Temporary

My daughter and her dad, August 1980

Nothing about this past week has been easy, but it has caused me to be intensely thankful for the gift of life.  My ex-husband passed away, and though we had been divorced 28 years, I count myself blessed to have known him.  He gave me a daughter, the same daughter who got married last September and who is pregnant and due about July 1st.  Part of the grief she is experiencing is the fact that her dad will never know his grandchild.  It seems doubly tragic, as her step-sister is also pregnant.  So while I wait for my first grandchild, my ex will miss his first two grandbabies.

My ex was a college professor, a herpetologist by training, and was known as a gifted and enthusiastic teacher who spent vast amounts of time helping his students.  He was happily married, and proud to be Dad to three daughters, one of his own and two of his wife's.  My daughter sometimes said that her stepmother was a saint to put up with him.  I think he was well aware of his faults, so it was necessary to balance them with an abundance of love for his family.  My daughter was definitely a daddy's girl.  I could never compete with that and never tried.

The few people at school who knew that we were married so long ago have been kind toward me, and I've been glad for the hugs and condolences.  I never imagined how I would take the news of his death.  He had been sick with leukemia and had not been able to teach for about a year.  Hopes were high that he could get well enough for a bone marrow transplant, but he was not able to recover from the last infection he contracted.  I felt very sad, and found myself thinking back on our time together.  My grief is very real and substantial for my daughter's loss, his family's loss, and the loss of a man who was clearly loved by so many.  His family, friends, students, and long-ago former students had filled his online page with prayers while he was ill, and tributes are pouring in after his passing.  It has been a beautiful thing to get a sense of the far-reaching impact of his life all these years later.

We were married soon after I got my bachelor's degree.  We had some very happy times, but we were too young and inexperienced and ego-driven to fare well through the bad fights and horrid times.  After some counseling (I guess you could say the counselor wasn't successful), we parted amicably, and the divorce wasn't stressful, although I suspect that he didn't miss an opportunity to make fun of me.  He was good at that ... it was part of his humor, along with raunchy jokes and clever word play.  Apparently he told his students that he thought Edema would be a beautiful name for a girl.  And he told all the new students that one of the other instructors had a glass eye and not to stare.

My daughter tells me that on his deathbed, my ex spoke out to say that my son (by my second husband) should get his Ph.D.   I always thought it was so sweet that my ex and his wife would show up for my son and cheer for him at the high school football games.  If I had to pinpoint his best quality, I would say that he possessed an extraordinary capacity for loving kindness and encouragement toward others.  This he got from his family, especially his mother, whom I dearly loved.  He had to have it to balance the more temperamental aspects of his personality!  To call him a rascal would be an understatement.

My personal journey has brought me to the place where I learned that forgiveness is a great blessing that enabled me to move forward; and that others' actions toward me are not caused by me but are a reflection of their own dramas.  Long ago the relationship with my ex caused great frustration and heartache, but the lessons learned were ones that I needed.  So here I am today, remembering his life and his contributions with fondness, feeling the loss, but most of all, feeling the trickle-down effects of a life lived with passion, a temporary life that ended too soon, but a life that raised the bar for many and inspired countless others to go all out, to invest in themselves and their potential. 

  "No matter where you go, there you are."

He's turning over rocks in God's garden now.