His primary legacy is one of abandonment. Thirty years. I ask myself what part did I play and would I do it again? I do not have an answer today.

The church service is remarkable and filled with awed acceptance, gratefulness for the last eight years of family involvement, and the knowledge that his homecoming is meaningful. Made so by seven precious grandchildren.

His two daughters struggle, each on her own journey, with the memories of events that lead to his departure. One remembers little and pulls him back into her life. The other remembers too much and cannot afford him the same love and acceptance as her sister. Yet they unite in their quest to honor him, their father. For the wee grandchildren. For them.

So, the focus is on the children. The seven are from twelve years old to six months. Five sons followed by two daughters. They greet guests, perform special music, and recite grandpa's poetry written to his own father. They show their own mother's stunning photographic journey of death's beckoning over the last eight years on a mammoth screen at the front of the church. Music fills the air. It is the culmination of a life and death of fleeing and addiction unshielded. Larger than life.

The photographic journey shows their participation in Grandpa's life as he travels six times into Hospice, back home, and into rehab, only to keep repeating the pattern. He'd left them for thirty years because he loved them enough to not take them down with him.

Simple. Kind. O, sliver of love; you've come again to show us the way.

Di

A Moodscope member.