Gone but Healed.

It was a cool October night I was driving home from an evening work meeting.
I was feeling excited because that Saturday I would be going on a double date with my older cousin Mike and his wife Lisa, along with the man I was dating at the time.
I remember the exact red light where my car was stopped when the thought hit me.

Even though Dad is gone, our relationship is more whole and healed than it ever was when he was alive. He is physically gone from life but I feel closer to him now more than ever.

I burst into tears, feeling overwhelmed by a deep sense of something that I would continue to lean into in the coming weeks.
I was very blessed to have an overall very healthy and loving family of origin. My parents, while imperfect, did their very best and gave my two siblings and I a stable home and loving childhood.
As I grew up, and began my own healing journey, I saw one of the area's that suffered was my emotional relationship with my dad. 
As a sensitive, tender little girl, I often felt my dad was not emotionally available to me or minimized my emotions and feelings. The father wound in my little Patty heart was probably one of the area's I most needed inner healing and growth.
Looking back it affected many things: how I saw myself, my own codependency, and even my choice in men - in a particular way the man I married. What I really needed from my dad was not often emotionally available to me, and that affected me more than I realized as I got older.

I am grateful and proud of the inner work I have done over the last six years to acknowledge and heal that wound. However, I was not expecting such a profound insight into this healing journey with my dad almost a year after he died. And yet, the more I sat in that realization, the more I prayed about it or discussed it with my spiritual director, I began to see God was at work here.

Watching my dad physically suffer while we helped care for him and into his final days was one of the hardest yet most sacred experiences of my life.
It was as if all the healing work I had faced in my father wound Jesus came and said to me, "My sweet Patty girl, all this has been restored and made whole. Your dad is gone but all this is healed as much as it can be this side of Heaven."
Dad's physical presence is gone. And yet, I feel closer to him in several ways. Our relationship is more whole and healed.
Perhaps it sounds a bit odd, it certainly feels weird to say it this way. But it is true. To the deep part of my soul, it is true.
I know not everyone perhaps has this experience with a parent who passed away. So Jesus, find me very grateful and humble for that beautiful insight. It makes me more hopeful and excited for the day when I see my dad again and am able to give him a big bear hug.

Dad may be gone, but it has all been healed.

Jesus, find me grateful for that.