Father's Day as a Day of Grief

Father’s Day 2015 Thoughts

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            In the past I have written at times about my father for Father’s Day. He passed away on a Monday following Father’s Day back in 1989. This year as Father’s Day has approached there has been a lot of pain in this world and so the stories of pain in this world have grabbed my attention.

            One writer, whom I know through the internet, wrote on her blog how she didn’t want to face Father’s Day because this would be her first Father’s Day following her father’s death. I know at least two other families which are also experiencing their first Father’s Day following the father’s death. One of the persons who passed away in the last year, leaving his wife and children to face Father’s Day without their Dad was my oldest brother who passed away last July 22.

 

 

            So this Father’s Day instead of focusing my remembering on my father who passed away 26 years ago, I spent time thinking of families who are learning to face Father’s Day without Dad. When a Dad who had such an impact on our lives passes away the memories especially in the first year or two after his passing are bitter. The hurt is overwhelming. But as the years pass the memories like wine having gone through the full aging process are tasted with a sense of gratitude for the memories we can once more enjoy. I have sometimes said to people who are grieving than one of the ways to keep a loved one near us who has passed away is to remember something about them we most loved and to see if there is way for us to grow in the grace of that trait we loved in them that it might be more implanted in our own lives. For my oldest brother I remember how he had the most even keeled temperament of any of us four kids. The smile in the photo I share of him was a smile often seen in his life – it was his signature look and not just a photograph pose. I don’t think I will ever smile the same way he did but I would love to have a little bit more of the even-keeled response to life’s joys and difficulties.

            I think also this week of the Selby family whose husband and father passed away in recent months. Duane Selby was a unique individual with a unique sense of humor who also had a rare sense of caring for others and would have been one of the first people to help out a family facing a difficult time. He was a handy man with a wide array of acquired skills. I think of his wide array of skills with awe because I am one of those people whose right hand believes I am left handed and my left hand believes I am right handed. Each hand obedient to the Scriptures, keeps the other hand from knowing that it is not the dexterous hand.

            As for the young woman I know from the internet, not well though I read a book she wrote about her life growing up Jewish and becoming Christian, I simply tried to encourage her that though this year her memories of her father are painful and difficult especially on Father’s Day, as the years pass she will likely find that the memories aroused on Father’s Day will each year be different and the time will come when the very memories of our fathers will be met with gratitude. For the truth is that sometimes we bury our memories of those who have passed as if we can bury the pain by burying the memories. So if we wished in that first year or two that Father’s Day would be forever banished from our cultural obligations, the day will come when the focus on our fathers will lead us to remember afresh the memories we once buried along with the pain. We become one day grateful that a passing Father's Day brings to our minds memories of the one we called “Dad” or was it “Papa” or in those serious moments the full sound of “Father”. When we are able to hold together the good memories and the painful memories we can bind them together in a prayer and give thanks for our memories of our fathers to Him whom we know as the Father of all mercies.

            I suppose there are those who had miserable fathers and those who barely knew fathers. I think of a dear pastor whose father was known mostly to him as a name on a monument listed with the names of all the Vietnam War veterans who died in service of their country. But the truth is that on Father’s Day we seek to remember not just our fathers, who bear the name “father” in imperfection but also we remember that we have a father in heaven, with whom there is no variation or turning of shadow.

Analogies of God are in all cases drawn from the God who cannot be duplicated to the illustrations of God in creation who are not the ways we understand God as much as they are the signposts that remind us of the God we know. We cannot really understand the Fatherhood of God through our imperfect earthly fathers, but when we are granted to know something of God we are reminded of elements of his heavenly fatherhood imperfectly realized in human images created in God’s image. Ultimately as Christians, we believe in the Fatherhood of God not because our fathers showed us such wonderful pictures of God, but rather we understand the Fatherhood of God through our knowing Jesus Christ who is the perfect image and eternal Son of God the Father. By knowing God the Father through Jesus the Son we begin to see the image of God the Father in the image of the created man whom we grew up calling “Father”, “Papa” and “Dad” or “Daddy.”

This week we also lament that fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, friends, and loved ones were slaughtered because of the evil that had sought out one of Adam’s sons. He fed himself the thoughts of evil until he killed nine people even though he had some last moment second thoughts because they were kind to him. I tried writing about the Charleston nine that were taken from us this week. I didn’t have the words. But perhaps it is enough to realize that from everything we know of them their lives had been placed in the Fatherhood of God with whom there is no variation or turning of shadow.

 

 

            Father’s Day, as it turns out is much like the rest of the days we live on this earth; we sip the cup given to us whether it is a cup of blessing or a cup of sorrow. We partake and remember and hope. As I sought to express to one of those facing Father’s day for the first time without her husband I believe we are meant to feel the agony of sorrow every bit as much as we are meant also to feel the hope of resurrection. Pretty much every child of humanity that puts their hand into the hand of the Father of mercies must drink from the cup of sorrows and yet in the cup of sorrows can be seen the hope of resurrection. So perhaps today I have come to understand Father’s Day in a more meaningful way than I have ever before experienced it.