For the G Kids

I’ve been meaning to sit down and write to you but I guess it’s harder than I expected it to be.

To say I am so sorry that your sweet daddy died seems so inadequate yet necessary. I am so sorry that you three are going through this terrible experience. I’m sorry for your mother and for all of your children. I know how much it hurts.

First of all, always remember that your dad wouldn’t want you to stop living because he had to. I’m sure he didn’t want to! I know my dad didn’t want to stop living, he just finally had to stop because he couldn’t take the cancer anymore.

Allow yourself time to grieve, when you’re alone let the tears wash away the hurt as the medical types will tell you crying produces some kind of cool body relaxing chemical, right? To me crying has not always come easily, it just isn’t who I am but when the tears come, they have become welcome cathartic tears.

Lean on each other. Cry in your mother’s lap. Your mother knows you best and knows that you are hurting. Your mother needs to know that you still need her. She needs to know what a valuable position she has in your family.

Don’t expect to get back to “normal”. Just take each day as it comes and you will learn to live with this empty spot named “daddy”. Depend on our heavenly Father to fill it. Life will not ever be the same so plan to learn to live your next phase in life. It will get easier and you will feel rhythm to your life once again.

Be careful not to neglect your spouses. Even though they are your best support system and love you dearly, they need you to be you! Remember to keep them as your number one person in your life.

The sting and hurt from the loss of a father leaves you forever changed. Like each big life experience it can’t help but change you in some way. You are changing all the time. This event has just been a more monumental one, a very painful one.

Continue to remember you father. For me it’s writing and making scrapbooks. I’m just about ready to take out the cards from December 2004 and look over them again. It’s ok to put things up until you are ready.

Did you shut your eyes during the picture presentations at your father’s funeral? They were beautiful. I need to tell B and G so. Their tribute to your father was a strong token of expression of their enduring friendship with you. Be thankful for those long time friends. I shut my eyes during my father’s picture presentation. Maybe now I’ll have the strength to look at it.

Things will never be the same again. Don’t expect them to ever be. Things will be better again as you heal ever so slowly from this blow of death. Make your life function in a new way. There are a lot of people who need you and want to be with you. Focus on what you have instead of what you do not have. Focus on what your father gave you and not what the cancer took from you. Love the traits in your father that you see in yourself. Be happy to be the one who shares that trait with others in your family. Let your father’s memory live through you.

Always have clothes clean and ready for a funeral. This is something that I did for many years. Then when my daddy died, I stopped! When your daddy died I needed my “funeral clothes”. Death is not a new concept but it’s new to us as we enter era of our parents aging.

What a tribute each of our father’s had at the church we all love. What a great thing to know what wonderful friends our parents have! Keep coming to D's Picnic in May. We need to see each other once a year if that’s all. It’s a little way of keeping our parents circle alive as the members go to sleep in the Lord.

I don’t claim to be an expert on the process of grief. I only offer you these words as a token of friendship and recent experience. Call me to cry, chat, ask, remember. My heart truly goes out to each of you!