Day 3.017: Daddy time

I had the morning off work, but not - alas - to spend happy time with the kids, but to attend a funeral.  It was a very difficult occasion of course and my heart breaks for our friends, his wife and daughters (about the same age as Exile #4 and E5N1) and the rest of his family.

I read a blog post a few weeks ago about how motherhood transforms women completely.  The link I followed from facebook to find it suggested that this transformation was something that men do not 'get'.   Well, after today I think that in our own way, many if not most fathers undergo the same transformation.  It was impossible for me not to picture my own children, newly fatherless in place of our friends today.  Impossible not to wonder what our kids would understand looking into my open casket.  It was not a day when I dwelt on the nearness of death, but on the nearness of bereavement.

The service was a good one, with genuine positivity offered that does not deny the pain or loss.  I am not a person who thinks too much about heaven or about eternal-life.  It seems to me that whatever is in store for us when we die can wait.  If there is any real value in my faith, it has to be value for others while I'm here, not for me when I die.  For now that includes this lovely family with whom it was our privilege to stand to honour their husband and father's life and say goodbye.