A Letter to My Daughter on Father's Day

It’s Father's Day today. My sixth one with a living child, but technically my eighth. My first one came just three weeks after you died. 

The first one was really strange. People told me happy Fathers Day, but I couldn’t hold you. I didn’t feel like a father.

Every year since then the holiday has been overwhelmed with your brother and sisters, June, Jonny and Cameron. But there’s always that moment where the awkwardness and sadness creeps in.

Today was a weird one. I got up early to get the kids ready for church, wrapped up in the necessity for quiet and efficiency while Mom was sleeping off her night shift, and we got into the car at 9:15 and I hadn’t thought of you once. The girls started fighting over a little pink pocket Bible, and when I took it to see who’s name was written in the front, your name was there. Maggie Mabee Colwell. The grief overwhelmed me.

I gather myself and put on my sunglasses to cover my tear-swollen eyes, but it didn’t take long for the tears to return. As we sang Nearer Still Nearer, the final verse sunk me:

Nearer, still nearer, while life shall last,

Till safe in glory my anchor is cast;

Through endless ages ever to be

Nearer, my Savior, still nearer to Thee;

Nearer, my Savior, still nearer to Thee!

Heaven has been stained by my grief. For years it has just been a reminder of where you are, and that’s been a driving force for me wanting to be there. But today, singing this song honestly, I realized that my relationship to God has been stunted by my desire to reunite with you.

I see that my longing for you has become a replacement for the responsibility I have to my Savior and creator. I must stop thinking of Him only as the one who has you in His arms and begin to again relate to Him as the one who has me in His arms.

I’m a broken and struggling dad, but I’m not only that. I’m a child of God who has responsibilities to the Kingdom and a Savior who needs direct relationship with me, not a relationship filtered through you. None of us deserve that.

This realization doesn’t minimize your loss in any way, and it doesn’t change the fact that I see the world differently because of the time and experiences I’ve had with you and through your story. I’m a better man, father, and husband because of you. I hear the Spirit more clearly because of you. God used you to shape me.

But I’m ready to know Him again as the God who sees me.