All In Your Name

Dear Dad,

I can’t believe that it’s been eleven years since we last saw you. Eleven years since anyone has called me “little girl”. Eleven long years without your unshakeable sense of what is right and what is wrong.

I wonder, often, what you’d make of us now.

I know that you would love your four beautiful great-grandchildren. I know that you watch over them. You see them play, see them grow, see them laugh. I know that. But what about the rest of us?

You are in a better, more forgiving place now. Do you see our mistakes and our sorrows, and do you understand the frailties that have lead us here? Do you forgive us for where we find ourselves?

Dad, we’re doing our best to take care of Mom, just the way you asked us to. I remember you telling me that you didn’t want to leave “my girl” and asking me to make sure that we looked after her as tenderly as you always did.

We’re trying, Dad. And I think we’re doing OK. She’s safe and she’s well loved. And we all talk about you all the damn time!

What must you be thinking about the situation in our country right now? You have no idea how much I wish that I could hear your voice, weighing in on our anger and our fear and our broken and damaged country.

You fought for this country, when you were barely more than a child. What must you be thinking now?

I can only imagine, knowing your strict moral compass. I can only imagine.