My father’s gift to me and my sister

Today, as I sit at my desk beneath the window of clear blue sky, I gently allow myself to drift towards gratitude. What am I grateful for? How can I be grateful for my own father on this day?

My family knows my history, but perhaps some of these details are new.

My father died when I was 11 yo. My sister and I didn’t attend the funeral, and my mother had mourned her parting with my father when they had separated a few years before. My sister and I were left to mourn in private, on our own. My pre-teen thinking had me believe he might turn up around the next corner, and I looked for him in the streets for years afterward.

The song on the radio at the time which defined my heart’s loss was: “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.” Of course, the lyrics don’t exactly match. First, my father died in October and not September. To me, that and many other specifics in the song were inconvenient differences to be overlooked while I sobbed and sang along, ending with: “…and all he left us was, alone.” 

After my parents separated, a few years before his death, I suppose he could have been a rolling stone of sorts. He lived in a number of places. He didn’t preach though. He was a heavy duty mechanic, fixing the big (huge) trucks and machinery on massive industry and infrastructure projects in BC in the 50s and 60s. That’s how he met and married my pretty mother in a gold mining company town in 1959. He worked hard, and partied hard. And his family adored him.

And I adored him. With his personal effects given back to my mother when he died was his watch and other things, and an opened birthday card from me.

Several years ago, I formed a relationship with my father’s youngest brother who was the surviving sibling of eight. Unfortunately, he died just a few weeks ago (May 2019) after a very rapid and extremely sad decline over this past fall and winter. My uncle was a jolly late teen when I was a toddler, and as adults we got along famously on the phone over these past few years and whenever we met for excursions and meals. There was a deep bond between us, as my sister had also developed with him. It was very sad to have him die so quickly, it’s only been 6 weeks. I’m still grieving.

I am grateful for the relationships I have developed with my first cousins in the process of trying to care for (long-distance) and now grieving for my uncle. A true blessing to have them in my life again after all these years. I’m looking forward to having them in my life going forward.

Earlier while I was forming my relationship with my uncle, I pressed on with my genealogy research of my father’s paternal line, uncovering nuggets and even pictures of the extended family before they sold their property and immigrated from Marden near Maidstone in Kent, UK to Indian Head, Saskatchewan just after 1900. Around this time, I also contacted a cousin on Vancouver Island with our surname and filled in more detail.

Almost 5 years ago, while researching on the Ancestry website, I noticed another “user” on the site was also researching our family and had noted a different wife for my father, with living children and grandchildren. This was so odd. I checked and rechecked. Could this be true?

So, I contacted this user, and lo and behold, it was true. My father had married before my mother and had had a child. I had a brother! A big brother! And a new niece and nephew, a new sister-in-law, and lots more family. What’s more, my new big brother was extraordinarily excited to have two new sisters. He was over the moon happy and wanted nothing more than to get to know us and envelope us into his love, into his life and begin his role as big brother, ASAP.

I am so grateful. ❤️

My heart is overflowing with LOVE. As I connect my early grief and mourning for my father, that can only be accessed with careful centering and an open heart. As I sit quietly and allow myself to go back, with wide open heart, to feel the feelings, and shed the tears for myself at that time, my heart has a chance to heal even more. As I connect the lineages, the family, the threads, to my current grief for my uncle, my father’s brother who was so delightful, playful and fun to be around, and who didn’t deserve such a rapid and sad death, I am able to heal a bit more. As I fill the losses with newness, I intentionally bring in the love I feel for my darling sister, my brother (yay!), my family, the newborns in the family, the young people striving in the family, that I might be there for them. Please call on me if I can be of service.

And, as I acknowledge the love shown to me, given to me, held for me, I am so very, very grateful for all of the blessings.

Happy Father’s Day.
❤️