Getting reaquainted with Dad

I don't know how to explain this, but I feel so good right now. Like, so good.

It's hard to truly convey the feelings I have for my dad. No one can really understand what it's like to grow up not knowing one of your parents, unless you've experienced it. It's a whole different situation than losing a parent as an adult. Of course, I haven't lost a parent as an adult yet (and hopefully no time soon) but I can imagine it now that I'm here. Growing up without my dad...being taught his spirit is still living somewhere right now, but God just needed him more than we did...it's just a unique experience. It goes beyond the death part. I never got to know him. He never got to know me...right here right now, in the flesh anyway.

The movie "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" captures it really well, I think. The kid talks about how he wants to try to save his memories, before they slip away into nothing. And they do. Believe me. Unless you work hard to keep your memories, they will, slowly but surly, fad from you.

It's been close to 19 years since my dad died. When he first died, the memories were obviously fresh. Everything seemed so obvious. Yes, Dad was really sick...he'd been that way for a while (2 years)...it was only natural he died. I didn't cry. I just went on. I know I missed him...I struggled in school...kind of became a loner for a while...but it's just SO DIFFERENT when you're a kid. You haven't even learned how to express yourself yet.

Then each year goes by, without him. One after the other after the other...and I'm experiencing everything without him, knowing his spirit is somewhere out there, doing something. But not with me. And memories start to fade. His voice isn't so easy to remember, his face isn't so easy to remember. I stop dreaming about him. And I'm thrown into a new life with a new family, expected to BLEND...and Dad just drifts away even further.

I've never been too emotional about it all. Never...until the last little while. Lately, I've yearned to know him now. To know what it would have been like to grow up with him in the home. To talk to him, fight with him, laugh with him, joke with him through my teen years...leaving for college, Kayleen's wedding...watching him as a grandpa. I've thought and thought and thought about it. Sometimes I find myself tearing up at work while I think about it.

And so, it came to me, I need to get reacquainted with him now. I need to feel him close to me...truly KNOW he is out there somewhere, but hasn't forgotten me. How can I feel him close? How can I get reacquainted with him? And it came to me. Well, actually, I've been thinking about this idea for a long time...but it finally came to me full force. I've decided to create a huge video montage. This montage will include pictures, video recordings of him, audio recordings of him, letters from him (read by someone else) and recordings of people's memories of him. It's going to be AMAZING. HUGE and AMAZING.

I've been working on it all week. It's a Personal Progress project, if you will...except, I'm no longer in Young Women. :) And just in the last week, I've felt closer to my dad than I have in a LONG time.

This is going to be such an amazing experience. I'm excited for the end result, but I'm more excited about the process. The feelings I've had so far have been truly amazing.

Good things are happening inside me. Good things for sure.