Whenever I post here I feel like I should apologize for neglecting this blog, which is essentially my public journal. But my posts would get boring if I did that every time.
Lately there's been a lot of mess going on in my personal life and in my extended family, and it's hard to process all the feels. But last night something happened that I needed to share, except it comes with a bit of back story so here we go.
Those of you who have been here before know that my parents divorced when I was a tot, and my dad died before I turned 8. My childhood memories of him were always associated with negativity, and I had no memory of him expressing love for me. Because of this I grew up rough, and it was a long time (I was almost 30) before I stopped treating his death as something that happened to me, and realized it was something that happened to him. Think about that for a second. I was finally able to look beyond myself and understand that, had he lived--which was my selfish wish--his quality of life would have been miserable. And, as I know now, he is able to do much more for us from the other side of the veil.
A year or so ago I received a priesthood blessing, which is essentially direct communication/revelation from God to me. We can all get them, but they are predicated on our faith and belief. At any rate, I was told that my dad was proud of me, and that he'd love to be part of my life but Heavenly Father is holding him back for reasons we were not privileged to know. I can speculate all I want, but I choose not to second guess God's plan. Seems a little arrogant, you know?
Yesterday I was talking in some depth with one of my brothers via text, and he told me he'd had a dream about Dad. Dad told him that he was there to offer support and my brother, in the dream, said that he was fine. See, look? Life is good.
And then he woke up, showered, dressed, went downstairs and was served with divorce papers.
I admit it freely--I was a little jealous that my brother gets to hear from Dad and I don't. During our discussing my brother said that he'd had the same impression I'd been given, that dad wanted to be part of my life but could not go against God's will.
I told him that there's a lot we don't understand. It's God's will and His timeline. But I thought about that the whole rest of the day, and late that evening I was alone and contemplating and imagined my dad talking to my brother. "Tell your sister that I love her."
And I heard it in my heart as well as in my mind, and was overcome with emotion. Explaining what happened is akin to trying to tell someone who'd never tasted salt what salt tastes like. You know it, but you struggle to put it into words. Suffice it to say that I was overcome by the Spirit, much in the way I was overcome when I got my visit from my daughter, which you can read about HERE. It's an overload of the senses and you just can't explain it to someone who's never experienced it.
But it happened. And tears started rolling down my cheeks and I said, "I love you too Daddy." Because I do. We've had probably the most dysfunctional father-daughter relationship you can imagine, but I love him and I know he loves me. And, someday, I'm going to see him again.
And I don't envy my brother his contact with Dad. God knows best, it's His party and we're just the guests. The *why* of it all doesn't matter. Dad is one of my brother's tools to cope with life on Earth. I have other tools. We're living different lives and we need different tools, and I'm okay with that.
I have to be.
