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Can you see us from where you are? Do you wish you didn't have to cause such pain and sadness at your leaving? What was dying like? Was there any pain? I imagine you standing beside Jesus watching us and feeling us grieve.
I regret I wasn't a better daughter. I wish I had been less critical and more respectful. I wish I had been much less the bossy, know-it-all daughter and much more loving and considerate to you. I wish I had achieved more in your lifetime to make you proud and satisfied that you'd done a good job parenting me. And yet you probably were happy the way we all turned out. (You were always pretty easy to please.)
Sometimes my thoughts are so overwhelming I can hardly stand it. Death is so final. I will never see your hands caress a freshly sanded piece of wood again or your face make its unique expressions. I will never ever, even in eternity, hear you stutter again as you say my name. I won't be able to talk with you on the phone or ask for your advice. . . . Oh Dad, I still need you.
Trying to see the big picture in all this seems to help a bit. Other people have gone through similar devastating experiences, even more terrible experiences, and they survived. The world still spins, the seasons come and go, and life just goes on. Death has always been part of life since near the beginning. It just hasn't been a big part of my life before. Satan may even try to use it to defeat us, or make us bitter, but we do all die eventually. God has not allowed us to escape death, but He doesn't allow it to be something that will separate us from Himself or from those we love either. He actually uses it as a journey by which we enter eternity<209>there aren't many other ways to get there.
I can be thankful that death came quickly for you, that God took you Home when your children were all grown and independent, most with families of their own, and that He gave us eight more years with you after He suggested to us all that death could come at any time (during your double bypass surgery in 1986).
I'm also thankful you had a few early retirement years to enjoy your toys, spoil yourself a bit and just do what you wanted to.
I'm thankful my husband was able to meet you, ask for my hand and enjoy the next six years getting to know you and love you as a son loves a father.
I'm thankful for your visits to our home, including the last family time we had in Manitoba one month before you died. We didn't have time for that story you were going to tell the grandchildren then<209>another regret. I guess I'll have to start remembering things and tell your stories to my children myself.
Teresa Rempel lives in Fairview, Alta. Her father, Peter Reimer, passed away Oct. 3, 1994 after suffering a heart attack while on his way to the Holy Land.
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