Just a couple of months ago marked the anniversary of Papa’s brain cancer diagnosis, the start of this crazy, sad, and painful journey 5 years ago.  And just yesterday marked the anniversary of his death.

5 years.

5 YEARS…..

Seems like a lifetime ago, really.  And no, not “just like yesterday,” but like a lifetime ago.   In so many ways, life looks so different now:

Nana moved into a “new” house.

J Jr., C Bear, and Little M have grown by leaps and bounds (now 12, 9, and 5).

J and I have more wrinkles and (maybe) a gray hair or two.

J left corporate America to take a risk and work for himself from home.

I started my own business, and with the help of a friend, transformed fence pickets into reclaimed wood decor… and then returned to teaching at Little M’s preschool… and then (just recently) opened a fair trade gift boutique.

We filled in our pool (with dirt, not water).

Our walls got dirty(er) with unidentifiable kid-grime.

We laid our dear old beagle, Bobo, to rest and cried our eyes out (every last one of us).

Bones have been broken.  Surgeries have happened.  And huge dents have been inflicted on the basement walls from too-many a miss-fired soccer ball.

Life has changed in so many ways.

 

But life has continued on.

After sickness and goodbyes and grief and the not-so-beautiful, life has marched on.

Do you remember that tree?  That tree I chopped down when Papa was sick – when I was practicing ax-therapy at the expense of our landscaping?

In under an hour, it went from looking like this….

To this…

 

I felled that tree with its lifetime of growth, and the spot where it stood was left empty… much like a piece of my heart after Papa’s sickness and passing.

And in the void of that once tree-filled spot, I regretted chopping it down.

 

But you know what happened?

All on its own, in “up from the grave [it] arose” fashion, that tree started to grow once more.

First it was just a small shoot emerging from the forgotten stump, but little by little, inch by inch, it began to rise, in spite of the odds threatening it.

 

It was pelted by snow and rain…

Caterpillars and other critters feasted on its baby leaves…

Little M,  in all his toddler glory, stomped it’s tender new shoots and broke them in two (he & I both required a time out following that unfortunate event).

And yet, that tree just continued to grow in all the tenacity its little roots could muster.

And as soon as I saw the first signs of life emerging from that lonely stump, I deemed it our “Papa Tree.”  A tangible reminder that life truly was continuing to grow and display its beauty even in the midst of Papa’s absence.

In spite of being pelted with grief and sadness.

In spite of our babies growing up and so many moments and milestones happening without him.

In spite of less-than-stellar moments when life took twists and turns we never expected it to take.

Life has continued, and it’s reached new and good places that we never would have expected just 5 years ago.

I lost my father, Nana lost her husband, my boys lost their Papa,

but…

Our Heavenly Father has remained good and faithful through it all.  He has not left us in our grief.  He did not abandon us when Papa breathed his last breath.  He has continued to work and move, and time and time again I’ve been in awe and brought to tears while watching Him work in ways only He could orchestrate.

It took time though for me to see this.  There were many months of numbness and just-getting-through in the beginning.  Growth takes time, doesn’t it?  I believe time is the gift God gave me to begin the healing process from the trauma of Papa’s sickness and death.

I remember well one evening, about a year and a half after Papa had passed, I was preparing dinner and J was sitting at the kitchen island talking about death and grief.  My back was turned away from him as I chopped veggies or such, and I heard him say, “If someone asked me how long it takes for life to start feeling normal again [after losing a loved one], I’d say…”

He only paused for a second, but in that split-second, my shoulders tensed and my mind raced, “What’s he going to say?  Does he think I should be ‘normal’ now, that I shouldn’t still be a mess, that my timetable for grief is up?”

Then he finished his sentence, “I’d say it takes 3-5 years,” and I breathed a sigh of relief.  He got it, he understood; I wasn’t glad he’d suffered a similar loss when his mom passed 6 years prior, but I was glad he could empathize and wasn’t putting any expectations on me to hurry up and get back to “normal.”

Not that life ever gets back to what it was before, be it 3 years or 30, but a new normal is slowly and surely established, just like that tree growing in front of our home.  It looks different, it feels different, it isn’t the same as it once was.  There is, and always will be, a void in our hearts and at many a family event due to Papa’s absence, and there are times when I still have a good cry over it.  But the pain and the ache become less acute as the years go by, as new moments spring up and new memories are formed; as we continue to live, and love, and…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, on this most recent anniversary of Papa’s death, I wondered what I/we could do to honor his memory.  I wished there was a special piece of jewelry he had gifted me that I could wear (side note:  all you fathers out there – go buy your daughter an heirloom-worthy jewelry piece; seriously, right now).  I digress.  It wasn’t until that evening when I was rushing my family out the door to get a family photo in my “we’re-not-eating-dinner-till-this-happens-so-smile-and- cooperate fashion, that it struck me.  Struck me that the vintage tripod I was unzipping out of case and hastily setting up; it was Papa’s.  And here we were standing next to our Papa tree, for a family photo, me setting timer and rushing in before the shutter started snapping.  Me taking on the role that Papa had filled for as long as I can remember.  Always the family photographer, the portrait-taker, the one setting up tripod and capturing smiles and documenting growth.  Without even realizing it, this simple act was honoring his memory.

Maybe heirloom jewelry isn’t so necessary after all.

Pretty sure we’ve just begun an October 2nd tradition; family photo by our Papa tree. Before we know it, we’ll have years-worth of photos documenting our growth.

As well as the growth of one very resilient tree.