my climbing rope, terrified and panicked and just wanting nothing but to cut the rope and free fall back to the bottom. Except this time? I am closer to the top, closer to my goal, and I have no desire to fall back into rock bottom, the pit of despair where my emotions and my anxiety consume me and devour me until I no longer recognize the person that I am. 

One step closer. I am getting stronger everyday. I am growing stronger in my faith, learning to rely completely on Him, learning to steady myself against Him, learning to free fall into His arms where He holds me until I’m ready to take another step closer. 

One step closer. I am getting physically stronger everyday. Kickboxing and exercise and playing with my girls finds me muscle groups I didn’t know I owned. My hands are strong. My legs are strong. I have stamina and endurance and all those things you need to function, to be human, to not need to stay in bed all day waiting for the pain and the heaviness throughout my body go away. 

One step closer. My mind and my heart are getting stronger. The hills and the valleys on the grief roller coaster settle for the most part. I can pry my white knuckles off the bar of the car and open my eyes and slow my breathing. I know there’s probably another steep drop coming, but I’m starting to remember that God will be there for that part too. He’ll walk me through the terror and the panic and the heartache just as He always has and I will come out of the drop better and remembering He uses all things for good. Even anxiety and grief and death and suicide and assault. All things for good. 

One step closer. He guides my path. He guides my steps. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still water. (Psalm 23) He is in control and I am growing my faith to remember that He is in charge! I am His! He is mine! And together we will do great things! He is healing me one step at a time. Complete, beautiful healing is on my horizon. And each day, one step closer. 

Daddy’s Hands...

My dad is the BEST! I’m sure I’m biased just a little bit but I also know there are some of you that wouldn’t argue with me about that point. He is one of the most amazing men that I know. He is strong and faithful. he has worked hard his whole life for his family. He loves kids and loves to tease. His smile and his laugh can bring me to tears because it just fills a room. When I was little my favorite part of watching a movie was actually watching my dad. Hearing his laugh. Seeing his tears because he’s really just a big softie. He is the best. 

Growing up, he taught me all he knew about cars and motorcycles. He could talk for hours about his experiences growing up in Nazi Germany and immigrating to th United States when he was nine. He bought me my first tool box and filled it with his tools. I would lay under cars with him and pretend to fix things while he was really fixing things. He let me help him with lots of chores and was oh so patient with me. Most of the time. There was that one time (or maybe more) where is frustration or annoyance or whatever he looked at me and said, in exasperation, “Don’t you ever shut up?” So, apparently he also indirectly fostered my career in speech-language pathology because I remembering answering “Um, no” and carrying on with my conversation. 

My daddy has endured so much in his life. Surviving a Hitler Germany and seeing the atrocities of the holocaust.  Immigrating to a new country at nine not speaking English and not knowing the people they were taken in by. He had an abusive uncle. He joined the Navy and became a hard hat deep sea diver. Did you know he’s a three time prostate cancer survivor? No one really knew because he silently did his treatments and dragged himself to work exhausted and fighting cancer to be with his kids at work. He’s an amazing guy. 

He gave me great advice always. He always would pray with me before I had anything I was nervous about: final exams, track meets, piano recitals, spelling bees. You name it his first response was, “Do you want to say a little prayer?” And then he would grab my hands and pray for me and then pull me into the biggest hug. When I left for college he bought me this little stuffed green frog holding a tiny Bible. He handed it to me and said, “His name is Jeremiah. Get it? The bull frog? The Bible?” Eye rolls and fits of laughter are always present when me dad is around. 

The night Brian confessed what he did, my dad came down in the middle of the night and held me and cried with me. Then he changed my locks for me so the girls and I would be safe. He was angry. He is still angry. He is hurt he couldn’t protect his girls. He exudes love and affection for his family, and even those that are not his family. He is the best example of what a dad should be. 

So, my upbringing is in stark contrast to what I’m raising my daughters in right this second. No dad. A dad that hurt one of them. A dad that chose to leave them when the times got hard. And my heart breaks. 

The perfect example of this moment happened at the Waterfront Park this past week. There was a preschool graduation happening under the big gazebo. A baseball awards dinner was also happening at the tables. There were people everywhere. Emerson, who is always the life of the party anywhere we go and can orchestrate a playground of thirty kids into completely changing their game and doing what she wants instead was standing in the middle of the chaos just observing. And then it hit me. There were dad’s everywhere. Playing tag. Climbing on the rope dome. Laughing and running and teasing their kids. She stood there for probably ten minutes just looking all around her. It was like those moments on TV where one central point is frozen in time and the blurs of action are running all around.  Her little body stood their frozen, a look of pain on her face, as kids and their dads ruled the playground. And my heart shattered into a million pieces for her. 

We are grateful. We have had so many men step up and try and fill that hole for Emerson. My daddy is her favorite and she follows him all over whether it’s at home or at Peace. Uncle Ben plays the meanest game of tag and she counts the seconds in between their visits and talk smack in the time between. Mr. Carnahan was the best teacher because he has been playing tag and basketball and active in her life for a few years now, and his leaving is leaving a hole in her little heart. We are thankful that our amazing new pastor, Pastor Brynestad, has already shown that he can join in on a game of tag or two also. Amazing men that are showing my girls that they care and they love them. And my heart is so so grateful. 

But that moment on the playground is our most-of-the-time reality. No dad. And as hard as I try I cannot fill that role. Please don’t wish me a Happy Fathers Day as I do not fill that role. I am their mom. And they are missing their dad. 

This year seems to be harder for some reason. Perhaps the fact that both of them know what happened to Brian. Perhaps they are both old enough to realize what they are missing out on. Perhaps it just is what it is and there is no explanation. I don’t know. I do know this Father’s Day hurts for them. 

2 Corinthians 6:18 says, “and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” God is our Father. We are His daughters. And my girls are faithful and know this! They know that He can fill the holes in their hearts. That He will scoop them up when they are sad or hurting and will bind all their wounds. That He is loving and faithful and the perfect example of what a father should be. It doesn’t quite take the still out of not having a daddy to play tag with for an 8-year-old, but the reassurance that Father God is there, and the knowledge that we do have so many amazing men stepping up for them is the perfect combination of being able to walk through the Father’s Day holiday with faith and hope and peace and love. 

So, for those of you that have dads this Father’s Day I pray that you love and cherish every moment with them. Tell them what they mean. Tell them how thankful you are the God chose them for you. And for those of you that are missing your dads this Father’s Day, take comfort in knowing that you Heavenly Father is there for you. He will carry you through and wipe every tear and cherish you as the daughter of the King that you are! And, if you see my girls, or think about my girls, send them a prayer this Father’s Day. Pray that they will grow in their faith and hope and peace and love and know that God is their ultimate father. 

Thank you, daddy! You set the bar so high! And I love you forever and always.