Keep Me in Your Heart For Awhile

My father passed away 21 years ago today.  While the crowds of 1991were consuming green beer, and for one day every one was Irish, he slipped away.  Always having been a man who enjoyed beer, I am sure he held no grudges on how other people were spending their day. 

I a  newly minted mother, proud of my three month old daughter, had slipped out to purchase hot dogs from my father's favorite place for the family at home.  When I returned, I received the news.  I have comforted myself with the idea that he needed to wait until his "baby" had left the house, to leave the house himself.  Sort of way my family operated, protect the baby, protect the weakest link, try to save them from pain.
Pain which, of course, no one can be protected from, and pain each person must experience unless they  chose to also give up the joy that love brings to life.

As "finally" a mother, I was not young, and although the family "baby", I was far from my babyhood, and already pretty skilled at storing loss and pain in the appropriate boxes,  away in my attic of memories too painful for me to want to take the lid off and examine.  I realized that day, that at 34 it was possible to still feel like an orphan, when both parents had passed away. 

My Dad left me with a lot of memories to fill the memory box in my heart.  Some great, some horrific, and some really, really funny.  He had a sense of humor and I developed that same dark sense of what can be considered funny.  He had a deep capacity to love, and to appreciate people, as they were, with what they brought to the table.  He had a great capacity to forgive others of their transgressions, and to try to understand where they were coming from, when they acted in a way he didn't understand.

He also provided me with my own personal set of fears, which I harbored from a young age.  He drank a lot, or was drunk a lot, and I cowered in the back seat when we would be driving home from places, fearful of being in an accident.  He was frequently unemployed, which left me with a fear of losing where we lived, and he certain, at least to me, seemed fragile, which left me without the feeling that he could take care of me, and my emotional needs.

All of that said, he was hysterically funny.  Loved to laugh, loved to joke.  He had three daughters, and I don't remember ever being told, that I should have been a boy.  He loved us, he loved my mother, he loved his grandchildren.  He told me my daughter, when he made the trip downstate to meet her for the first time, was the "prettiest baby ever", as I am sure he told my sisters about their children.  He believed that of all of them.  He, unlike me, had emotion.  I was often afraid, as his seemed to bubble up to the surface more than I was comfortable dealing with on a daily basis!  He was lucky to have those feelings, I now know.

My father, if he had heard his music, would have loved Warren Zevon.  My father loved music, mostly jazz.  However, Warren's dark humor would have been appreciated by my Dad.  I have chosen this song today, to honor my father, because of that feeling.

Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile

If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile

When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for while

There's a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done
Keep me in your heart for while

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for while

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for while

Sometimes when you're doing simple things around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile

You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for while

Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you

Engine driver's headed north to Pleasant Stream
Keep me in your heart for while

These wheels keep turning but they're running out of steam
Keep me in your heart for while

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for while

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for while

Keep me in your heart for while

Many times when I am doing something simple around the house, I think of my father, and I smile.  I am not angry at him for the bad memories, I have used those as a springboard for forgiveness, and a memory of feelings I don't want my children to carry around throughout their lives. 

My father's memory box was the first one I was able to open in my head, and sort through.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  I finally could feel the feelings, and hold the good memories close to me. 

I hold him in my thoughts, I take him to my dreams, and I know he left me with out loving me any less.

Thanks Dad!