My Dad Says There is a Lesson in EVERYTHING

I’m not going to lie – the last few weeks have been tough and I’ve had no choice but to step away from blogging.

It’s been a little over six weeks since my father, at the age of 82, lost his short battle with cancer. My dad wasn’t your standard 82 year old man. He was still splitting his own firewood, climbing scaffolding to finish recladding his house and giving lessons from his own life experiences when cancer caught him by surprise this past January. Needless to say, the only thing the doctors seemed to have right was how much time he had left when he entered hospice at the end May.

It’s interesting how life works.

I sit here many days working on what I hope to be inspiring blog posts and work hard at maintaining focus when life keeps throwing curve balls my way. The difference this time is that this curve ball turned into a wild pitch, from which I am still trying to recover. I would love to be able to sit here and give you the perfect piece of advise on how to deal with the loss of your parent, but I come up blank.

This coming weekend, a memorial will be held for my father and it has been said that anyone that wishes to express their thoughts is more than welcome to take the stage. No one is calling it a eulogy but when it really comes down to it, that is exactly what it will be. So last night I sat down and thought about what I would say if I decided to hit the podium.

Where Do I Start?

Brain Dump

I was stumped. My usual go to of Googling instructions on “how to” just didn’t seem appropriate. Instead, I decided to open up my laptop and just started typing whatever thoughts popped into my head.

I thought about how I would describe my dad to someone that had never met him.

I thought about all my father’s positive attributes. I thought about all the negative ones as well.

I thought about what I learned from my father growing up and all the positive things that I am today because of his influence.

Once I had my mind in the zone, so to speak, the words just started to flow and after an hour I had a lot of notes on my memories of my dad. It was such a relief to have all my thoughts writing down and cleared out of my brain, that I was able to have a somewhat peaceful nights sleep.

Take a Break

When I woke up this morning with a clear head, I decided that my next step would be to tackle composing my father’s “eulogy” like any other writing assignment. I know, for some this might sound extremely odd.

See last night was an emotional night bringing all my thoughts down into the keyboard, but this morning I was able to compose my written words better because I had already taken most of the hard core emotion out of my head. Today I was able to focus more on the composition. For me, this approached was really helpful.

Lesson Learned?

I am now two days away from attending my dad’s memorial, printed memories in my hand, and still undecided whether I will actually say what I have written.

Interestingly enough, writing this eulogy has taken a tiny bit of the sting out the pain of losing my father. It’s difficult to explain. I’m no longer concerned about whether anyone needs to hear or read what I have written about my dad. I have my memories, just like everyone else that knew my dad.

But here is what is interesting to me – I once again realize that my dad was right, there really is a lesson in everything. Even in my dad’s passing, I am able to see IT, I just needed to be open to the idea.

Thanks Dad