I’ve watched my cursor flicker here, on this post, for a solid 3 weeks. What to write, how to begin, where to go. I have been immeasurably stuck on what to say.
We’ve known this day would come, but the knowing doesn’t make the finality of it any different, the outcome is the same. My dad stepped into heaven on July 31st, and we celebrated his life on this earth just two weeks ago. I’m sitting in my front room by my favorite big window, coffee in hand, waiting for my kids to walk in the door from school. Today I cleaned out my laundry room, folded laundry, went for a run, and walked my dogs. Tonight we’ll do baseball and make lunches for tomorrow and scrub dishes and mandate showers. Life moves without ceasing doesn’t it? Through grief or loss, valleys and mountains, life continues. It seems to have no mercy, no stopping of time to allow for grief or sadness or even joy and reflection. And so, I sit here making time. Choosing to slow down and allowing myself a few minutes, in the midst of all the noise and the motion, to reflect and to think. To shed tears when I need to and laugh and enjoy my family and tell stories and allow this process and this experience to change me for the better. I’m not wallowing, but rather allowing the grief to come in its random waves and facing it head on, as I know it has the potential to bring about good, and to bring about change. Losing a parent is one of the truest forms of grief, one I have never experienced until now, and I’m still trying to figure out what to do with it.
My dad was a girl dad from the start. He moved so gracefully through the hormones and the emotions and ALL THE WORDS. He was funny in a dry sort of way, and when he really laughed, like from the gut, there was nothing better. He knew how to make us laugh. I’m sure he felt alone on an island at times, surrounded by hair brushes and curling irons and hot rollers and hair spray(I’m a child of the 80’s, hello). He knew how to navigate our different personalities, three very different women who communicated in very different ways. He got it. He was compassionate and patient, the rock that kept us grounded.
I was quiet, and though I enjoyed people, I was always a bit introverted. I was, and still am, an internal processor. I don’t work things out verbally very well, hence the writing, and dad was ok with my quiet. He’d ask questions and talk, but he was secure in my minimalistic communication style and found other ways to connect with me. My love language was quality time, and he knew that.
I grew up riding horses, which was an expensive and time-consuming sport. Dad loved horses too, as his dad had, and he was almost more excited about our days at the barn than I was…almost. My dad invested. He invested financially, and often joked that he could have bought me a really nice car or funded his retirement for all the years of barn fees and farrier costs and horse shows and all the gear. What he didn’t know at the time, or maybe he did….he was wise that way, was that he was really investing in my memories. He was investing in time.
My dad was a seer. He saw people. He didn’t just see us, he saw everyone. He saw the broken and the hurting, the needy and the poor. He saw the sad and the weary, the least of these, the daddies and the husbands. No discrimination, no judgements, no attitudes. He saw others because he knew Jesus saw him. He loved because he had been loved much and he offered grace because he had been given much grace. My dad became a follower of Christ when I was 3 years old, and it forever changed the trajectory of not only his life, but our family’s, and of countless others who had the privilege of knowing him.
My dad saw needs, and he spent time with people. He also prayed more than anyone I’ve ever known. My dad wore out spots in the carpet of the house I grew up in, from years on his knees praying(we gave him plenty of material) and when we moved, those spots remained as a permanent indention in the carpet. My dad got diagnosed with Multiple Systems Atrophy when he was just 56, but he kept praying and he kept making a difference. I would have given up, I’m fairly certain, but he didn’t. He knew it was God’s best for him, and he allowed it to be used for so much good.
My dad stepped into heaven after years of paralysis and two years bound to a hospital bed with only the ability to blink. He impacted this world from his bed simply from what he allowed God to do through him. He wasn’t bitter or angry. Though I had moments of doubt as to why God was allowing his suffering, I knew that God had a purpose, partly because I knew how confident my dad was in that promise, that God was working all together for his good…..for his GLORY. God wasn’t finished yet. I may not have understood the why, but God was so good in those last few days to show us glimpses of His purposes. We won’t know them all this side of heaven, but I saw blessing upon blessing as people poured in to the bedroom to tell my dad what he had meant to them, their marriages, their families, and their relationships with Christ.
I had the privilege of being with my dad in the final days, hours, and minutes of his life. It’s something that has forever changed me. I don’t think I ever really expected to be there, but I was, and God knew why. I had the opportunity to see the people who came to tell him thank you. I knew my dad was loved, I knew he was leaving a legacy, I knew he had invested, but to see the fruit of that before he left this life was something that will be imprinted on my soul for a lifetime.
“The experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment in our lives. Instead the defining moment can be our response to the loss. It is not what happens to us that matters so much as what happens in us.” ~Jerry Sittser
My dad’s life preached. It told a story of a life changed by grace. It told the story of a husband, committed to his wife, and of a wife, dedicated and committed to her husband through what most people would have walked away from simply because it was too hard. It told the story of a dad who loved his kids well. It told the story of a friend, who was selfless and kind, loyal and trustworthy. It told of an imperfect person, who was used by a perfect and gracious God.
“I think, in the grand epic, Jesus is the hero of our stories. And our stories, as they were, are subplots in a grand epic and our job is not to be the hero of any story. Our job is to be a saint in a story that he is telling.” -Donald Miller
It told the story of Jesus, who came to seek, to save, and to love. He came for those who are broken. He came for those who are searching and scared or confident and successful but desperately empty. My dad’s celebration of life told the story of HOPE. It was not an empty or hopeless day, but one filled with worship and praise, laughter and tears. I know God is real. I know heaven is real. I knew it before, but I saw it in ways I had never experienced before. I know that sounds loony. Like the stuff people say after they have witnessed death, but it is truly life changing. If you’ve experienced it, then you know. God became more alive to me in those long, slow days of my dad’s death than he had in my 36 years of living. And He was good and gracious and kind and compassionate. He was my Father, and he wrapped me up and allowed me to feel His grace and His provision on the darkest days.
As I begged him for mercy for my dad, he provided it in ways I never could have imagined. I saw children pray powerful prayers over him and friends weep over him, and what a gift that was. To see the fruit of a life well lived, and for my dad to experience it. I can’t even begin to imagine the celebration that went down when dad stepped into his new body. What a day of rejoicing that had to have been. I can only imagine.
“Gifts of grace come to all of us. But we must be ready to see and willing to receive these gifts. It will require a kind of sacrifice, the sacrifice of believing that, however painful our losses, life can still be good — good in a different way than before, but nevertheless good. I will never recover from my loss and I will never got over missing the ones I lost. But I still cherish life. . . . I will always want the ones I lost back again. I long for them with all my soul. But I still celebrate the life I have found because they are gone. I have lost, but I have also gained. I lost the world I loved, but I gained a deeper awareness of grace. That grace has enabled me to clarify my purpose in life and rediscover the wonder of the present moment.” ~Jerry Sittser
My dad’s life told a story, and I’m forever grateful to have been a part of it. I will never be the same. I am forever changed from having been Mark Dougharty’s daughter, and forever challenged to leave my own legacy of depth, of truth, and of purpose. To love unconditionally and to speak unashamedly of God’s love and grace. It makes the insignificant stuff seem even more insignificant. Our pastor often says you won’t see a hearse pulling a U-Haul, and that statement is so entirely accurate. Ya’ll, you will not take any of your crap with you when you go. None of it. I’m not saying don’t have nice things, but do not store up your treasures here. This has everything to do with the position of your heart. Your stuff will be destroyed. It will rust and get tossed out with the trash or given away. Not one person at my dad’s funeral talked about his business success. Not one person mentioned how lovely his house was or his insurance awards or his position in their church or his money or his status . Not. one. person.
There is a reason for that friends. Because none of it matters the second you are gone. What matters is the purpose for which you lived. That will be remembered. Is your purpose self gain, self promotion (even in the name of something good), fame, status, wealth, to be well liked by everyone, to have a bigger house, better wardrobe, more followers, flawless skin that doesn’t age, zero laugh lines or the biggest beach house? I have been guilty of ALL OF THESE. I believe we all have, because we’re all human and the world has this way of tugging on our desires, urging us to dive head first into all the things that have no significance. But we must remember that none of it goes with us, and it’s not our stuff that makes our lives worth remembering. How do you want to be remembered? My dad’s friends described him as selfless, trustworthy, wise, humble. Strangers remembered moments of kindness he shared with them and those of us closest to him knew him for all of those things and more. He wasn’t perfect, and he wouldn’t want us fawning over an image of perfection. He was flawed, just like you, and just like me. And yet he lived out his purpose. He lived with an eternal perspective and he lived knowing that the true investments we make in this life are the ones that have nothing to do with our bank accounts.
Live with purpose. Live selflessly. These are hard things to actually do, especially as we dive into ourselves, into our routines and our mundane and our pain and our joys, to look up and to see. I know it is for me. We can die and step into glory, but to live? To really live is the challenge. To live for more than ourselves and to do it humbly, without seeking recognition(a hard thing to do in our social media driven world) or the praise of others. To do the work quietly, submissively, and passionately. I can promise you it’s worth it. I saw it. And believe me when I say, that was a life well lived. That was, and always will be, a life worth celebrating.
Well done dad.
“Dying for something is easy because it is associated with glory. Living for something is the hard thing. Living for something extends beyond fashion, glory, or recognition. We live for what we believe.” -Donald Miller
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