Read one bloggers description of the death of his father. I read it with morbid interest, as I had gone through this starting about this time last year. It was wrenchingly detailed . Gave my stomach just a slight turn. That gave me something to think about.
Was it disturbing because of the way it was written? Because it touched a bit of a nerve in my own experience… some things I would rather not have front and center in my thinking…? Or is it my own identification with this cultures desire to hide away the reality of mortality?
Don’t know. I do know that as I approach the first anniversary of my father’s death ( which unfortunately coincides with Christmas season), I have some undercurrent disturbance in my emotional feelings. I can’t hide behind the distractions of the business of death as I have most of this year. The executor duties are ready to wind up and the funeral busy-ness was a flurry thoughout only the first month following his death.
The last years of my dad’s life were fraught with my tensions between trying to obey God’s command to honor my father, and my growing desire to write him out of my life. I had prayed for him for years and years, and stayed in his life more than anyone else was capable of doing. Only to suffer . And I still can’t determine whether I fulfilled the honor requirement.
Another culture conundrum….do we know how to honor our parents in our culture?