When are you coming home? I texted Derek. Crystal had just pulled out of the driveway, late to pick her older kids up from school.
Why?
I have to talk to you.
What?
I’ll wait until you get home.
My phone rang. I didn’t have to look to know it was him.
“What is it?” He sounded both worried and annoyed. We’d just had ten days of accumulating bad news. Neither of us was comfortable with speculation.
“I really need to tell you in person,” I answered. I knew he was irritated, but this would take more processing than he could squeeze in between work appointments.
“I’m really behind. I don’t know when I’ll be home. Just tell me.”
“I’m okay. The girls are fine. I just want to see your face when I talk to you.”
I knew he’d understand when he found out what it was. A few hours later, sitting on our back patio, I could tell he did.
“How are you feeling?” His voice softened.
“Nothing. I’m feeling nothing. I didn’t even know he was alive, so I don’t know, I guess I’m okay.”
He nodded. He knew better than anyone that I’d already grieved. I’d spent my life working through this loss. This just meant any chance at a relationship was over. But I’d made that decision the last time I’d said good-bye, when Derek and I pulled out of my father’s gravel turnaround driveway.
“I think it’s significant that he kept saying your name over and over.”
“I know,” I said, “it probably is.” But I didn’t know how. Guilt? Regret? Hope for final words? Someone could have called me, held the phone up to his ear, but they didn’t. If there was something more he’d wanted to say, I would never know.
“Maybe I’m just exhausted. Maybe I have nothing left to feel right now. Maybe it will come out in ways I don’t expect.”
I spent the days that followed trying to put order back in our family life after ten days of crisis. I took Gracie to doctor’s appointments, threw a fortieth birthday party for Derek, helped a kindergartner with her separation anxiety, and attended to my month-old baby. But physically, I wasn’t getting better. I still felt like all life had been sucked from me, and I would sit down often. Even standing to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches was exhausting. So much for an empty schedule, I thought. But I was grateful I’d built that time margin into those first few months. I went back to the doctor and got another round of antibiotics.
Then one day I sat on my sofa and googled his name. I wondered if there’d been any press on his death, so I went looking for it. Following trails, I attempted to decipher newspaper articles in Spanish and Catalan. They all focused on his work. None mentioned any family.
I felt as though I’d found some treasures, and I wanted to call someone. Someone who would understand their significance. But I had no one to call, at least nobody who understood the journey I’d been on, who’d experienced it with me. My mom had been there, but she saw things from her perspective. Normally someone would call a sibling, I thought. I could call Derek, and he would love me through it, but not really understand. Understand what it’s like to read my father’s obituaries in foreign languages, with no mention of my existence. I felt alone.
But God knew. He’d been there at every point. From my conception forward, he was my traveling companion. He knew my backstory as well as I did, but beyond that, he knew the joy that would come. Much of my life I felt I was walking on unsteady ground, hoping that where I chose to place my feet would somehow make me more secure. And yet here I was with the husband, the children, the job, the church I’d dreamed of, and nothing about the last few weeks hinted at security. Things that made no sense to me, things that caused me to call out to God in fear, still happened. My only stability was Jesus.
I could not, would never, be able to control my circumstances. The one thing I could count on was God. He created me. He loved me—the plain-old-housewife, mother-of-four me. I know in many ways I’m ordinary. Not too different from millions of other women. And in just as many ways I’m extraordinary, woven together by my unique biology, circumstances, and choices. A unique reflection of my Creator.
After the initial shock and “I’m okays” I offered concerned friends, I wondered if I really was. Was I really okay with this most recent turn of events—that my father was gone? And I decided I was. I’d closed that door many years ago. I’d peeked behind it a few times to make sure it was all good. And it was. But more, it was knowing that when stripped to my core—when I had to lay my head on my minivan steering wheel, not sure I could make it home—I called to God for help. When I had nothing left. No energy. No words. Not even prayers. God was there. He was my only real security and the definer of my soul.