Picking up where I left off here. (I've got that itch to write again!)
I ended up getting last minute tickets (wow can you say expensive!) to go to Georgia alone. My mom brought me to the airport (three hours away) and sent me on my way. I had never traveled alone, although I had been around the world a bit already in my life so I wasn't worried about that. It just felt so grown up to be flying alone to take care of my deceased father's affairs. Where did my childhood go?
I stayed with the family that he held so close to his heart, and quickly began to see why he loved them the way he did. They were so welcoming and sweet. They shared story after story about him and I hung on to every word. Remember, I only actually met my dad one time. I was only eight at the time and the little that I did know about him was from what he chose to share in letters and what my mom told me growing up. I craved this information about the man that shared my blood, even if that was all we shared.
There are a few things that I will never forget. When Andrea and her family met me at the airport, she burst into tears. She said that seeing my smile overcame her and she couldn't help but be reminded of him. It turned out that I looked a lot like him, even more so now than before. You see, my dad had always been a big guy and he always had a huge beard. Four or so months prior to his death, he started cooking healthier and finally lost all the extra weight he had been carrying around all of his life. He shaved that beard off and looked like a completely different man, so the man I was picturing in my mind from all of the pictures I had seen when I was younger was not the man that they had known as of late. Sure, I could see that we were related and I knew I didn't look much like my mom, but I didn't really see it to the extreme that she did.
When I looked down at him in his casket (even though it sounds morbid), I was looking at my own face in an older man's body. Imagine how I felt as I looked down with all of these people watching me. I looked just like him, and could immediately see why everyone reacted the way they did when seeing me there. This daughter that he talked about but that they never got to see.
The funeral was as awkward as any other funeral. There were a lot of people there, coming up to me to express their grief and say how sorry they were to me. I could tell who knew him well and who didn't, because those that didn't truly knew him assumed that we had been close. Those that did know him understood that I had not been in his life much and did not say those awkward things to me. To be treated like this man's greatest treasure when I had not known him made me feel like an impostor, but I also got to know things about him that I will always hold dear.
Walking through his little rented house and seeing all of his belongings was overwhelming. I knew that I'd have to come back to go through it (overwhelming). I got to meet my aunt (who I had met as a child but didn't remember too well) who turned out to be a sweet older lady that shared a strong faith in God with me. She gave me something I would never forget - she told me that in the last year of my dad's life, he had come back to the Lord. He was in heaven. I didn't realize how concerned I was for his soul until she said that. I know that it is between each person and the Lord and that we can never really know, but that was as close to knowing as I could get and it was such a huge blessing.
I also got to meet my uncle and his wife. When he took off his sunglasses, I felt like I was looking in a mirror. It was surreal, seeing these people that I shared so much physical resemblance with. I had never experienced that before, and it gave me a bit of a bond that I was not expecting with these strangers. My dad was the youngest of four by 15 (?) years, a bit of an "oops" baby, so his siblings where quite a bit older than him. He was the first of them to die. It didn't seem fair to me that I was meeting his older siblings that were like grandparents to me, but I was thankful that I got to meet them at all.
It turns out that my father, this man that had chose to stay out of my life, had talked about me a lot. You see, he was afraid to reach out to me in fear that I would reject him, but he so wanted me in his life. Honestly, writing this now kind of breaks my heart. I had been so mad at him for not being a part of my life. I wasted so much time being angry and not writing back to him or taking him seriously. He had suggested that I visit once when I was in high school and had even sent me information about a college in Georgia, but I had blown these attempts off because I already "had my life figured out". How I regret that now.
He had hoped that I would come to him, that he didn't feel that he could come to me at this point in our relationship. Here's the other crazy part. When I walked into his house, there were pictures of me all over the place. He had printed off every picture he could find of me and had them in most rooms. Seeing that he did care, that he did love me, was a great gift to get from this man I hardly knew. I will never, ever forget that.
Later that summer, my hubby and I went back to finish up little details and bring back a truckload of things that I wanted to keep from his things. I kept an old trunk that had been in the family for years, some appliances, a brand new computer, but the things that meant the most to me were the paintings he had. They were painted by his mom, my grandma, who had been a fairly successful painter in her day. Legend has it that one of her paintings that I have of Jesus was hung in the Vice President's office for a while. Imagine that! I have them all around our house to this day (they match my style perfectly) and am proud of this lady who I did not know. My daughter, Josephine, is named after her, mostly because I love the name, but also because I came from her, even though we never met. She passed when I was a young child, I believe.
It's hard to lose someone that you haven't yet gotten to know. I had to deal with guilt from that for a long time afterwards, and never did figure out how I truly felt about the whole situation. How do you grieve for a father that wasn't a father to you? I had a dad already, so grieving for that role in my life was not necessary. I see a lot of him (that I saw from pictures) in my girls and wonder what he would have thought if he had gotten to meet them, his granddaughters.
I wish I had known him better, but I am so thankful for the life I have and what I did get to know about him.
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