Sunday, June 19, 2016

my dad...[on finding beauty in the broken]

 

Today we celebrate Father's Day. My focus is on my husband and how so very thankful I am for how amazing a dad he is to our kids. They have no idea how lucky they are. Next I turn my focus to other men in my life~my brother, my step-dad, uncles, and other "father-figure" men who have loved me, mentored me and built into my life. Thankful.

My dad is sometimes an afterthought. He has been gone for almost 10 years. Before he passed away, I can remember the internal struggle of buying a Father's Day card. I wanted to mean the words written on the inside. This sounds harsh and unfeeling, but it was reality. I loved my dad very much, but his story was not what is should have been or could have been.

I wrote the words below last year, but they seemed appropriate for today. Amidst the broken and shattered, God still bestowed beauty...

 
We've had a lot of "Mayberry days" recently. For me, this means a simple day, a day spent "sitting on my front porch drinking iced cold Cherry Coke" (or iced tea although I do love Cherry Coke). I love the Rascal Flatts song, I run to it. I love country music (most) and old-fashioned simplicity where progress and productivity are set aside and I read a book while my kids sketch chalk designs on the sidewalk and dance in the front yard. I like the Mayberry ideal. It doesn't hurt that our neighbors down the street have chickens in their backyard--clucks echo off the surrounding houses, birds twitter, a dog barks, and I can almost ignore a siren in the background.
 
Mayberry and country things in general also remind me of my dad. Music from Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers and the Oak Ridge Boys were melodies of my childhood soundtrack. We played Elvira at his memorial service. We knew he'd appreciate it. We always laughed at this song and loved the Oak Ridge Boy with the deepest bass voice in the history of the world. No joke! (The video I linked to is quite hilarious, the "boys" are...aged;-)).
 
All things cowboy and country bring back those memories...the good ones. Bittersweet is still sweet. I'm no cowgirl. I'm legitimately citified, but I have fond childhood and adult memories of county fairs, state fairs, stock shows, and rodeos. Part of my love is simply the small town America atmosphere felt at county fairs. Life seems simpler, purer, pointing back to my Mayberry ideal. 
 
Until I was eight or nine, if you asked me what my dad did for a living, I would have told you without hesitation that he was a cowboy. This was my dad's answer to me when I asked him this question. I was young, and I believed every word. He had the props to back it up. Cowboy hat, countless pairs of cowboy boots, and his twangy country music was gospel. I told kids at school this "fact" and was quickly called a liar, but I held fast in my resolve.
 
As much as Old Spice aftershave, these country things bore his essence. I remember him with a smile, a poignant sweetness. I have many very hard and bitter memories. I've even gotten rid of possessions in my house because every time I saw them, I would face a memory I wished long forgotten. The most unsuspecting items would transport me to a scene, like immersing myself in Dumbledore's pensieve.
 
But at rodeos and county fairs and on front porches, I can bask in memory of a dad that I haven't seen in a long time. Wheat fields as far as the eye can see bring comfort. I can feel what he was supposed to be, what he was at his best. It's not to say that he was a different man who shed his struggles during these times, it's more symbolic. He was country born and bred. Growing up on a farm in Western Nebraska with three brothers his life brimmed with possibility, talent, charisma and hope. We all make choices, he made his, and it's not how good stories end.
 
I know that small-town life does not mean that life is easy. Life is not. But the memories remain pure to me. The antics of boys on a Nebraska farm, the walking up hill both ways to town (he had a car by the way), Coke in glass bottles at the local store...these stories I love. I pair them with my childhood watercolor memories of wearing my white cowgirl hat, accented with a purple feather, as I tagged along with my dad at the stock show, climbing into the back of his car cringing at the country twang, seeing his many pairs of boots lined up on the floor in my parents' bedroom (proof of his profession), and pots of his famous "ranch-hand" chili simmering on the stove.
 

Several years ago, I went to a rodeo with my in-laws. It was there I realized the sweetness of these memories. But as with mourning, something sweet can be a double-edged sword. I often don't think about my dad, I can avoid it. But good memories bring back the sting of loss. What could've been but wasn't. And suddenly I missed him painfully. I couldn't keep back the tears. I wanted to stay because the memories were good, but at the same time I just wanted to escape because I could do nothing to change the reality that my dad was gone.  I loved it and I hated it.
 
In spite of the loss, I'm thankful for these memories. I still love county fairs. I'm not quite sure how I feel about attending rodeos, sometimes it's easier to love them from a distance. Country music I now love for me and not just because of my dad, something we share. I don't know that my kids love country music, but it will be in their childhood soundtrack also. And this makes me smile.
 
And I'm thankful for my Mayberry days, where life feels peaceful and simple even if just for an afternoon.

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