Memories of my father...........................

Catching up on Sheri's blog, I read a post in which she shared seeing a bottle of Corn huskers lotion at her sister-in-laws home and bursting into tears because it reminded her of her father and how much she missed him. Of course this got me to thinking of my father, so I thought I would share...

For new readers, my parents died five months apart when I was eight years old. My way of coping with that was to block it out, along with the first eight years of my life. My memories of my father are few and fairly traumatic. The first one is the night he had a stroke and my mother and uncle rushed him off to the hospital in the family car. We lived in the country, and I doubt 911 was even around in the sixties.

The second memory of my father was being handed the phone and told to talk to him. No one explained to me that the reason his speech was all garbled was because of the stroke, and it frightened and confused me. My final memory of my father was being lowered into his casket by my sister and told to kiss him goodbye. I was so freaked out that to this day I have no idea if I actually kissed him or not, I only remember wanting to get down and away from there.

Intellectually, I think of these things and feel really, really sad for this poor little fatherless girl. Emotionally, I have no connection to these things; self-preservation at it's finest. Growing up, being parent-less was my norm rather than something to get upset about.

The first time I cried about not having had a father growing up, was about five years ago. My sister was visiting and for some reason I came across my one tangible keepsake from my father:

The box his company watch came in for years of service...

Not the watch mind you, my oldest brother got that (as it should be), just the box. I have no idea how I came across it, or why I thought it important enough to hang onto at the time, but over the years it has gained in value to me. Ya, there is the, "that used to belong to my father aspect," but the box is getting pretty old. If you look at the close-up you can see it was mailed one month after I was born, and postage at the time was only twenty-three cents. You can also see there is only his name, a city, and the state, no street address or zip code. WOW!

Anyway, my sister looked at the box that day, started to cry, and then got mad because one of the reasons I don't have more things of my parents was because the foster family we moved in with had a big auction and sold off all of my parents things and pocketed the money. I joined her in her tears that day, and it was the first time I was healed enough to mourn my loss. I'm calling it progress.

I share this stuff with you, not to make you feel sad or sorry for me, but to show you that memories are what you make of them. I guess I could have chosen to live a different kind of life and blame it on early childhood events rather than take what was available and make the most of it. I also share this with you to say, rejoice in your memories, whatever they are, and embrace the emotions they bring out in you. Instead of trying to hide them from yourself and others, see them for what they are; little pieces of time that helped to form the person you are today.

Of course, not all memories are pleasant, and hurtful memories can have a negative effect on us if we let them. This is where forgiveness comes in to help us move away from the pain and into a place where we can function the way we choose to.

So as not to end on a down note I will share one more bit about my father. One Christmas my sister gave me a album she had made with copies of the few family pictures she had. Here is a picture of me and my father. And remember folks, this was before the age when it became vogue for a dad to share in child care responsibilities. This picture also might explain why to this day I don't see the need for sitting down at a table for a meal...

Am I not the cutest baby ever?!