One of the hardest lessons I had to learn is that things do not stay the same for a lifetime. For instance, I could not have foreseen the way that things turned out for my father. This season has been difficult, but I am definitely growing as a result. If there was one piece of advice I could choose to give about life, it would be this: Don’t wait until the hard times to love your loved ones.
I have always been a Daddy’s girl for as long as I can remember. Sometimes you don’t realize how much your parents love you until you grow up. The way we define love today is much different than earlier generations’ definition of love. If you had a roof over your head, clothes to wear, and food on your table, that was the pinnacle of love. It wasn’t really something that our elders spoke about. It was just a given because you received the aforementioned items consistently, without fail.
It is so funny to me because when I look back over the years, I understand that so much of the love that I received was in the doing and the sacrifice. When my father listened to motivational speakers, read books, and played gospel, that was love. When he made soggy tuna fish sandwiches and cream of wheat for breakfast, that was love. Our trips to the bookstore where we would peruse the books for hours and consume hot cocoa, that was love. I am more loved than I even realized.
So that brings two questions to mind. Why did it take me so long to realize and how can I love my father the way he needs to be loved now?
I can’t really dwell on the first one because the past is the past, and all I have is the present. However, I can still work on the second one. What love looks like now is support, not complaining, doing whatever I have to do to take care of him, paying attention to him, talking to him, not giving up on loving him because he is different now.
That last part is an uphill battle. There are some days where I cry out to God and wonder how to keep going forward. Today was one of those days. I reside somewhere between being joyful about being available to him for this season of his life on my best days and being resentful on my worst days. I know now that it is going to take me and God in partnership to keep doing the right thing. One verse that always brings me comfort is Galatians 6:9. It lets me know that growing weary is a part of the journey but if you stay the course, you never know what’s on the other side.
B.E.E. Channel 