Remembrance Letter to Dad

Dear Dad,

I still cannot believe you are gone. Every day, I am in shock. Some days it's a sharp pain in my heart and sometimes it's a softened weeping that I permit myself. Every time a small, single-engine aircraft buzzes overhead, I know that's you checking in on me....as you used to always say in your voice messages: "this is your conscience calling." I don't know where you came up with this leading phraseology but it speaks to your breadth as a human. You exhibited grand range in your skills, emotionality and wisdom. One day you're hunting elk on a Montana prairie, the next you're exploring the original teachings by Francis Peabody, former Harvard Medical School professor and researcher of typhoid. A [soldier] of your own living truth, there was never a moment where you weren't thinking of others, doing good deeds and serving with every breath you took. Only later as an adult did I realize all the behind-the-scenes work and self-talk that would go into raising us from a place of true belief in us, unconditional love and a sense of greater faith and trust in our abilities. Never did you yell or punish, but would only state a quiet, "I'm disappointed in you." Ugh, this would pierce straight into my bones. It spoke of your belief in my higher ability and also your keen and inherent understanding of me as a person that there was no one who was harder on herself than I. You knew you didn't need to add insult to injury by also being too hard on me. So many lessons, so many learnings, so many teachings.

Playhouses, kid-sized model airplanes, camping, painting, reading, talking, walking, fishing, fixing, doctoring and pure fullest-of-life living -- you did it all -- and without apology. I'll never forget the time you dropped me off at college at Montana State University. You went to hug me goodbye at the end of the weekend after ensuring I was settled in with all the necessary dorm room accouterments, introductions to roommates and general sense of points of interest on campus. You started heaving and what I first interpreted as heavy laughing only to pull back and understand that you were crying. I was your first born and evidently this was a very emotional stage for you as a father. Me, too, though all the excitement of starting my first days of a real adult were shrouding my emotions of detachment in that moment. Thank the Lord. I could not have handled your sadness as it was the first time I had ever seen you cry - in 18 years!

I owe you my sense of wonder, curiosity, global worldview, call toward service and basic appreciation for maintaining and caring for all that we do have. 

A family that plays together stays together. 

I don't want to hear any excuses. 

Don't buy new shoes, polish the ones you have.

Sleep in your own bed.

Prevention is the best medicine.

Ho ho ho - Merrrrrrrrrrry Chrrrrrrrrrristmas!

You've got good bait, Mer. You're just fishing in the wrong waters.

Stress is going to be our biggest killer.

So it is no accident, my life's work would come to revolve around stress reduction: meditation, yoga, eating well, sleeping well, playing hard and loving even harder.

On the night he passed, just 1 month from his diagnosis of metastatic melanoma and the very night this moderate democrat took his last breath, Trump was elected into office as President of the United States. I often tease, he got out just in time.

His final moments could not have been more poetic had they been scripted from the highest heavens above - which I wholeheartedly believe they were. I see them as the sweetest, most powerful and comprehensively captured of my lifetime. He was in the hospital on heavy doses of morphine so coming in and out of lucidity. Everyone had gone home for the night to let him rest, but for my stepmother and youngest sister. As I arrived back to the family home with my aunt at 10pm, we expected the house to be unlocked because of all the family and friends who were coming and going during those last few days only to find it locked with no hidden key or way to get in. So we headed back to the hospital. All entrances were locked. We banged on back doors, front doors, peered through windows when finally someone let us in. We quickly made our way back to his room to retrieve the house keys. Then, as we rounded the corner into his dark room he sat up swiftly, looked directly at me/us in the doorway, his face illuminated by the hallway light, took a giant gasping breath and melted back into his bed. That was it. He was gone. He was at peace, no longer in pain. No doubt fast tracking his way to heaven though savoring the trip in a small, single-engine aircraft smiling upon us, loving us, looking out for us and keeping us safe in his heart.

Thank you, Dad. I'm sorry for any pain I brought you. I love you.

Meris Roberta