Blue

Describes many things right now - the shirt I'm wearing, the color of the sky this morning, the color of the pool the girls are going to beg me to take them to today and the mood I'm in. I am really missing my dad right now. 5 1/2 years doesn't erase a need to hear some sound advice, to be able to call on someone you trust, to have someone who will take care of the list of things you need done now and provide one more wise male role model for your children. In many ways I'm OK with my dad being in heaven, but in so many ways it's just not OK.

13 years ago, after a year in our townhouse, my mom and dad came down and helped me strip the most hideous wallpaper off the walls in my kitchen, then my father meticulously cut and put up a chair rail for me and helped me paint the room. After we moved into this house, he was too sick to do anything really handy other than hang everything on the walls for me. Instead, he came down and entertained my 4 and 1 year olds while I painted and decorated. Then he walked around and admired my work as if we now lived in a palace fit for a king!

I'm pretty sure there isn't anyone who could take the place of my dad. Nobody has even offered! =) I think losing him was the biggest roadblock to any momentum in my life. There are so many things I want to do, so many big decisions I've bypassed, just because I have nobody really urging me to do anything. I can remember one summer during college, after arriving home from working my two jobs, that my dad was sitting in his chair with the newspaper open to the "Help Wanted" section of the paper. Not before long, I had three jobs that summer!

My dad wasn't a go-getter, he wasn't very authoritative (although he was a disciplinarian), and he was never dripping with encouragement. In other words, he reserved his praise for things that were praiseworthy in his eyes, and for me, losing that left a huge hole in my self-esteem, I guess. There are many things I don't do today because I know they won't matter to a soul. They would have mattered to him, but now they would only remind me that he's not here.

The most difficult thing about this problem is that I don't know how to fix it. I'm pretty sure I've spent about 5.5 years trying to find a band-aid, but there isn't one. I love Jesus, but He doesn't paint walls, hang post lights or change out bathroom faucets. He might be calling me to do something big, but I might have been silently grieving to the point I just didn't hear Him. And I've done a really good job keeping busy enough that I don't often feel this kind of pain anymore. Just when I really need my dad!