I have a friend. He has a great dad.

My friend loves his dad. A lot. From my vantage point they have a pretty awesome relationship. His dad is a very wise man. He has lived a long time. (That is kinda prerequisite for being wise.) When my friend has a problem, when life throws him for a loop, when his proverbial head smacks up a against a proverbial wall, he calls his dad. And his dad, though he may not have all the answers, always has something of value to offer.

I gotta admit. I’m kinda jealous.

Twenty two years ago

Tuesday would have been my dad’s 67th birthday. I lost him just shy of his 50th birthday, seventeen years ago, when I was only twenty two years old. Twenty two years is much too young to bury a parent.

Truthfully, I lost him many years before that.

I was just ten, my older brother twelve, when he decided that he to walk away and build his life miles away from us and my mom. You can read some about that here.

Seasons Change

I remember one of his favorite songs during that time was “Seasons Change” by Expose. I think he used the lyrics of that song to try to explain the new normal he was forcing on us all.

“Seasons change, feelings change…Seasons change, people change.”

I remember him singing it like we were supposed to find the same weird sort of comfort he found in the haunting mysterious melody.

“Time changes things and things change in time. Welcome to the new now!”

Yeah, that did absolutely nothing for a chubby ten year old that just wanted his mom and his dad to live peacefully together. The fact that my dad’s love for my mother had changed like the autumn leaves brought me no peace or comfort, only the sinking feelings of loss and loneliness.

In the years that followed, I rode the teenage roller coaster of emotion like most. I found myself rising to the peaks of anger and plummeting to the depths of sadness and sorrow. Some say you never totally heal from the pain of divorce. I would have to agree. The emotional wounds never totally heal, they just harden and scar. Never fully allowing you to forget.

Nonetheless, I could never hate my father for the pain he caused. I am no longer angry with him for disrupting what I thought was a pretty good childhood. Far from it.

I actually hurt for him. He missed out. Big time.

My bro and I were pretty awesome kids, if I do say so myself. He would have a lot to be proud of. Not to mention the enormous troup of grandkids he would be enjoying.

Seriously though, as a dad myself, I have no clue how he was able to step away the way he did.

How? Just how?

How do you tear yourself away from your two preteen sons? How do you abandon your little boys and leave their mother to fight, struggle, and carry your God-given responsibility alone? How do you just create a new life for yourself while leaving your family to do their own bidding and willingly blind yourself to their plight?

What was going on inside of him? What was tormenting his soul? What kind of internal demons was he fighting? What did the struggle look like in his lonely pain filled heart? What was he going through inside that drove him to slash and burn our family to pieces?

I know some of my dad’s backstory. And it isn’t pretty. Actually it is quite dark and evil. Terrifying even. He carried his own scars and definitely was a wounded man.

But at the end of the day, he made the wrong choices. He chose the wrong path. And his family suffered for his choices.

It is a story too often told. A narrative repeated over and over. Pain passes on more pain.

We have a choice

So what of you and I, fellow dad?

What can this possibly mean for us?

Every day we are faced with a choice.

Do we choose to allow the pain of our past to destroy our family’s future? Or do we allow the failures of those that have gone before us to drive us to be better fathers?

I need to phrase that a little better…

We will either overcome the past to become the Husband/Dad our family’s need us to be

OR

We will find ourselves so entangled in our pain that we repeat the mistakes of those that wronged us.

That is the choice.

Choose to do better

I choose to be a better Dad than my dad allowed himself to be. Learn from his mistakes and not repeat them.

Every day I make a conscience choice to let the failures of my father fuel my determination to be the best dad I can possibly be.

The past is the past. Remember it, think about it, evaluate it, learn from it, but don’t repeat it.

That’s our choice, guys.

Either we allow the past to determine our family’s future. Or we can rise above the failures and pain of the past to become the husband and father you were meant to be.

Doesn’t mean it will be easy. Might even feel impossible at time.

Overcome the pain of the past and let it fuel you into the man your wife and kids need you to be. You can do it, fellow Dad. I will be praying for you.