Fathers’ Day for the Fatherless

This post has been in my head for over a week, I am just now getting it typed. I am definitely in a “get it all out” mode of writing these days. I also had a feeling that I’ve used this title before. Either way, let’s go….. I don’t know that I have ever had a Fathers’ Day that felt normal, or exciting for me. I have always felt empty on that day as everyone around me seemed to have a wonderful man to celebrate yet I was virtually fatherless and had to drum up some fake sentiment because it was obligatory. Last Monday when I started my chemo I had a horrible reaction that resulted in me spending the week in the hospital. I came home Saturday and felt bad that I hadn’t helped the boys prepare for Fathers’ Day. Sunday morning I was still battling nausea and fatigue. Eli made Marsh a cookie cake. Gus colored him a picture. It was simple. It was sweet. I am so thankful my children have a father they can celebrate.

I grew up with an absent father, even though he lived only ten minutes away. My parents divorced when I was 3-4. I don’t remember much of them being married, but I do remember much of the weekends with my dad. The first few years I was still very young and most weekends I spent with my dad’s parents – those were amazing. I loved my grandparents and they loved me. They were very simple people, and full of love for me, I could do no wrong. Every Sunday was my day – Dad would take me to buy a new Barbie – we would go play Putt-Putt – and then we would go to Baskin Robbins before he took me home. That fraction of the weekend was wonderful. I looked forward to those few hours a month. Then my dad started dating. I remember weekends sleeping on the floor of his girlfriend’s sister’s house or her apartment. I remember being told they were going to have a baby – at the time, all I thought was “cute! baby! I love babies!” Things changed significantly after they married and my half-brother was born. My stepmother was not kind to me and I was always uncomfortable around her. She would not allow me to take home any toys that my dad bought for me. I remember this purple satin duffle bag that I used for going to my dad’s on his weekends. I remember getting gifts from him, hiding them in the bottom of that bag, and being physically sick to my stomach on the short drive home afraid that somehow I’d be found out. I remember my dad drinking a lot. I remember learning that the Long Island Iced Teas he ordered when we went out to eat were not really tea. I remember learning in school that drinking and driving was dangerous (this was the 80’s – Just Say NO! was the theme of the times). I remember my dad keeping a six-pack of beer in the keyed console of the ’79 Corvette he bought in celebration of my birth. I remember one Sunday evening watching him fix a vodka, cranberry, and orange juice in a large plastic cup as he was getting ready to take me back to my mom’s. I remember telling him I couldn’t ride with him (I was an A+ student who always followed rules). I remember him getting angry. I remember calling my mom in tears for her to come get me. I think I blocked whatever argument I am sure happened afterward. Years of this did not do good things for my perfectionist, nervous anxiety. When I was 10 years old my dad’s father died. Not long after that, I wrote my dad a letter (I was taught in therapy that letter writing was a good thing) explaining to him how uncomfortable I was staying with my stepmother when he wasn’t around. I explained how harshly she spoke to me (I was not used to being spoken to that way by anyone ever). I explained about the toys staying there when I only got to play with them a couple of days a month. I explained how I really wanted to spend more time with him. I mailed the letter along with my hopes that this would be what fixed things. Over a year went by. I was only ten years old. One weekend afternoon I scrounged up the courage to call my dad. I had one of those clear, see-through phones that were popular in the 80’s. I remember sitting on the green shag carpet and dialing his number, trying my best to stifle my nausea. His voice on the other line said “Speed…” which was how he answered his shop phone. He was always at his shop. Through tears, I asked him why he had never responded to my letter and why he never called me. His response was, “I wasn’t the one with the problem – it was you.” I was eleven years old – eleven years old. I pretty much quit going to see my dad on his weekends – I am sure there were court battles and other arguments had because of this, but I just couldn’t stomach it and I was thankful my mom didn’t make me. I would go for Christmas and that was about it. I didn’t see my dad much at all. He came to dance recitals and my school functions, but that was about the extent of it. There was no relationship. We would have the obligatory phone call now and then during high school and college and my early adulthood. When it came to my wedding, he helped pay for the photographer. He was happy for me. But I always knew it wouldn’t be him who gave me away. I wasn’t his to give away. He hadn’t been there when it was important.

My dad and I really started the beginnings of a good relationship well into my marriage. We had to have another few years of distancing after my first child was born because at Christmas when our son was 6 months old my dad called me a bad mother because I was letting him play with the “dirty” wrapping paper and bows. The following Christmas when he was 18 months old we met at a restaurant and he was encouraging my child to say “gross” at some of his food (the meat in particular – my dad was a vegetarian – kinda funny, a high-performance race engine builder who was a vegetarian). At that point, we cut physical ties for a while. When I would come to town to visit my mom, there were those sick at my stomach, purple duffle bag feelings again – worried I would be seen. My dad wouldn’t see my oldest son or meet the twins until they were around 8-10 years old. He didn’t start having meaningful conversations that weren’t forced until after I got cancer. He started calling to check on me often. We had conversations many evenings while I was cooking dinner. I was starting to enjoy this. When I got cancer the second time was the first time I ever heard my dad talk about God or mention that he was praying. I was so thankful. I thought, “All of that pain and struggle growing up and having cancer twice was worth it to know that my Dad had finally come to rely on the Lord and seek a relationship with Him.” A few months later he died of COVID-19. Gus and I were the last ones to speak to him before he was intubated. I wasn’t able to attend his funeral because I had just had my bone marrow transplant and it just wasn’t safe for me to travel. Just as our relationship was getting on common ground he was gone.

So what do my daddy issues have to do with my sickness now, or anything spiritual? What was the point of that long trip down Bad Memory Lane? The other day I got a text from a former employer/pastor/friend. His words have always come at the perfect time and have been just what I needed to hear. He mentioned in Isaiah where he says, “Surely he is a God who hides himself!” He reminded me that the Psalms have a continuous theme of the hiddenness of God. He reminded me of history being full of the faithful crying out to God in despair and getting no answer – or a long time in getting an answer that required one to ………. WAIT. He reminded me that I was in the valley and the shadows. This was comforting to me – having my grief and despair acknowledged and not spoken of as if it were a sin and I just needed to “chin up” was soothing. Knowing that I can cry out to God in utter despair like David and say “how long will you forget me,” and “how long shall the wicked {cancer} triumph,” and that is okay.

Back to this theme of waiting. A common phrase in medicine is “hurry up and wait.” Waiting for test results. Waiting for treatment plans. Waiting to see the doctor. I have had many people quote Isaiah to me (and of course, this verse is burnished in my mind), “But those who wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not be faint.” (Isa 40:31). In Lamentations 3:25 it says, “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks him.” I have spent my life waiting for a father figure to be a constant in my life – I looked for one everywhere I was growing up – I found some good ones, and I experienced some not-so-good ones. I waited and waited and hoped that one day my own father would come around and love Jesus and love me in a way that seemed normal and right. In all that time of waiting I did a lot of crying out to the Lord. I spent 42 years waiting for Him to change my dad’s heart – but He did – even if it didn’t happen or end the way I wanted it to – God saved my father. I have been waiting 19 years for my oldest to become a strong, kind, Christian man – I have cried out to God so many times to change his heart. I have been in a medical crisis of some sort for 10 years now. So many days of waiting and crying out to God to take this cup from me. My crying out is not wrong. The waiting is not bad (in the sense of right/wrong bad – it surely does feel bad). I will look back on the “heroes” of the bible and the themes of waiting and crying out to God because they felt he was absent. I will look back at my lived experience and see the times that I or others I’ve known have had to wait on God. I will continue to cry out.

On Tuesday I had a count check and a visit with Dr. Kota and Sarah. I asked if there was any version of this that ended with me NOT getting another transplant – there isn’t. I will be bald for the third time (save infancy) in my life. I told them I was pouting. They said that was okay. My son got out of jail also on Tuesday and a friend brought him to our house that night. Dr. Kota wants to type the big kids to see if they are a match. We had to talk to him about this. It was good to see him, but still, I wait to see his heart truly changed. Just as I will continue to feel free pouting to Dr. Kota – he gave me permission, I will continue to tell the Lord that this doesn’t feel fair and I’ve had too much. And I won’t feel guilty about it. Because the past two weeks have had me start to see glimmers of God through words from friends like I shared above. God is not feeling *quite* as absent as before. We continue to live in the valley and the shadows. We continue to covet your prayers. I appreciate every Facebook comment, text, etc. I may not respond to them, but I read each and every one. Thank you all for standing in the gap for us – we still need it!

Love,
Lesley