Sorrow and Love

Today is four years since Daddy left these shadowlands and saw his Saviour face to face.

I still miss him so very, very much.

Every time I see a pack of skittles or a diet coke, I think of our excursions together into town when we'd stop and "get a little something" at the gas station.

When I mow the grass, I think of our last real conversation together a couple of weeks before he died, when he told me I'd have to learn to mow the grass now, and he was sorry he couldn't teach me.

I never look at our Henty bookcase without hearing his voice reading those adventures to me and pausing to explain the history as only Daddy could. I read two of them out loud to him when the cancer and chemo made it impossible for him to read to himself. One was about Venice, and one was set in India, and I absolutely butchered the name pronunciations, believe me. Once, poor Daddy stopped me and whispered, "You've said that name three different ways." I wish I could read to him again.

When I hear whistling, I think of Daddy. He whistled all the time.

When I learn something interesting in history, (his favorite subject,) I ache to tell him about it and get his opinion.

When I come across a verse in the Bible which isn't clear to me, I miss him terribly, because he was often much more understandable than any commentary.

The bottom line is, I'll always miss him. Almost every area of my day-to-day life is affected by my strong, loving Daddy. I love him so much. Always have, always will.

And even though that brings hurt now, as well as sweetness, I'm thankful beyond words that God gave me such an earthly father... that I had him for thirteen years... that he helped me appreciate classical music, that he read out loud to me for countless hours, that he walked before me in the fear of the Lord, and that by God's grace he taught me this beautiful lesson:

Disease can tear a body apart. It can be ugly, it can be overwhelmingly sad. Death comes, takes someone strong and wonderful, and makes him nothing but a cold, lifeless body. But disease cannot take away hope and peace in Christ. Death is nothing but a tool in the hands of our Creator, and for the believer, it is a wonderful thing, because it carries us away from this imperfect world to our Heavenly Father.

Daddy was excited about death. (He used to say that he wasn't afraid of death, it was the dying that gave him some fear.) He was yearning to walk and talk with Jesus in a better way than he had ever even imagined.

And now, he is.