​My story with my dad isn't one I like to tell. When I talk about him now, I don't ever talk about all the heartache my dad brought me throughout my twenty years, and it seems he was the source of a lot of it. 

I loved my dad and I desperately craved for his love my whole entire life. I genuinely enjoyed him and the laughter he brought me, but I also spent my whole life trying to figure the man out. Last fall, I woke up for the first time without a father and I felt so angry that it wasn't actually the first time I had woke up without a father.

My dad passed away last November, after a long and hard suffering period with countless hospital visits and hopeless answers. He did it to himself, he just kept drinking. It controlled him, and took him to his grave. He was hard to handle in the last few months. I knew he needed me but he was a mess and extremely hard headed. I remember having to leave work and picking him up off the side of the road one day and saying to him, "dad you're going to die if you don't listen" and it just didn't faze him too much. Other times, I knew he was scared and he often cried and told me not to let him die alone in the hospital.

My dad was a mushy lover. He always wanted a hug or a kiss and to us kids his emotions were worn on his sleeve. He often cried and shared about his guilt and how much he loved us, but his actions frequently screamed something of the opposite. Quite often, I felt like he was the child and I was the adult. I constantly had to be the bigger person. I always loved my dad but our relationship was complicated. There are good memories, but if I am being honest, the bad outweigh the good. My dad was a miserable person. He had bursts of happiness and chased the good times but I don't think my dad ever achieved wholeness. He was a pessimist, and negativity and hatred radiated through him.

I remember too many times in my life I wished my dad was there and he wasn't. I remember at any big ball game I had- I thought, maybe this will be big enough for him to come to. When I was valedictorian I remember writing my speech and wondering if he'd like the things I said in it-if he'd be proud. At graduation I was walking off the stage after my speech and looking through the crowd for him but with every face I passed there was no luck. I knew he wouldn't have sat anywhere near my mom and family, and it was a pretty big place so I held out my hope a little longer. Outside the building my family gathered around me and I quickly sorted through them one by one, but he wasn't there. I usually wasn't surprised by his absence, but this one was devastating to me. One evening, I went to watch a baseball game, and spotted my dad with his new family- watching his new step child play. That for me, was a new kind of jealousy I never knew could cut me so deeply. I remember almost feeling like a burden. It should never be the responsibility of a child to have to pursue and chase after their parent, and I felt like I was constantly chasing after him, and I spent a good portion of time absolutely hating him for the way he treated me. It lead to me trying to replace him with any male figure I could get.

There are so many stories I could share that still break my heart. My dad left me disappointed that's all there is to it. When he got sick in the last months of his life, he became one of the closest people to me. I did my best at letting go of my hatred for him and took care of him anyway. I had fun in those months. I watched him be himself and I loved him unconditionally and I truly did laugh until I cried. But as he got closer to the end I remember going on drives and screaming at the top of my lungs in anger and in pain. This was his life? This was the legacy he was going to leave behind? How can we sugar coat the pain he caused? How can I sugar coat the way he broke me- the way he broke my whole family. How do I forget the tears I saw fall from my brothers face and the rage that took over from time to time, or the hole in my mother's heart from the empty dreams and the guilt she felt for letting our family fall apart or having to watch my 14 year old sisters heart break when she asked me how much longer I thought he had to live. How do I let go of the fact that his selfishness took him to the grave, and that he won't get to see my brothers boys grow up or my future kids be born, or that he didn't get to walk me down the aisle or watch me fix up our families farmhouse. I had to remind myself that hurt people hurt people. My dad was a broken person, he was a person that lived in the chains of shame and stayed on the outskirts of life.

I'm not saying he didn't have any good qualities and I'm not demeaning how big his heart was. My dad and I's story is one that is still bitter to taste, but after his passing I was able to find some peace.

I was napping on New Year's Day and as I fell asleep my dad came to me in my dream. He was giving me advice and told me to let go of the anger and not hold onto it the way he did. I remember him talking to me- he was happy and truly joyful. I've never seen him like that. You could see it on his face it radiated off him. More so than that- when he was giving me advice he was confident. And that's what stuck with me. He knows how he hurt me. There's no doubt about it. But I almost wanted him to be sorry for what he put me through. Until I realized what God intended to show me. My dad was free. He was free of the chains, he was free of his lifelong pain, he was free of sin and suffering and hate. He was made whole. He didn't suffer because he had Gods grace and his undeniable love in him. I remember watching Sadie Robertson preach once and she said something like "if you just knew if you only knew what Gods love felt like- if you knew what it was about — if you just knew" and this was one of those moments- I felt it and I just knew. I felt Gods grace, Gods love, and God's forgiveness. And now my dad feels it too. I will forever feel pain that our stories ended the way they did, but I am so thankful to be loved by an amazing God who can right any wrong. It's amazing what Gods love can do.

Whether or not my dad made things right with God is between him and God, but I whole-heartedly believe that the dream was to help me walk in God's grace instead of the chains of guilt my dad was bound to. I believe that God was showing me how mighty he is. No darkness can drive out his light, but his light can drive out any darkness.