Almost a thousand days

There is an interesting milestone coming up soon.  According to a website that calculates the duration between two dates, it is close to one thousand days since my dad went to be with the Lord in Heaven.  At the time of writing these words, it is nine hundred and forty something days (or two and a half years).  Incidentally, I won’t camp out on this point, but the phrase “time heals all wounds” is absolutely false.

I find it noteworthy that even though all this time has passed, there are days when the grief hits me just as hard as those beginning days.

For example, a month ago or so, I was cleaning the dining room at my work at Chick-fil-A.  I happened to hear a customer say the phrase “he is no longer with us.”  I don’t know the context of the conversation because I wasn’t listening, but someone said those very words the day my father passed away; so upon hearing them, my mind immediately replayed the worst day of my adult life.  This is not an isolated event, either.  For instance, I was surprised at just how deeply I could feel my dad’s absence in the room as I watched the Super Bowl a few weeks ago.  I should have known.  After all, we watched so many Super Bowls together, now there is nothing but an empty chair, and the memories.
 

There is a scene in the animated movie “Superman: Doomsday” that pictures how I feel.  For those of you that don’t know, this is a film based on the popular comic book where Superman died, was buried, and is eventually resurrected.  Not long after Superman’s death, Lois is sticking her neck out for a story (basically Lois being Lois).  When she reports back to Perry White, he counsels her to be careful.  When she asks him why, Perry says, because Superman isn’t around to rescue her from danger.  Or, as Perry put it earlier in the scene: they were “in a world without Superman.”  That’s a snapshot of how I feel in this season of life.  I can go about my daily routine as usual but something is very different; my dad – who I like to call Superman – isn’t here to protect me anymore.

In conclusion, we are coming up on a thousand days since Dad’s passing, and sometimes it’s just as fresh as the day it happened.  But, as I said in that blog about Billy Graham’s recent homecoming, because of our right relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, one day my dad and I will be reunited in Heaven.  The contemporary Christian music group Mercy Me has good songs on grief and the hope of Heaven.  One of those songs is called “Finally Home”.  These words from that song brings tears to my eyes:  “Going to wrap my arms around my daddy’s neck and tell him that I missed him, and tell him all about the man that I became, and hope that it pleased him.  There’s so much I want to say, so much I want you to know, when I finally make it home.”

Kevin