May 31st Anniversaries

[purplerabbit]

30 years ago today, I lost my dad. He was run off the road while riding his motorcycle on Memorial Day weekend. He spent the next 11 years in semi-vegitative state before his body died of pneumonia.

7 years ago today, I was dragged by a car when my ex tried to kidnap our child and assaulted me in the process.

Yet, today was a good day. Mostly I allowed myself to think about all those wonderful moments when my dad really showed me that he loved me. His love was a remarkable healing for a troubled young girl. My mother's first husband (the man whose name is on my birth certificate) was emotionally and physcially abusive. Without Johnny, would I have known the kind of love that lead me to marry my sweethearts? John Atkins wasn't my biological father but he was definitely MY DAD. I miss him every day. Yet, everyday, he is with me. In particular, I am often struck by how much of my love and devotion of my darling Rowan is shaped by both my parents. Dad's joy in building things for his children lives on in the way I shape our lives and our new house to meet Rowan's needs too.

Let me share with you a favorite example. One day, when I was around 11, my dad decided to clean up the back porch. There were two old air conditioners sitting on the cement patio that he was going to haul away. (Apparently they were a safety risk.) I began to cry. My dad in his quiet way, sat me down and asked me to explain why this upset me. I explained that I used the control panel on one of the air conditioners as my "space ship" or "computer" or whatever science fiction device my playworld needed that day. He smiled and led me into his workshop. He took some tools, went out to the air conditioner and removed the control panel. He then took me back into the garage shop and made me the most wonderful toy! It was the ultimate science fiction gadget. He mounted the control panel on a wooden console he built, installed a pretend view screen (using foil, door screen and a picture frame), then added lights and buzzers on switches that really worked. We dubbed it "The Whatchamacallit." It could be anything I wanted it to be. And I was just what my daddy wanted me to be -- a creative girl with a big imagination. I felt heard, seen and loved.

Comments

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful man...

[aleeceh.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful story! It's so great that you have these good memories of your dad to help balance out the loss. I wrote recently about how I lost my mom one Memorial Day, and I wish I could remember more of the good things about her. I'm sure they were there. It's just that our better years were when I was too young to really remember first hand; what I've seen in old photos and a few stories I've been told are all the "memories" I have of that time.

[purplerabbit.livejournal.com]

I understand. I am blessed with the most memories of Dad. I have three sisters who were ages 11, 9 and 4 at the time. Angela, the youngest, has no clear memory of dad before that day. She remembers the shuffling zombie in the hospital. She has photographs and the stories my mom and I have shared. She has my dad's medals, his Veterans flag, and his ashes in a box. She is is biological child and he loved her very much. Yet, they were both robbed of getting to really know each other. On some level, I know a part of her remembers. I see it in the love she shares with her daughters. And I smile when I watch her. So much of her body language and manner is an echo of him. She literally embodies him. Four years were not enough but his genetics and those early years of love have left the mark of him. Even love that has no conscious memory shapes us.