It’s just after 12 noon on Father’s Day, my first Father’s Day since my Dad died nearly a year ago.
Last Father’s Day was the last time my father and I were able to speak. He was in the very late stages of dying of cancer, and we knew he had only a few days left. He was still coherent most of the time, and — blessedly — in virtually no pain. My wife and I spent the day with him, my stepmom, and my two sisters in Santa Barbara. He dozed most of the day in his easy chair, periodically waking up to chat with us or smile at us while we held his hand. He died four days later.
I woke up this morning very early, even before my alarm went off at 5:00. I went downstairs, meditated for a bit, and thought about the fact that this would be the first Father’s Day of my life without my Dad. I remembered the little gifts and cards I made him in elementary school; I remembered the lunches I took him out to in more recent years. I thought about last Father’s Day when, in the evening, we put Dad into bed and I heard him say — for the last time — the same words he had been saying to me for nearly four decades: “Good night, Huggle.”
I’m in the heart of my marathon training now; today’s run was a hard twenty-miler from the Aquatic Center parking lot south of the Rose Bowl to the top of Brown Mountain in the Angeles Forest. I was looking forward to the run today of all days because it would be something joyous, liberating, peaceful, exhilarating.
I ran with two of my buddies, Caz and Mark; both are fathers. Both knew my Dad. I didn’t talk much about missing my father, but I was soothed by the presence of these old companions of mine; their gentle maleness is reminiscent of my papa’s, and I needed some gentle masculinity today.
The last stage of the run was grueling. We had added in an extra section that gave us another mile, so I was doing a solid 21 this morning. I ran the last four miles alone, in the blazing sun, down through Devil’s Gate dam and along the east side of the Bowl. I felt my father with me as I ran; it was he, after all, who taught me to run thirty years ago, back when he was briefly caught up in the “jogging craze” of the mid-to-late 1970s. And when I came to a stop near my car, soaked in sweat, my skin coated in dust and salt, I felt the tears well up. Running, for me, isn’t really an escape from emotional pain; it is in my running that I draw closer to my own woundedness, my own grief — it is in endurance athletics that I find a kind of catharsis and healing that I find nowhere else, not even on my knees at the communion rail.
And doing 21 miles of long, slow, painful distance on this Father’s Day brought me very close to the pain of losing my father a year ago. But it also brought home for me the Great Hope that I hold in my heart, that I will be with him again in another country. Perhaps when I join him there, they will have hills and fire roads, and we will run a very long time together.
That’s not just my hope, that’s my certainty this Father’s Day.
The chinchillas got their dad a dozen yellow roses and a gift certificate to the movies. Their papa is grateful.
“Running, for me, isn’t really an escape from emotional pain; it is in my running that I draw closer to my own woundedness, my own grief — it is in endurance athletics that I find a kind of catharsis and healing that I find nowhere else, not even on my knees at the communion rail.”
I can really relate to what you express here. After spending 2 years living in Bangkok to learn Thai, live in a slum community, and begin work with a Thai foundation in the area of community development, I felt deeply tired. And grieved about a good many things, both personal and otherwise - I just had this great and unexpressible sense of loss. And so while wrestling through that, I returned for a break in the US last October and decided to make a number of fairly significant lifestyle changes…one of which was a return to athletics after a nearly 15 year hiatus (that was much to my own detriment, I might add). Certainly the spiritual renewal I’m experiencing presently is holistic and a result of a good many things coming together through God’s grace. But athletics have been key for me as well. As you express, they put me in touch with certain things in ways that nothing else can.
Thanks for the post.
I’m sorry to hear about your father. It’s good that your faith helps you in these circumstances. I’m a Christian and I thank God that my father is still alive. My father has not been there for me and never said Good Night but we must learn to love which is exactly what I’m trying to do - learning to forgive and love.
It’s great that running can help. I run but most of the time when I run my mind is very clouded and it makes my running harder and other times I have to be in constant aware of my surroundings. My head feels twice its size but then there are times when I wake up and nobody is outside and the day is beautiful (although I imagine the day looks better in Pasadena than in Southcentral) and everything just feels light.