Dear Dad

I don’t know if you’ll be able to read this, wherever you are, but whether or not you ever read it, I need to write it.

I love you more than I was ever able to express. I miss you more than you probably ever knew. But at the same time, I really need to let go. I know it has been two years since you died. And most folks probably would have sorted things out by now. I was devastated when I first found out you were sick, as I knew it was cancer, and that it would be fatal. I shut down after you died, and barely lived my life for a good year or more after you died. And that had an awful, almost irrevocably damaging effect on my family.

I want to apologize for my excessive focus on the shop cleanup tasks when I was down there for part of your final week. My first priority should have been you, spending time with you while you were up for it and doing the cleanup stuff the rest of the time. I hope you didn’t think my focus on the task was from greed. While I appreciated the tools that I was able to bring back, I was focusing on the task because I could see how close death was for you, and it was all I could do to face that and acknowledge it. It was very hard for me to see you so frail and weak, but I should not have let that stop me. I wish that I had gone ahead and taken the extra vacation days, spread out the cleanup and hung out with you when you were able. I wish I had been there when you passed, although given how much of life we spent apart, I guess the distance was appropriate. I wish I had been able to be there when your ashes were spread out over the ocean that you loved so dearly.

I’m thankful for all of your visits up (and my visits down), but I’m very glad we had the final few summer visits as I will cherish them forever. Once we had worked through all the baggage from earlier in our lives, the time spent together was refreshing and peaceful, even if we were wrestling with a stubborn part of a project. I’m glad you were there when Becky announced she was pregnant with Liam, even if you never got to see him in person. You had a much better response to it than I did, and we still talk about it on occasion. I appreciated your candor as you humbly talked about your relationship with Mom, and how you tried to include her whenever possible or appropriate while you were up.

The fact that you were willing to consider the possibility of a PA winter just to be able to spend more time with us and the grandchildren meant the world to me. I know I let hopes/dreams/expectations run ahead of me. That is why the illness was so devastating. I enjoyed your summer visits immensely, and hoped the relocation would have led to those kinds of activities year round (weather permitting). Working with you on a project in the shop, wrenching on the 914 or any other vehicle, or even digging a hole for the window well. Those were all interactions that I craved with you when I was younger, and even though I was an adult with kids of my own, there was a part of me that still felt like that little boy when we did projects together.

In fact, that is why I have to let go of you now. I have my own little boy (and girls). And I realized this week that I was having a really hard time being excited with what they were doing for Father’s day because the dread/fear/sorrow about Father’s day I was feeling were overpowering. That isn’t fair to them. I’ve been much more engaged with Becky lately, and somewhat more engaged with the kids. But I need to let go of that boy and whole-heartedly embrace being a dad for my kids. I may not be the best dad, but they need me, and I need to be there for them as best I can.

Liam crawled under the truck to look at things with me when I was trying to trace the spark plug wires. Unfortunately, he did get upset and leave when I told him not to touch things because the engine was still warm and I didn’t want him to burn his fingers. But it was a moment I’ll treasure. The same with his grin when we put him on my bike today and he reached for the handlebars. (And Lorelei wanted a turn too, which I’m sure doesn’t surprise you.)

It isn’t that I love you any less. Or even miss you any less. I just can’t let it have the same effect on me anymore. I hope you understand.

Love,

Bob