I received the email last night that my father had passed away. It happened 6 months ago.
In a year, I’ve lost my mother, father and a brother, and I have no idea how to process this. How do you grieve the loss of family members with whom you had strained, abnormal or non-existent relationships? I feel as though I’m spinning in a gyroscope, waiting for someone to grab ahold of it to bring it to a stop – so that I can gather my bearings and steady myself.
Reading my father’s obituary online was especially difficult. It was not a typical obituary – it was very personal. A lot was written about his hobbies, love for friends and family, entertaining. His granddaughter wrote a sweet tribute to her grandfather, which especially grieved my own daughter, who had longed for a relationship like this with him.
“How does one sum up this great man other than wonderful husband, outstanding father, grandfather and friend….”
This was written in his obituary, and I can’t even begin to answer this question, because I couldn’t if I wanted to. I don’t know. I didn’t know him. I’m sure he was all of these things to the family that knew him, but not to the family that didn’t know him.
But what I want to scream is LIES!
I am vacillating between sadness and anger at this moment. I had tucked away this little tiny bit of hope that John Henry Brown would come to the end of his life and and want to meet his daughter. Hope is dead.
John’s granddaughter affectionately referred to him as ‘Papaw John’. The words she used to describe him were so touching and heartfelt. I could sense the closeness they had from the way she described their relationship. I didn’t feel jealous. I am happy for her – that she was able to have this treasured relationship with her grandfather. I am sad, however, for my own children.
Oh what he missed! My children are talented, smart and beautiful, witty & loving and full of life! They are busy now building their own families as adults and succeeding wildly! He missed it! He missed it all….
He not only missed knowing my children, but his great-grandchildren; four precious great-granddaughters that would have delighted his soul. Oh what he missed….
The Letters
In 2015, not long after I discovered the identity of my father through Ancestry DNA, (read that story here) my own daughter mailed John a letter – certified. She wanted to make sure he read something from his granddaughter and she paid the extra postage to make sure he would get it.
He refused to sign for the letter. It was returned to us and I never told my daughter – until last night.
She asked me why I waited to tell her. I explained that I didn’t want her to reach out in a desperate attempt to contact him once she discovered he had rejected the letter. He made it clear enough that he didn’t want us in his life. I didn’t want her to be hurt any further.
That wasn’t the first letter he rejected, however. When I started connecting all of the information that I had amassed over the years of my searching, I discovered that I had mailed at least 2 letters to the same address – one in 2004 and one in 2012. John knew about me and how to contact me for a long time. He had decided a long time ago that I would never be a part of his life.
“If you were lucky enough to know John Brown, you know he was one of the good ones….”
Was he one of the good ones? I really have trouble believing that a man who rejects his own daughter, his own flesh and blood, is one of the ‘good ones.’ Some might argue that DNA doesn’t make you family. I would counter that by saying there are people that I wouldn’t have anything to do with were they not blood-related to me. I think most people could say that about some of their blood relatives. DNA does mean something – being blood related DOES MEAN SOMETHING. While the circumstances of how I came to be were not ideal, common decency should have prevailed in the end. A man who fathers a child should accept responsibility in some way. John Henry Brown went to his grave with neither common decency or responsibility.
Do I Forgive
I was once taught (incorrectly) that I was not obligated to forgive someone who did not ask for it. Of course I now know that is not true and it is a terribly erroneous teaching, but there was a time that I withheld forgiveness from my father based on that teaching. Knowing what I know now about forgiveness, I can say that have forgiven my father. What that means to me is that I no longer hold anything against him and have taken him off of my hook and put him onto God’s hook. He has already stood before his creator and answered for his sins, and for me to hold anything else against him would be pointless. I don’t have to carry that burden anymore.
I can, however, point out the facts about who I knew him to be, how I was treated (or mistreated) by him. That is not unforgiveness, that is reality. It is me, processing the pain of what could never be. Grief.
Below is my father’s obituary in it’s entirety. In some ways it is puzzling. As one of my friends described it, “exorbitant and conflating“. I didn’t see that at first, but yes, now I do. Did he have a career? It doesn’t say. I do know he had a leg amputated at the knee when he was a child, but my mother said he worked in the carpet business. There was no service planned (a memorial at a later date) and only one person commented in the guestbook. Somehow this overinflated obituary didn’t add up? I’m speculating, at best.
This will probably be the last time ever write about my father, John Henry Brown. A years long search for him ended in sadness & disappointment, and now a confusing grief. My only hope is that he accepted Christ at some point in his life, and that there may be a chance for us to meet on the other side of heaven.
