Daddy Bye-bye
I had not intended to write again
so soon, but something has just happened that I want to remember. I don’t want to forget any details of this
moment.
For as long as I knew him, Paul
always wore a silver digital watch. They
were the kind that would beep every half hour and hour. When the bands would wear out, he would write
to Timex and they would send him new ones.
In recent years, though, he found that it was actually cheaper to just
purchase a whole new watch when the bands broke. As a result, he had several working watch
heads in his bedside table drawer. Remember, he was a guy that struggled to throw
things away! I found a couple of these
watch heads the other day when cleaning out his drawers and set them up on top
of the bedside table. It’s comforting to
me to hear their reassuring beeps – reminds me of Paul.
Ellie turned 2 the first of July
but her speech has lagged a bit. I have
not worried (after as many kids as I’ve had, I’ve learned to not get too
excited about any perceived developmental delays; children have a way of
gaining skills when they are supposed to) although I have had numerous people
ask me, “Does she ever talk?” But
in the last couple of weeks, her vocabulary has just exploded!
Just now I was changing Ellie’s
diaper on my bed and the watches went off on the hour. Ellie’s eyes got huge and she exclaimed, “Daddy!” I smiled and told her she was right – those were
Daddy’s watches. She hopped off the bed,
ran through the house, and then came into the kitchen where I had moved and
excitedly told me, “Daddy bye-bye, Daddy bye-bye!”
My heart cracked. I had hoped
that of all the children, Ellie might be spared the pain of losing her
Daddy. Since she has appeared to be
perfectly unscathed since Paul’s death, I assumed all was good – she was just
too young and Paul’s importance in her life was probably minimal.
Ellie began making “steering wheel”
motions and kept jabbering, “Daddy bye-bye, Daddy bye-bye!” Oh, blessed baby…she thinks her daddy drove
away from her (after all, his work van disappeared the same day he did). We all explained to Ellie that Daddy didn’t
drive away, but went bye bye to Heaven.
But she stubbornly made her steering motions, making a “vroom, vroom”
sound, exclaiming “Daddy bye-bye, Daddy bye-be!”
Death is not particular in who it
hurts. Its sting touches even the
smallest of hearts.
HUGS & shared tears................
ReplyDeleteOh, how I remember those moments. My 2yr old seemed to not get it either, then one night in the middle of the night he woke up crying, "MOMMY! Daddy died!!!Daddy died!" His little brain finally got that his father was never coming home again.
It was a heartbreaking moment. Now I look at the same 9yr old and see how healthy emotionally he is. He has accepted his father's death and has a sensativity to the Holy Spirit that inspires me.
God is the great Healer.
Many hugs