When you go without, you begin to realize what you have more than ever. Your eyes are opened to things that you may have never noticed before. Life looks different. It feels different. It is different.
I have shared a little of my story regarding my little boy's daddy being arrested and sentenced to 20 years almost one year to the day before my dad's passing. If you don't think that's a blow, think again. So Kendall and I were both fatherless for a little over two years. (I'll share that story another time.) To say that was tough is a major understatement. My dad was always a constant in my son's life. He was there for anything and everything. He (and my mom) met us at the hospital, actually beat us, the night we thought Kendall, my son, was going to make his appearance. He was ready to meet his first grandson. My dad was there, waiting, with a football that had the words Kendall Beck along with the #22. My dad passed away June 22nd and the month before, he was at the ballpark walking back and forth between baseball fields watching his grand kids play. Little did we know he had a tumor wrapped around his spinal cord with a diagnosis of Stage 4 lung cancer. That's how involved my dad was with his grandkids and especially his grandson who didn't have a father present in his life. His love for them was like no other.
Learning to live without a dad was quite an adjustment. I'm still learning but I'm beginning to understand and manage. I learned how to do things that typically a father would do or a father figure would do. I taught my son how to bat left handed. I can't even bat right handed. I took him hunting. We went on vacations together, just me and my little boy. It was hard because there are some things that would be best learned or taught by a male. I had to be everything. The provider. The protector. The teacher. The trainer. The disciplinarian. The encourager even though I no longer had mine. I had to learn how to be stronger than ever. I was the head of our house. We went to church together and we learned about God together. We celebrated father's day without a father. We celebrated Christmas with just the two of us. I taught him how to ride a bike while he taught me so much more.
There were days that made the pain worse. Father's Day was hard but I wasn't going to allow my son to feel as if we weren't going to celebrate that day or ignore that day. We went to visit my dad and I told him how wonderful a Granddad he was to his grandkids. We talked about his daddy and I told stories about the two of them. I never wanted my little boy to feel as if he was going without. I never wanted him to feel as if he was missing out. We were missing people in our lives. Vital people BUT we had each other. I learned to embrace what we had. I learned to enjoy the journey and appreciate that I could be everything to him. I didn't want to focus on what we didn't have but what we did have. We had it all. From the outside looking in, people probably didn't think so. I would hear, "I don't know how you do it" all the time. While our circumstances haven't been the greatest, we didn't and still don't focus on the negative. We didn't focus on the void. Why would I want my child think about what he didn't have or doesn't have when I could teach him to focus on what he does have?
We all have circumstances that we can't avoid. We can complain about what we don't have and we can complain about those who aren't present in our lives. We can wallow in our misery and bring others along with us or we can choose to embrace what we have every single day. I am thankful that God gave me the strength to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and slowly put them back together. When you change your focus, you can see the good. You can see what you do have and we had it all.
So no matter what you are facing today, focus on what you do have. Quit wasting your breath complaining. Life begins when you choose to live. Live with what you have and live with what you do not have. Watch those around you who have walked through deep, deep valleys. You will notice some that chose to focus on their loss. You will notice others who chose to focus on what was right in front of them. Learn from those who chose the latter. Life is what you make of it. I am grateful God opened my eyes to see what I had in my life rather than what I didn't have or what my son didn't have. I had a precious little boy that needed me. I had a dad that taught me everything I needed to know to be the "dad" my little boy was missing. We may have gone without BUT we had it all.
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