The Walking Dead

My beginning was Bob. He was all I knew and I was happy. A little girl with a daddy who was super strong, tender hearted (under his rough and tough exterior), and hands that were calloused by hard work –but as gentle as a feather’s touch and filled that much more with love. He called me pumpkin and I knew he loved me.

My hands locked in his.

That is until he dove back head long into the slippery slope of drugs and alcohol, and I lost him….forever. I no longer recognized him; not his actions or his choices –only his voice.  Each year he grew more and more distant until he disappeared from my life completely. I was then a little girl whom was unloved, unwanted, and abandoned by the very man she dreamt as her knight in shining armor every night. I prayed, I cried, I longed, and wrestled with my deep inexplicable love for this man whom I didn't know if I could even call my daddy anymore. He chose the proverbial, sex drugs and rock-n-roll over me. One of three but his only girl. My brothers and I were absolutely and irrevocably heart, soul, and spiritually broken. How does a man leave the very sweet ones he help to create? How does a daddy walk out and never look back? Were we that terrible to his existence that he would bail and never return? These questions and heartbreaks were my existence every day; day in and day out caught up in the aftermath of an absent father. Then the teen years hit, unrelenting and desperate for love, which lead to further shame and heartache –one disaster after another that only propelled me further away from love and right into the cold dark arms of self destruction. My Bob made very brief and very sporadic appearances in my life, only to stroke his broken ego. I’m sure it was to make himself feel better about selling his family to the devil --a sale that took place to appease his own selfish and self concerned desires. But my heart longed for him, for a daddy who would protect me, teach me, hold me, but, most importantly, save me from myself –that never came to fruition. He remained slave to his addictions while I became slave to my own warped feelings of belonging and being loved –a very dangerous combination that has left soul deep scars and shame.

My dad and I in the Summer of 2011

 Growing to adulthood (and only by the grace of God have my scars begun to heal), I dreamt uncountable times of my father being a wonderful man full of love –a man whom would never leave me. My relationship with him began to take on a new form as the Lord began to heal and change me. I had a love for him that was filled with grace, mercy, and forgiveness, but always sprinkled heavily with a healthy dose of caution. Our relationship changed, I listened (while he rambled inappropriately so most of the time over countless subjects a father would never dare to speak in front of his beloved daughter) and reminded myself over and over that he was not well. He was captured in the tight grip of addiction and each year only proved to take more and more of his mind. But I refused to look at him as the scum bag he absolutely acted like; I choose to look at him through the very eyes of God himself and saw Bob the way my savior does. His potential, his true character (one untainted by abuse), and his precious delicate heart. My Bob loved me and I knew it –even in the throes of his drug-use he longed to be my daddy; it was his true heart.

My Bob on his death bed 2013
(he's just turned 60)

On his death bed I had the pleasure of parenting my father –loving him with abandon. Even though he truly looked like a zombie –a shell of himself; the walking dead, I told him how he was my prince, handsome in every way. I kissed his forehead every morning and every evening. I held his feeble weak hands strongly in mine and prayed over him every night –I showed him an unrelenting pure love in every tangible way despite him never showing his love for me. And despite him saying he knew the Lord, I led my daddy in the sinner’s prayer, just to be sure that grace and mercy and forgiveness would meet him in heaven. I simply, immovably, and undeniable forgave him for every hurt, and every trespass.

In the wake of his death, I’m on a dramatic wave of emotions. I go from being happy he is finally pain free, addiction free --to being a desperate five year old girl crying for her daddy. I stand strong on the rock of forgiveness --to only find myself rolling and writhing in angry over his failure to overcome his addictions which lead to a horrible, painful, and much too early death. I travel all the way back to relieved his is in heaven now --to the shock of knowing I’m a child who has lost a parent –I’m much too young to have a parent who is dead.

I’m still the little girl who will, in momentarily lapses of memory, look at my daddy as my hero, stronger and more handsome then Hulk Hogan and as gentle as the very definition of love. May he be in the presence of The Father and one day may he welcome me with loving arms to the throne room of grace. I will be forever sad about the man my father could have been but eternally grateful his hope was in a savior who can redeem the worst of us.