Even so, I'm Thankful

My brother says it is the beginning of the end. Or was that back in August when Dad was only vaguely aware of our presence and needed round-the-clock care? Or in June, the first time we were able to visit him and our stepmother in their new assisted living housing apartment and he sat and stared out the window all day? Or was it back in November, right before he left his dream house and 95% of his possessions in Rehoboth for the move to Virginia?

What is clear is a strange sense of deja vous this Thanksgiving, back to 2002 when Mom had her final stroke on Black Friday and passed onto Heaven three days later. There is the same sense of wanting to cling to the familiar as we prepare ourselves—at some indeterminate future time—to bid farewell to Dad. I look back in my journals for the writing I did the week Mom died, and the week Ron died. The emotions of grief, past and present and future, are all too familiar.

Even so, I’m thankful. Thankful for the 95 years of life Dad was given, most of them healthy and happy years. Thankful for the 52 years he had with Mom and the companionship of Peg after Mom died. Thankful for the many summers at the Rehoboth House, catching sand crabs with the cousins, and the extended family on Washington Street providing companionship, bike rides, and perfect sunsets over the ocean.

Thankful for a place to bring my own children to the beach, a place to play with their cousins and build sandcastles, riding the same merry-go-round at Playland we rode as kids and watching the waves crash onto the beach. I am thankful for my brother Harvey who will walk this journey of loss with me, just as he did when Mom died and when Ron died.

I am thankful for the years I had with Ron, as challenging as those years of illness were, and the surety of Heaven where he waits. I am thankful for my three children and the two who voluntarily joined my crazy crew, for my church family, my work colleagues, my friends, and my best friend Chris. Thankful for the many students who filled my classrooms over 27 years

.

I do not know the moment God will call Dad Home, but I know it will be at the perfect time. I know Mom will rejoice to see him. I know that Dad will have left the planet a better place than when he arrived on November 16, 1928.

But mostly, right now, today, with tears brimming, I am thankful to have called him Dad.