Never Bought a Father's Day Card

It occurred to me yesterday, as a celebrated Father's Day with my husband that I had never in my life purchased a Father's Day card. 

You may think I'm going to say that I always made a sweet, handmade card.  But no.  I wish that were the case.

My parents were divorced when I was 18 months old and my father lived very far away from us.  He visited a couple of times a year, at first, then rarely as I got older, and then years would go by and I wouldn't hear from him. 

My father suffered from alcoholism.  That's a very polite way of saying that he was a drunk.  He wasn't an elegant but sometimes frustrating man with a drinking problem.  He never held a job for longer than a month.  He called my elementary school drunk insisting they make me come to the phone.  He threatened to kill himself if I didn't persuade my mother to return to him (and I was only six at the time).  He was a mess.  An incredibly handsome, brilliant, talented, tortured mess. 

It just wasn't a greeting card sort of relationship.

When I was in college, my father's girlfriends, who were numerous, were younger than I was.  He would later father a child, now 30, with a woman who was a drug addict and skipped town leaving him with a baby, raised by his family.  She is now an addicted mess too.

But before you think I hated my father, let me set the record straight.  I adored him.  I loved him beyond reason.  I tried everything I knew to get him in recovery.  And when he died, in his early 50s, I attended his funeral and grieved the father I never had, but who taught me everything I needed to know about the dangers of addiction, about loneliness, about the courage needed to fight demons, and most of all, about forgiveness.  I learned how to work hard and stay away from drugs and alcohol.  I learned to build and sustain healthy relationships.  I learned about boundaries.  And I learned a lot about grace.

His family loved and cared for him for the duration.  Enabling?  Probably.  I don't recommend it by the way.  But they tried, the best they could, and he likely lived a lot longer because of them.

A few weeks ago, my aunt called to say that she wanted to send me my parent's wedding pictures and a few heirlooms from Ireland that my great-great-grandfather brought over when he married my native american great-great-grandmother.  I was delighted, not just about the pictures and the things, but delighted that for the first time in my life, I was able to thank her for taking care of my dad, for the grace she had shown in dealing with his disease.  She cried.  I smiled.

So even though we didn't have a Hallmark relationship, my father taught me much.  He was well loved, by me and by many.  Now, I see those who struggle and suffer in a different way.

Was my father's illness God's plan?  Of course not!  Did God help me see through a different, more compassionate lens because of my experience with his illness?  Absolutely. 

So for those of you who may have had difficult relationships with your father, I encourage you to allow God to heal that by seeing the grace in it.  I didn't get what I wanted, but I got something very valuable. 

Happy Father's Day Daddy. 

Teresa