The Meaning of June 15 on Me

Four years ago today, at nearly this very minute, my dad passed away from cancer. An hour later, I stepped off the plane and turned on my cell phone and heard the news. An hour after that I arrived at the place where he lived to say goodbye to his body one last time.

And, thinking back on this makes my mind go in so many different directions.
• Cancer sucks. It has claimed my father. It has claimed both of my grandmothers. For the second year in a row I find myself praying for favorite aunt, and am thankful when the tests on her lumps come back as being benign.
• Would my life be different if my dad was still here? My life has changed so very much in the last four years. Nearly nothing is the same.
• Would my dad be different if he were still here? It was dying that caused his repentance.
• It is hard to walk through a death of a parent alone. When friends don't know how to walk through it with me so they don't at all. When I am not even sure how to walk through it myself.
• So much of my life was catapulted by who my dad was, and who he was not.
• I am glad who my dad came to be in the last 10 days of his life.
• Who my dad came to be still doesn't erase the harm he inflicted on me, or my mom, or his sisters, or his friends, or other women or illegitimate children. There is a trail of destruction.

I can only name the affects his life and his death have had on me. I can't speak that for anyone else, I can only speak it through the lens of how I view life. His life and his death created me. Created half of my physical DNA. Shaped my fears, gave me my scars. And, somehow his life and his death gave me my passion. A passion to try and love Jean, to love my kids, to love my mom, to love my friends, to love my enemies, to love myself. Things I am not sure my dad knew how to do well. But his life and his death have shaped my passions. Passions to learn how to be me.