35 years later and I miss him like it was yesterday!

This post is dedicated to my sweet and wonderful daddy who went to be with the Lord 35 years ago. That was the saddest day of my life. To this day I can not talk about him, (or type about him) without crying. I don't know if I am crying because after all these years I'm still so sad or if talking or thinking about him makes me realize there is a huge hole in my heart that will never be filled. You see my daddy wasn't always my daddy. I was adopted at 6 weeks old (that is a post for another day). Anyway, my daddy was a preacher at a church in Mississippi and through the week, he went to seminary in New Orleans and that is when and where he became the very best daddy a girl could ever hope for. I was his pride and joy, the apple of his eye people would tell me. When I was 2 years old we moved from Mississippi to a small town in Arkansas called Dumas. My daddy had been called to preach at the First Baptist Church there. He was such an amazing, Godly man and for those who knew him, they were better for it. Because daddy was a preacher, he would be gone alot visiting people, going to meetings, preparing for Sundays but when he was home, we would have the best time together.

The night before the saddest day of my life, daddy was home early. It was a Sunday night. He made time for each of us 3 kids. He played a board game with me, read a book to my sister and watched TV with my brother until her fell asleep in his bed with him. He never woke up. My mom came in to wake him the next morning and found him dead from a massive heart attack. Our lives would never be the same. I am so thankful for the seven years I had with him but at the same time I feel cheated.

For 35 years I have struggled with understanding how God could take such a wonderful man from this earth. A man who in his daily life was spreading God's word. You hear people say all the time that God has a plan, well to this day, I struggle to see His plan in this. Im not by any means saying that I doubt that God had a plan, I just don't understand it and I probably never will.

After daddy died my family and I went through alot of changes. We were living in the parsanage (a house owned by the church that the preacher and his family lived in). The church was gracious enough to let us live there for a year, giving my mom time to figure out what she was going to do. She had 3 small children, had just lost her husband and now had to find a new place to live. We moved to Tennessee, which was were here family was. We only stayed one year before we moved back to Dumas.
Growing up without a daddy has been very hard for me. I see other girls with their dad and I sometimes become so jealous. I missed out on all of the father/daughter stuff that other girls get to enjoy. To this day, I can watch a movie and it have a scene in it about a dad and I will cry my eyes out. I often wonder how different my life would have turned out if my dad hadn't died. That is something I will never know. Losing a parent is so hard no matter what age you are but for me losing my dad at age 7 was devestating and it is something that haunts me to this day.

I am so grateful for the 7 years I had with my daddy!! I guess God needed him in heaven more than he needed him here on earth. I look forward to the day when I get to see him again. Until then I will continue to try and understand and continue to hold my memories of him close to my heart.