Deep down inside, I have always been a Daddy’s Girl. It’s been an awkward dynamic at times – for a while there, I saw him kind of as the father in Reba McEntire’s “The Greatest Man I Never Knew” – but making him proud…that’s what I’ve usually wanted most. Because of that, the quickest way to kill me inside is to see or hear my father cry.
He’d pitch the biggest hissyfit you’d ever seen if he saw this, but it’s my blog, Daddo. With all the love in my heart, I say this: Deal with it.
I say that because I just got a phone call – a random call in the middle of a random day as thunder rumbles outside and a spring rain starts to fall. I’m sitting here at my computer, firmly realizing that I am blessed beyond measure, searching through my music collection to find something – anything – that will make my mood match that knowledge. I currently have over 21,000 songs in my iTunes library. That’s no small feat. But I was doing it. I’d found an album that was making me tap my toes and smile and feel so full.
Then the phone rang. I knew by the ringtone it was Dad. Dad never calls randomly unless it’s been ages since we’d talked, and we just talked on Friday. Simultaneously, I braced myself for bad news and/or a lecture of some sort.
I wasn’t prepared to hear tears in his voice. To hear him tell me he’d been thinking about the people in Oklahoma and that, while he knows, knows without a doubt, that God is up there, he can’t help but wonder why. What’s the reason to it? Those kids – they were just at school, their teachers trying to keep them safe, and now they’re telling us some drowned. It makes no sense.
“I know, Dad,” I said, tears building back up in my throat. “But somewhere deep in there, there’s a purpose. Somewhere.”
I didn’t mention to him the way recent events – Newtown and Boston in particular – have struck me. Have hit far closer to home that I’d care. Especially Boston. God, Boston. A friend was there – a friend who’s spirit and attitude in the last month has taught me so much about what life is supposed to be about. What’s it’s supposed to be like. How you must look to be a blessing to people around you and never see yourself as a burden.
I’m still reeling from the lessons I’ve learned, am still learning, from Demi and Boston. And now Oklahoma.
“I know,” he said, his voice thick and low. “I know it’s supposed to help us find purpose and see the blessings around us and recognize so much of what we take for granted.”
“It’s hard, though, Daddy.” I never call him Daddy anymore. “I was just sitting here thinking a little while ago about how I usually find some kind of peace or comfort or closure from watching all the coverage when something like this happens, but this…I just can’t look. That neighborhood where those schools were – you know they’re just like mine, right? Those kids probably all walked and rode bikes to school like Earl does.”
“My heart’s just broken,” he admitted.
There was a long pause, and as tears ran down my own cheeks, I heard the characteristic big-family-nose sniff. “I just needed to call you and tell you how much I love you.”
“Thank you. You know I love you, too. So much. So very very much,” as I fought to hold back a sob.
“I’m proud of you. Stay safe.”
And then we hung up. A short, simple phone conversation, with the thunder rolling in the background, and I’m sitting here shattered. Utterly without words for what’s happened in Oklahoma. Don’t ask me if I’ve seen such-and-such or heard so-and-so. I haven’t. I can’t.
But I will pray. And I will turn back to my music and find something that helps to lift my spirits again, to bring a little peace along to accompany the oncoming storm.
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