Today marks one-year since my dad died. It’s funny how the day a close family member dies sticks in your brain like your own birthday.
Four eleven twenty five.
That’s how I see it in my mind. All spelled out like the actual numeral numbers won’t do justice to the significance of the day.
All day I’ve been trying to assess how I feel. Mostly, just pensive.
Lots of memories. The hardest part is just missing his presence. Just knowing that I can’t get to him, to see his face. That part is hard.
TIME
The whole day has got me to thinking about TIME. As a child, I used to hear the older folks in the family say, “Time don’t wait for nobody“. I get it now, in a different way than I understood that saying before. It’s been a whole year since dad died and in that year things kept going. The clock kept ticking, the sun kept rising and setting, more people were born and more died.
It makes me think so much more about how I used my time and what I want to accomplish in the minutes I have left in this life.
It just so happened that he died a month before I got caught up in a layoff – the second time in two years! I knew it was coming but I didn’t tell dad as he was in his last days in the nursing home. Some things just didn’t need to be shared with him at that time. He didn’t need to worry about me and my situation as he was preparing to leave this world.
I fought not telling him though because he was the person I told stuff like that too. He would have been so encouraging – letting me know I’d find something else. In his younger days, he would have said, “If I got money, you got money.” I knew what he meant. I didn’t have to worry no matter my circumstances.
Today, I think I miss hearing him say things like that. The reassuring, confident, secure things.
WATCHES
A couple days ago I was cleaning and ran across a plastic bag full of dad’s watches. He loved watches. Every time he upgraded or changed, the old one ended up in some drawer. As I moved him from his house, to a care home, then to a nursing home I collected the watches and put them in a bag. When he died, I brought them home with me and they lived in my closet for a whole year.
Lots of watches. None valuable. Most just old. A simple reminder of time. I’m finding it hard to part with them. His passing has helped me to understand sentimentality .
I thought about a Scripture in the Bible regarding the brevity of life.
Psalm 90:12. “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
This verse speaks of the importance of understanding the limited days of our lives. By recognizing our days are numbered, we can be wise in how we choose to live.
Each day we live feels like we have endless more. Not so.
One day it will come to an end for each of us.
The most satisfying and reassuring thing about my dad’s death to me, the one thing that settles my spirit and brings peace is the moments of his last days on this earth.
ETERNITY
Dad accepted the Lord Jesus Christ in the last weeks of his life.
He lived his own full life without Christ until he retired from his job. Then, after retirement, he did all the ‘churchy’ things – walked the aisle, said the right words, went to church, listened to some church music and sermons sometimes but as a believer myself, I waited for the assurance of a new creature in Christ.
As he realized that he was not ever leaving the nursing home, and as his body failed him, mom got a chance a few days before he passed to ask him if he knew he was a believer and going to heaven. He said, no. This was NOT the first time anyone has talked with him and prayed with him about his salvation but the few weeks before his death was different.
In his weak, but very curious voice, he asked mom many questions about Jesus, about giving his life to Christ, about heaven. etc. He had many questions, then he wanted mom to pray with him to be saved.
In the few days following, when he was in pain from being moved by nursing staff he called out to Jesus!! “Jesus, help me!” I’d never ever heard him say the name before, in an irreverent or reverent way before. It was all needed to witness to believe that his eternity with Christ was sealed.
TICK… TOCK …
I thought of my daddy all day today.
Four eleven twenty five, the date forever engraved into my brain.
“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
Peace & Blessings to you,
Rooted & Renewed 
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