My Eternal Captain

I miss my dad, a lot. 

The grief ebbs and flows these days. Mostly it’s distant, like a ship far on the horizon. It’s there, you recognize it, and you know it will come to port, you just don’t know when. 

Nothing billows those sails and sends that ship racing towards shore more than when I’m in crisis. When I desperately need someone to talk to, that’s when I feel his absence more than anything.  

My dad was a great listener, and wise in a way. He wasn’t the type of person who would tell you what you wanted to hear, or that everything would be ok. No, my dad wasn’t a sugar coater. He understood, more than most, and intimately, that pain and suffering were an integral part of the human condition. These were not experiences to be avoided, rather the true test was how we endured their discomfort. How we walk through the flames, embrace the heat, and let it temper us. 

So much of my inner strength and resilience comes from emulating his example.  

He imparted a lot of wisdom in me and in calm waters I manage just fine without him. It’s when those skies turn dark and the waters churn that I desperately miss his presence. When winds blow and the thunder booms it’s hard for me to hear his voice.  I can’t remember the orders from my eternal captain when I feel like I am capsizing. No, in the middle of the gale that hole in my life seems larger than the eye of the storm itself,  and threatens to drag me down. 

Somehow, someway, I manage to weather it, to find myself still standing under clear skies. I’m forced to conclude in those moments that there is more of him in me than I thought. But it will always feel like a poor replacement. 

Such is the nature of feeling such a loss I suppose. Always wanting more, but taking solace in what we do have.