Never Letting Go

My Father's Birthday

It’s my father’s birthday today.

There’s something pretty devastating about anticipating a day like this that is supposed to be about celebrating life. But I’ve never quite wondered so much as I have in this last year, what happens when that person is no longer living on this Earth. How do you celebrate in the face of death?

This past weekend, we held a small celebration as a tribute to my late grandmother, Juana Puebla. She was my mother’s mom. She would have been 98 years old. She passed away just before her 70th birthday. I’ve watched my mother honor her in many ways over the years. We’d have her favorite dessert or some traditional Mexican meal and music. This year, I thought about how my mother has celebrated her mother’s birthday without her for nearly 30 years now.

That’s almost as long as I’ve been alive.
It’s also about as long as I had with my father.

Watching my mother cut her mother’s cake this weekend, I couldn’t help but think about how that would be me. I will have to live and cut a cake for someone who is no longer here. It feels like something only grown ups are capable of doing. At 32, I can’t remember signing up for this part of adulthood.

My father’s last birthday was spent with us being miles apart on the actual day. I’d ventured off for a Labor Day weekend trip to visit family out of state. The adventure is a super great memory, actually. We were travelling for the first time since the pandemic had shut us down earlier that Spring and through Summer. I was excited to get out but made sure my younger sister, who was staying behind, would take him out and attempt to still make it special. I’m glad for her, because she needs them as much as I feel like I do, but I am also jealous now that she holds those memories.

Knowing we would be apart, we decided to celebrate early. Thinking back it is interesting that we spent it as a whole family unit - everyone, including my mother, sisters, nieces, nephew and myself. We went to a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a nice dinner. Mother had a few personalized masks made for him including a Beatles mask which he absolutely loved. We still have that mask.

My dad was never big on celebrations or asked for much. He’d always say, “as long as we’re together.” His love language was always quality time. He was a very present father and grandfather. Family was EVERYTHING for him. He didn’t quite have that gift growing up, living on campus at a boarding school for the deaf and blind. He was born with very poor eyesight and was made to attend. He would recount heartbreaking times of being dropped off and sobbing when his family would leave. He’d spend the semesters away from his family. I really believe his experiences from these early years were very formative for him and contributed to his great big heart for the family he’d start with my mother many years later.

My father really took fatherhood seriously. He completely embraced me as his own when he married my mother. He’d be the one I’d cry for when my mother would attempt to drop me off at my biological father’s house. I’d cry for my “daddy” and my biological father would say, “ I’m right here” but I’d be reaching for my dad, Jesus. My daddy would teach me how to ride my bike down the dirt road off of a road that doesn’t exist anymore. He’d teach me how to catch and be at my baseball games hooting and hollering. I’d see him do the same for my sisters and his grandchildren. He was proud to be a dad and grandpa. He was silly. He was a grown man but still very ticklish. He had soft but hairy arms and calloused hands from using them for many years to cook with. He finally retired from Disney after 45 years. He didn’t love it but he loved sharing Disney with his family and our friends. The magical kingdom will always hold a special place in my heart though I haven’t had the heart to set foot through its gates quite yet. One day.

Today I miss him an extra amount and I hurt deeply with him gone. I was shattered when I first lost him but have since come out of the initial fog that settled right after. The time between losing him and feeling like I had regained some sense of sanity is such a blur - like a twilight zone or black hole of time lost. It took me a couple of months to seek a counselor to help me navigate my grief and it has been such a blessing to have a trained professional to talk through my challenges with during this season.

It’s with this in mind that I composed the piece below, which of course, I dedicate to my father as a birthday gift of sorts. We can’t be together today but one day we will be reunited. Until then, I am never letting go of him or our times together. I will instead learn to live with the hurt and the love we shared will help me to do so. I don’t think there is ever going to be a “getting over” the loss of my father. I think it’ll look more like learning how to live with the grief - learning how to laugh even when I still hold this sadness deep within. And I’m okay with that. I’m making peace with the idea that I’ll never fully recover from losing such an important love. I know I have to continue to live and make a life for myself but it’s never going to look like anything I’d imagined prior to December 17th, 2020.

And I’m learning how to answer the question: How do you celebrate in the face of death? Today, I’ll do so by remembering death is not the end for my father. That he in fact is living his best life now and is more alive than he has ever been in the presence of his Savior. That’s great news for him - but what about me? I’ll be jealous of the angels until I see him again. But I’m happy he is no longer subject to the hard realities of this world and is free from them. I’ll celebrate by remembering all the good times we had, all the love we shared, and all that he was for me.

So, to my daddy. Father. Happy birthday.

I’m never letting go.

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Never Letting Go

Letting go
releasing my grasp
until you disappear

This is not my plan
could never be
I’m hanging on father dear

I’m learning to
live within
making peace with the pain

I’ll always miss you
and want you near
until we meet again

Your love
your grace
Your endless generosity

Your kind words
soft hugs
The way you’ve carried me

I’m not planning
on letting go
I’m holding on tighter

Living bolder
loving stronger
You showed me how to be a fighter

There will be no
letting go
For I could never

Instead I’ll make friends
with love and grief alike
And keep you in my heart forever