I have to work this evening, and I am normally going to bed about now, but I wanted to share this before I turn in, in case it is not the same when I wake up.
When I was about 17 years old I was driving my Daddee (my grandfather) to town one day and listening to Gospel music and weeping as I listened.
My Daddee had probably seen me weep a fair amount while listening to this music and it finally got the best of him that morning.
"Why don't you stop crying like that!...you are not a little girl!"
Like an arrow shot right in my heart. I was infuriated...actually I was deeply hurt, but because I was suddenly now forbidden by my Daddee to cry it came out instead as me being infuriated.
It was a bitter cup that he introduced me to that day and only a few months before he died, he came to me in tears asking me why I didn't love him? What a twist of irony. "Of course I love you" I told him, but I was at somewhat of a loss, I was only doing what he showed me how to do, to be tough and gaurd against emotion.
You see my grandfather grew up a much harder life than most people. His mother took him and left him at an orphanage when he was 8 years old. It was during the great depression and she could not afford to feed all of her children so one of them had to go and it was my precious Dadee.
He never understood his whole life how his mother could have left him there. He was very scared and only once did I ever hear him share anything about it.
From the cold hearts of the other orphans and the rigid discipline of the nuns, it didn't take long for my Daddee's heart to get bitter. Crying was not acceptable.
My dear Dadee went through his whole life suffering with the pain of his mother's abandonment of him. He turned to drinking for a good space of his life and when ever anything was too much to handle he would escape into the bottle. Insipte of it all though, He was a very loving and strong man. He also had a deep reverence and acceptance of God as well. Only a few years left in his life and a ripple of that pain caused so long ago in such a cold world my Dadee grew up in found its way to me.
From that moment on I would refuse to cry in front of people (the seldom times I would allow myself to). When my mother died a few years later, I didn't mourn her death.
Failures, hurts, pains...I began internalizing all of them, clothing my self with them believing that it was my responsibility to bear them and carry them.
No greater place is this evident than in my closest relationships with my wife and children. Hanging on to every negative word or deed that has ever been directed toward me and letting the positive ones continue floating down the river of life, glimpsing them only for moments before returning to the pain.
When we do this...when we refuse to mourn the loss of something or someone in our lives that is precious to us, with each denial we lose a little bit more of the life and love God made us to be partakers of. Words of affection begin to lose the meaning they once were so full of many times being mingled with pain to make them a bitter sweet drink that brings some comfort, but never really heals the wound or barren place left on the soul.
Last weekend I had some things surface in my life that I have meditated on all week long trying to understand where they came from. Their surfacing caused hurt to someone I love so very dearly and this morning the reality of this all came tumbling in.
I have missed so many opportunities for expressing my love for the people in my life and for the joys and losses of my own all because my sweet precious Dadee was hurt so very many years ago and his hurt reverberated into my life that morning in the car. While writing this, this is the first time I have ever mourned the loss my dear Dadee suffered so long ago.
Father please forgive me for not allowing myself to be embraced and trying to avoid vulnerability because I wouldn't let go of my pride. Forgive me for not forgiving my dear sweet precious dadee who I love with all my heart. Please teach me to mourn and to let go again, to embrace and be embraced to love and be loved.
Your precious adopted son,
- David
When I was about 17 years old I was driving my Daddee (my grandfather) to town one day and listening to Gospel music and weeping as I listened.
My Daddee had probably seen me weep a fair amount while listening to this music and it finally got the best of him that morning.
"Why don't you stop crying like that!...you are not a little girl!"
Like an arrow shot right in my heart. I was infuriated...actually I was deeply hurt, but because I was suddenly now forbidden by my Daddee to cry it came out instead as me being infuriated.
It was a bitter cup that he introduced me to that day and only a few months before he died, he came to me in tears asking me why I didn't love him? What a twist of irony. "Of course I love you" I told him, but I was at somewhat of a loss, I was only doing what he showed me how to do, to be tough and gaurd against emotion.
You see my grandfather grew up a much harder life than most people. His mother took him and left him at an orphanage when he was 8 years old. It was during the great depression and she could not afford to feed all of her children so one of them had to go and it was my precious Dadee.
He never understood his whole life how his mother could have left him there. He was very scared and only once did I ever hear him share anything about it.
From the cold hearts of the other orphans and the rigid discipline of the nuns, it didn't take long for my Daddee's heart to get bitter. Crying was not acceptable.
My dear Dadee went through his whole life suffering with the pain of his mother's abandonment of him. He turned to drinking for a good space of his life and when ever anything was too much to handle he would escape into the bottle. Insipte of it all though, He was a very loving and strong man. He also had a deep reverence and acceptance of God as well. Only a few years left in his life and a ripple of that pain caused so long ago in such a cold world my Dadee grew up in found its way to me.
From that moment on I would refuse to cry in front of people (the seldom times I would allow myself to). When my mother died a few years later, I didn't mourn her death.
Failures, hurts, pains...I began internalizing all of them, clothing my self with them believing that it was my responsibility to bear them and carry them.
No greater place is this evident than in my closest relationships with my wife and children. Hanging on to every negative word or deed that has ever been directed toward me and letting the positive ones continue floating down the river of life, glimpsing them only for moments before returning to the pain.
When we do this...when we refuse to mourn the loss of something or someone in our lives that is precious to us, with each denial we lose a little bit more of the life and love God made us to be partakers of. Words of affection begin to lose the meaning they once were so full of many times being mingled with pain to make them a bitter sweet drink that brings some comfort, but never really heals the wound or barren place left on the soul.
Last weekend I had some things surface in my life that I have meditated on all week long trying to understand where they came from. Their surfacing caused hurt to someone I love so very dearly and this morning the reality of this all came tumbling in.
I have missed so many opportunities for expressing my love for the people in my life and for the joys and losses of my own all because my sweet precious Dadee was hurt so very many years ago and his hurt reverberated into my life that morning in the car. While writing this, this is the first time I have ever mourned the loss my dear Dadee suffered so long ago.
Father please forgive me for not allowing myself to be embraced and trying to avoid vulnerability because I wouldn't let go of my pride. Forgive me for not forgiving my dear sweet precious dadee who I love with all my heart. Please teach me to mourn and to let go again, to embrace and be embraced to love and be loved.
Your precious adopted son,
- David
