Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

Twenty-years. Two decades. Long ago we passed the reality that I have lived longer without you than I did with you. I know people talk about the first year being the most impactful since it is the year of “first.” I think those people maybe just can’t fathom anything past year one. Because twenty years, it knocks the breath out of me a little bit. How can it be that it has been this long?

In a lot of ways, your death felt like the end of so much. But I can’t help but think that it would be a waste to look at only what ended twenty years ago. I know we must fully acknowledge it. But something in me feels that while there will always be a deep ache in me for the days you have missed and how many monumental moments you haven’t been here for – that Jesus invites us to still celebrate life today. Because it would be a disservice to our gracious God to not recognize that over the last twenty years, life has been lived.

I know nothing ever will change the fact that we wish you were here. However, maybe there is something to writing some of the last twenty years out. Almost like my very own visual to see the tracks in the sand. The ground that we have covered. The way we have fought to keep going. It feels like a way I can sit at the table with Jesus today, while so much in me misses you, and yet still have my eyes wide open to all that He has done and how faithful He has been. I don’t know why people don’t do this more. In the middle of great loss, the fact that our God doesn’t stamp an ending on the story makes me want to stop, pause, and remember that while there was death, there has been much life.

It feels like taking inventory. Writing down where we have been the last twenty years. I do so badly wish you could have been here for all of it, but I know that remembering and recounting serve as a little bit of relief from the pain. I want to tell you about it. Tell you about me.

I love Jesus. That feels like the best and only place to start. I know you did too. I love studying His word and teaching it. I’ve been told I am a lot like you in that way. I wondered for years where the curiosity in me came from. It wasn’t until I started speaking in front of people that those who knew you well started telling me that my personality is the spitting image of you. I never knew how much that would help me understand myself until I heard that. I didn’t know you long enough to know that this deep passion in me for things that are right comes from you. It’s one of the things that has now become a joy for me to share with people that I get all of that from you.

You chose right with mom. I am not sure how she has done it, but she has. The rock of our family and the captain of our ship. She has steered us well.

Six high school graduations. Five college graduations. One PhD. Multiple published pieces of literature. One of those being mine. I wrote a book. Can you believe it? I know there is still more in me so more writing will keep coming.

Three sisters-in-law. You would have loved every single one of them. They bring out the best in your boys. Speaking of boys. None yet for your girls. I take it as a way of us saying we won’t settle. We want the right ones.

Four grandchildren. A fifth is on the way. We have some middle names in your honor. You would have been the grandparent front row on grandparents’ day. I just know it.

Believe it or not, somehow, I ended up in the corporate world. I remember vividly getting my first real job at CFA Corporate and wanting to call you to tell you. I don’t know why but there was something about transitioning into the full-time work field that felt like a massive moment you missed out on. I don’t know much about business and to be honest, I think I have most people fooled to think I remotely know anything about the restaurant business. But it’s been one of the best things to ever happen to me. It has grown my character and stretched my comfort zone.

To say that our household has stayed Duke basketball fans is an understatement. Jacob, Joseph, and I all went to a game at Cameroon Indoor together. It was one of the best days of my life. Coach K retired this year. I know you would have loved to be at one of those final games of his. I got to go to one. I thought of you often. It is hard in those moments to not imagine what it would have been like to experience that with you.

There have been some amazing men in my world who have stepped in to help in ways that I have needed. From stock to invest to, potential houses to look at it, coaches, and buying my first car. Never once did the Lord make me do it alone. He filled in gaps when they were needed.

Twenty years. It feels impossible to go another twenty more knowing how much more of my life you will have to miss. I wish you could know me. I think you would proud of me. I think knowing what I know now about how similar we are – I think you would have been my friend, not just my dad.

I look forward to another year and the ache remains, but I look back at the last twenty years, knowing full well that Jesus has carried me all this way. He will not abandon me now. It is good for me to think about how much you have missed sometimes because it reminds me how much we have all lived. There was death but there has been life. There is still more life to come. I want to live it well.

Heaven holds you. Heaven awaits me one day.

Until then, Jesus keeps carrying us. Jesus keeps writing this story. Jesus keeps allowing life.

And we will keep living it.

xoxo,
Adria