Three years

Haven't written in a coon's age. I'll try to get back into it. :)

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I woke up super early this morning and was going to just lay in bed and read, but a long list of things to do and the crisp morning air drew me out of bed. Instead of starting on housework and thereby waking Tim up so early, I decided to go weed my veg garden. It was still in the 50s here in Colorado, so I put on a long sleeve shirt. A lovely thing to need to do in the middle of June! :-)

My hands in the dirt, my shoes in slippers, I listen to beautiful music, pick pesky plants that will suck moisture and nutrients from the carrots and radishes I want to grow, and watch the sun as it makes it's way into the sky, finally cresting above the roof of our shed, bringing its warm summer light to the yard.

This quiet, this cool summer morning makes me viscerally remember those few but precious mornings that I drove to the hospital, knowing I would probably get there before anyone else, those precious mornings with Dad as he struggled to live.

Tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of our loss, his gain. My heart misses him so much. My hands miss him. My eyes miss him. My ears miss him. And when I miss him, it sometimes stirs up missing my mom too - a pain that had in  many ways filtered down to the less immediate rooms of my heart.

I am unspeakably thankful for my dad. I am thankful for his parenting, his mentoring as I became an adult, his affirming of who I am and how I live my life. I am thankful for the way he loved Matt and Melissa and took them as his children, while still deeply honoring their father, Kim, who died in 1995. I am thankful for the work he did to change himself, and thereby change our relationship, the way he faced his fears and weaknesses and, albeit stutteringly (but isn't that always the way?), worked to make himself better. I am thankful for his courage and craziness that took him and Mom to Indonesia in 1967 and kept them there until it was in our blood and wouldn't wash out of our skin.

My carrots and cucumbers are growing very slowly this year, but my green beans have taken off. The mystery of gardening - what the soil, water, air and my care will bring out of the ground, but none of it profitable without God's hand. So thankful he's in charge of my life. So glad I don't have to find answers on my own, comfort by my own means, or peace just by my own determination. I am thankful for his touch in my life, and his provision of a father who demonstrated God's love to me.

Miss you, Dad.