A Turn of Events: Losing My Father and Finding a New Beginning

Life After Hurricane Helene

So much has happened in the last few months. I feel it a testament to my strength and the work that I've put in that I've been able to keep up with it all. More than that, I feel good that I have handled everything healthfully. 

After the hurricane, I came back to Texas for a week. Yet Western North Carolina was still calling me and I quickly returned. Although my job had floated away when Hurricane Helene hit, I thankfully was offered a virtual teaching role with another school. Yet the instability of WNC remained and I had to make several relocations in the area. Nearing Thanksgiving I was tired and did not trust that the next new place would hold. Yet I still didn't want to leave. 

The Call That Changed Everything

However, the evening of 11/23/2024, I received a call that would change the trajectory of my life. My father was in the hospital dying from the end stages of lung cancer. That night and the next morning, I packed everything that I had with me into my SUV and headed back to Texas. I never expected Dad to live for another five weeks, but am so incredibly grateful that he did. I'm tearing up as my memories arise... he passed on New Year's Eve 2024 and was buried on 01/04/2025. I gave his Eulogy. We had previously discussed our "end song", jokingly talking about if we were to ever "Thelma and Louise" it. That song was "Simple Man" by Lynard Skynard, which I sang A Capella at his funeral. 

I also gave his eulogy and want to remember my words, as they were meaningful to me and an expression of love to my father. 

Myself, Dad, and my Brother around Christmas of 1995

My Eulogy for My Father

Revelation 21:4: Comfort in Grief

“Revelation 21:4

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

Coming Together Through Love and Forgiveness

When I heard the news that Dad was sick, I had been in an authentic relating conference that circled around the topic of how can we come together as community to bring about peace. The question in current discussion was about being one; that we all share similarities and that we must rely upon these likenesses as a way to promote harmony. 

As I sat there pondering the ideas before me, I received a call from my Aunt who I had not spoken with in a couple of years. I knew it was something with Dad before I answered, and it was in speaking with her that I understood the message that had been trying to find resonance within my mind: That differences do not matter when you are coming together for a common cause. 

Over the next 2 days, I packed all my things and drove the 1000 miles to the hospital that Dad was in. I kept praying on the way back that I would be able to see him before he passed. Although we did share the occasional text and I had sent love to him the week before, I hadn’t even known he was sick. I needed to see him in person and make sure that he saw in my eyes that past grievances had been forgiven, and that he was deeply loved by his daughter. I desperately wanted to hold his hand.

Five Precious Weeks With My Father

More blessed than I could imagine, Dad was not only still alive when I arrived, but lived another 5 weeks. We must have spent 2 dozen hours together those first few days at Harris Hospital. He went deep and spoke of his transgressions. He talked of how it had felt trying to stay alive as he was dying before he had initially entered the hospital. I remember him speaking to me of his struggle and how before he got care, he kept telling himself, “take 1 more breath, just 1 more breath”. He talked of mistakes he had made in life. 

Something that moved me greatly was his remorse… even more so, the humanity behind it. He told me that he had made so many mistakes in his life. He said that as he was making them, he often knew he was in the wrong, but couldn’t seem to make better choices. He said that he was following a deep desire to feel happy and loved, but that in everything he did, he felt he just kept making things worse. And that he was very sorry for those who he had hurt.  

Finding Forgiveness Through Shared Humanity

What stood out to me as intrinsically human was that his motivations were to feel loved and find happiness inside. That is a core motivation and human need for all of us. We all request and express this in different ways, but it is something that we all have need for. In his words, I found understanding. And in that understanding, I found true forgiveness. Of Dad and of others that I have felt hurt through in my life. 

Remembering the Good Times and His Legacy

Over the next couple of weeks, I would visit Dad and remember more of the good times, the times when, being direct, the drugs had not taken so much of him. I remembered the silliness, the gentleness, the love. How he would hold me as a child, and how he would sing. And the many road trips that we had shared.

There were so many neat and unique memories with Dad. One memory stands out in particular. I was young, maybe 6 or 7 and Dad stopped at an underpass on a trip out of state. He showed me an outcropping where homeless people lived and I saw the sleeping bag and basic supplies that were at this persons camp. I had gone to touch the items and he told me no, to leave them be out of respect. I think it was a moment that opened me to a level of deeper compassion and gentle curiosity that greater developed as I grew into an adult. 

Dad also loved nature and travel. Being outside, crystals, the water. So much of me came from him, so many things that make me proud of who I am as a person. I am a helper because of what I learned in my experiences with him. 

Family, Community, and the Power of Compassion

I tried to do more by being closer in his last days and spent 8 days on his land. Not blood, but he had created additional family there. People who loved him and looked up to him. People who cherished him. In what they have told me, Dad did as we all need to do at a point, he found his tribe. They talked, they built, they learned from one another. For that, I am also grateful. For getting to know these people that Dad loved, I am appreciative. It opened me even more to new realizations about humanity and our different struggles that I hadn’t understood before. 

In his last weeks, estranged family also came together for a common cause: Love of my Dad. That was the lesson that I was gaining the day I heard… “where can we find harmony”? It is in the compassion of humans; as in the end, we are all in this together. It was a lesson centered on love. And those loving memories… that’s what I’ll carry with me from Dad.” (End Eulogy)

Closing

I've had an incredible number of losses in recent years. Yet where my feelings once went so deep that I would sometimes lose myself in depression, that is no longer the case. I have now learned to feel and process. To better accept and release. My Father's passing, especially unexpected (for me), him being only 66 years old, was an incredible loss. But somewhere in there, I also perceive a turning over of past sorrows, and a new beginning. 

I love you Dad... Always and Forever. <3

May you be well. May you be happy. May you know love. May you know peace. Xoxo

Your Daughter, Stephanie

01/12/2025