I wrote the following just over 2 years ago.  I’m not sure what set me off but I was in an emotional purge.  I wrote it in one sitting furiously typing.  Very cathartic.  But very difficult to make public.  Parts of this was featured in a friend’s blog for Father’s Day a few years ago but this is the full purge:

I never knew my Dad.  Does that matter?

If I never knew him what difference does it make?  Does it make a difference if he is dead or alive?  If he is living on the other side of the world versus being buried in the ground – does it matter?

Does it matter who he was?  Is “a Dad” just an idea or a figurehead if you never knew the person?  Is “a Dad” just an ideal if I never met mine?  Do I just want one because everyone else has one?

Did he really exist?  What proof do I have that he did exist?  Does it matter?  Should I even bother asking?  Or do I just ignore the feelings and move on as if he never did exist and just live my life “as is”?  Do I need to ask any of these questions to have a fulfilling life?  Am I dwelling or rehashing to want to know?  Is my asking questions annoying or childish?

Does my wanting his approval make me weak?  What is his approval?  It’s what people tell me it would be.  There is no physical way for me to have his approval.  So, why does it mean so much to me?  Why do I have to desire most the one thing that I will never have?  Why can’t I accept the approval of the people who are still here?  Why aren’t their opinions enough?

How do you miss “the person” if you never met “the person”?  Isn’t it just the idea of the person that you miss?  I have an amazing imagination but as much as I try to imagine what that person would be like nothing comes up.  It’s a blank canvas.  Anyone can tell me anything and I have no way of knowing if they are telling me the truth.  All I can do is decide which stories to believe.  How do you do that when you have nothing to go on?  I treasure every story that I hear.  I treasure every moment that I have with my Dad’s family because they are the only way to confirm that he really existed.  Anyone’s name can be put on a birth certificate.  Any man’s picture can be put up on the wall.  Any story can be created to satisfy a child, but at least when I’m with his sisters I know that they must have known him.  They look like the picture on the wall.  Do I look like the picture on the wall?  I’m told that I do.

Do other “posthumous children” feel this way?  Am I alone in my feelings?

Is it better to be born before or after?  I have been asked this question before and I don’t have an answer.  There is so much damage no matter how you look at it.  Neither.  Neither is the answer.  There shouldn’t be a before and after.   There should just be time.

Is it supposed to make me feel better to be born after; to have escaped the tragedy?  Did I escape the tragedy?  Not even close.  I remember people trying to make me feel better by saying, “Well at least you don’t remember anything.”

How is that better?  I would give just about anything right now to remember and have something of him to hang on to.  Isn’t it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all?  Is that just for adults afraid of a relationship?  To me it seems universal.

Why can’t I just move passed it and be happy with my incredible family; my husband and children.  Don’t get me wrong – I love them dearly and they all make me very happy.  I just wish that I didn’t have this desire for more.  I will always be looking for my Dad.  Will I ever find him?  Can’t I just give it up and be content?  Why does my mind always have to move to the thoughts of him and the fact that he isn’t here to see how happy and content we are?  It is a vicious cycle.  The way to know that life has moved on is to wish that the missing person were here to see your progress and your “new” life.  Does that mean that I have moved on?  But how can I move on if I always want him to be here?

I used to believe, or one of my many beliefs when I was little, that my Dad hadn’t died.  He was somewhere.  He was out there.  My Mom was hiding him somewhere.  She and my sister would go to see him but they wouldn’t take me.  They didn’t want me to know him.  I don’t know why they didn’t want me to but they never invited me along.  Why am I not good enough to go along?  Why doesn’t he want me to come see him?  Did I do something to make him not want me around?  Why does he stay away?

I don’t know what, if anything my Mom could have done to change these feelings that I had.  They were just there.  And they were there for a lot longer than I would have admitted.  I think I still have some of those feelings.  Why did he have to leave before I came?  Why wasn’t I good enough to have and know a father?  Would I be a different person if he had been around after I was born?  Of course I would be.  Who would I be?  Would I be a better person?  Would I be smarter, more grateful?  I think I would have just wished for more time no matter how much time I had.  That’s what I wish for with all of the other people that have passed since.  So what difference does it make?

I used to dream about my belief that he hadn’t died.  One dream in particular when I was about 15 was that I was 7 years old and I walked into the dining room of the house we lived in at that time and there was a man sitting there.  He was talking to my sister; my Mom was getting dinner ready.  It was like a normal day.  But, this man – who was he?  I walked up to him.  He just looked at me and then continued to talk to my sister.  I didn’t feel welcome at all.  I was interrupting.  He wanted nothing to do with me.  I started to back up and felt incredible sadness.  And I woke up.

Will I ever let the rejection go?  Will I ever realize that this feeling is a result of unfortunate circumstances and not based on truth?  If I had a picture of him holding me as a baby – would I believe the picture?  If I had a memory of him playing with me as a child would I believe the memory?  I don’t know what it would have taken for me to know and believe the truth.  I hope I get there someday.

Well, I have to admit that country music is not my favorite.  But there is one song that sticks with me.  Garth Brooks “The Dance”.  It always reminds me of my Mom, my parents.

Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared beneath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known you’d ever say goodbye
And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I’d of had to miss the dance
Holding you I held everything
For a moment wasn’t I the king
But if I’d only known how the king would fall
Hey who’s to say you know I might have changed it all
And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I’d of had to miss the dance
Yes my life is better left to chance
I could have missed the pain but I’d of had to miss the dance

–          Written by Tony Arata

I always wondered if my Mom regretted marrying my Dad.  Did she wish that she had stayed in Minnesota?  It would have been so much easier.  Safer.  I wouldn’t blame her if she did have regrets.  It wasn’t my most burning question but I didn’t think that I would ever know the truth.  In my Mom’s last year, especially in her last weeks we had conversations that I never thought we would have.  She was so much freer than I had ever seen her.  I know that this is the natural instinct when death is near but I didn’t know if this would be the case with my Mom.  I’m thankful that it was.   But even with her new found freedom of thought I didn’t think I could ask her this question.  I didn’t know if I could handle the answer.

A few weeks before she died she was talking about my Dad and suddenly just said, “I don’t regret any of it.”  My heart skipped and I wanted to be sure of what she was saying so I asked if she was talking about marrying my Dad.  She said, “Yes.”  She said that it hadn’t been easy.  It had been very painful but she didn’t regret those three years they had together.  It had been worth it.

That is what I want to remember today, June 12, 2011.  35 years after my Dad was murdered and my Mom was left to raise us.  It was and is worth the pain.

One of the worst aspects of missing someone for me is knowing that other people are in the same position.  I wish I were the only one.  Not for notoriety or exclusivity but because the feelings that I have should never be felt.  Not by me or anyone else.  Not to say that everyone will feel the same way because obviously they won’t.  But the basic feeling of yearning for a person that you love who has passed for any reason is universal.  Missing someone is so very painful; physically, mentally, spiritually painful.  The gut wrenching pain that starts in your chest and moves to your stomach and up into your head and just won’t let go.  No matter what you do you cannot escape that awful nagging feeling that takes over your body; the feeling that nothing will ever be the same again.

Nothing will ever be the same again.  Making that realization is very difficult but very necessary.  Getting past the constant pain to get back to life doesn’t mean that life will go back to normal.  For one thing, what is normal?  Second, the normal you knew included someone that is no longer there.  So, if they can never return how can normal return?  It seems so simple but yet it is an elusive conclusion that most people cannot seem to come to.

It was at the 25 year mark that I really lost it.  It was June of 2001.  I was just starting a new job; our daughter was 20 months old.  Pasith had just started school.  Our lives were pretty intense.  I don’t know what it was that set me off.  I don’t know if it was my daughter or the big “25” that seems to be a marker for anniversaries.

Whatever the trigger was it hit harder than it ever had.  When I went for my first interview for this new job the head of Human Resources at the time was wonderful.  She made you feel comfortable and relaxed.  During my first interview I felt fine.  But the second time I met with her I was depressed and sad.  I couldn’t muster up a smile.  I was a different person.  I was in a fog like I had never experienced.  The pain was overwhelming.  I could hardly remember driving to the office.  It was June 12^th, 2001.  25 years to the day.  I tried to hide it.  I tried so hard to smile, to bolster the energy to at least sound cheerful or even human.  I just couldn’t do it.  Finally, she asked me if I was ok.  I had to be honest and said, “No.”  I explained what day it was and how it had never affected me this way before; that I was lost in the fog.  She was understanding and wonderful.  She wasn’t falling over herself to be sympathetic, didn’t ask a million questions.  She just let me say what I needed to on the subject and left it at that.  I was in so deep I didn’t care if she believed me or not or if I got the job at that point or not.  But, she did hire me – in spite of me.

I was like that for a month.  I could not come out of it.  I went through my 2 weeks of job training around my birthday, June 25^th and couldn’t focus.  I still didn’t really know what the real issue was.  I mean I had always had nightmares during the month of June and sometimes I was a little sad for a day or two.  And some years I forgot about it until my birthday and then I felt bad that I hadn’t been sad.  But, this was different.  I couldn’t shake this horrible feeling of dreading getting out of bed in the morning.  It took till almost the end of the fog for me to realize what was happening.

Well, this realization was that I suddenly knew that the pain didn’t stop with me.  Maybe that year was when I finally grew up and realized that the earth didn’t revolve around me.  Not sure but I’d prefer that my big realizations in life come a little more gently.  The pain of not knowing or having my father did not and does not stop with me.  My daughter will not know her grandfather or have a ride on the farm tractor.  She would never run around the farm chasing the chickens while my Dad looked on.  She would never feel his hugs and hear his “I love you’s”.  She would suffer the same fate as I had.   My then future son would never know him.  But it didn’t stop with my children either.  My niece and future niece would never know their grandfather either; and all the grandnieces and nephews.  The pain didn’t end with me and my sister.  The pain would continue to spread to the people around us.  And there was nothing I could do to stop it.  I felt so helpless.  And the special life moments would continue to have one person missing.  Aside from all of the moments that he had already missed, there were my children being born, their birthdays, their Christmas’s, their recitals and concerts.  Why does the victimization have to continue through generations?  Isn’t one generation of suffering enough?  I was innocent and surely my children are and they deserve a grandfather.  It’s called the ripple effect and I hate it.

When I finally came to the conclusion that there would be other people in their lives that would fill that space to some extent the same way that many people had done for me I was able to let it go – or let it go enough to move on with my life.  Sidney had another Grandpa that she loved very much and she has uncles close by that love her very much.  God puts the people in our lives that we need.  And I now have to trust that he will do the same for my children and nieces that he did for me.  Trust is hard.   All I can do is to make sure that they know who he was and that he really did exist and hope that the memories will lessen the pain for all of us.

I wrote this last year about this time.  It is still very relevant.  I do feel like I have moved forward but I definitely have more to do.

Some days I wake up wandering in the desert surrounded by sand that burns my feet but forces me to keep moving to feel the slight cooling when my foot comes off the ground.  I want to stop to see if I can find any small clue in the skies or on the ground that will tell me the right direction to go but I have to keep moving to look for shade and water.   The hot sun is beating down on me sapping me of my energy and focus.  I feel lost looking up, down and in every direction for something, anything, and there is nothing there.  I have a compass but in my confusion I’m not sure if I’m reading it right.  I think I hear someone off in the distance trying to call me to them but I just can’t seem to find them.  What if it is just a mirage I’m chasing in the opposite direction of where I’m supposed to be going?

Other days I wake up wandering in the frozen Arctic surrounded by snow and ice.  I’m trudging through the deep snow in exhaustion afraid to stop and freeze to death but also afraid to move and fall in a deep crevice.    Again, I have a compass but in these circumstances it feels so inadequate.  I don’t trust it or myself.  I am desperately searching the skies and the horizon for anything that will help me.  I feel I should be patient and trust that help is coming but what if I miss help by slowing down?  What if help is around the next corner ready to leave and I don’t get there fast enough?

I’m sick and I’m tired.  I need guidance.  I need someone to help me see the way.  I’m trying to hear God through the storms that negativity keeps kicking up but he seems out of reach.  And I’m afraid that I’m misinterpreting what I do hear.

Am I where I am supposed to be?  Am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing?  Am I missing something?  Did I miss a crucial step to end up here?  When I look back I feel like I have been floating down the river in a canoe most of my life; just going with the current of life.  When high waves came up I allowed them to just happen and figured that I had to accept it as part of the river.  I would bail out the water and keep going down the river with my eyes on the next wave.  I have not lived with intention.  I have not had my feet on the ground with my eyes to the heavens.  I have just been hoping that when I stepped out of the river I’d be at the right port.  I have not asked for clear directions on how to get out of the canoe or where to get out.

I want to live with intention out of the canoe and on solid ground.  I have the instructions on how to get out of the canoe I just need help figuring them out.  I’m afraid of capsizing the boat, or getting out at the wrong spot.  And how do I change my course so drastically without causing hurt or damage to my family?

This adventure of getting out of the boat feels like it has been going on a long time.  It took me a few years to realize that I was in a boat; then a few more years to realize that I may not be in the right one or belong in one at all.  Now I have to figure out how to get out.  Then figure out what to do next.  The task feels too huge.  The river is going too fast and the waves are getting higher.  Most days I’m just happy to be in the canoe and not in the river.  I hang on to the sides and bail water to stay afloat.  In the meantime I fear that I am missing out on life and letting down my family and the people around me.  If only the water and waves would just slow down long enough for me to get my thoughts and strength together.

I know that God will give me his strength and will calm the storm.  I just can’t seem to get through to him right now.  The waves are just too much.  But I will keep trying.

To be honest, I haven’t known where to begin with my Father pieces.  He is such a mystery.  And I’m afraid he will remain as such.  So please bear with me as I attempt to put a few pieces together at a time.   What started me on this journey about 5 years ago was the fact that I knew more about my Dad’s death than his life.  One of the first sentences I wrote was “I hate the bullet”.  The bullet represents not only the literal bullet but all of the negative of my Dad’s story.  I wanted to find the positive.  I was taught to believe and do believe that there is a reason for everything.  And that means everything.  I struggled with that.  What was the reason and the positive in my Dad’s murder?  Were these concepts even possible?  Murder and positive.  Murder and reason.   Aren’t these paradoxes?  I was determined to find out.  So I spent my year of maternity leave with my son finding out.  I didn’t expect to have everything figured out but at least get a start.  I made incredible progress in that first year of discovery.  I felt by the end of the year that I had found a few positive reasons.  He did not die in vain.

On June 12^th 1976 my Dad 32 year old Allan Pearce was shot in a home invasion on his parent’s farm outside Moosomin, Saskatchewan.  My Grandma was also raped.  My parents had a house on the property.  My sister was 20 months old and my Mom was 3 days from due with me.  That is the short version.  I am working on the long version but believe me when I say that it is complicated and painful.  I have heard versions and told the story since I was 12 years old but putting it down in writing as accurately and respectfully as possible is completely different; especially when you weren’t there.

My Dad gave his life trying to protect his family.  I have no doubt of that.  There is evidence that more people would have died if things had not happened exactly as they did.  For me, I find this incredible.  I am so proud and honored to be able to say that my Dad gave his life for ours.  But it is also the reason I wish I could have known him.  That is the pain that doesn’t leave; the constant back and forth.

The man who pulled the trigger and raped my Grandma was arrested within a few hours and received a life sentence.  He has spent the last few years working to rehabilitate.  He has become a Christian, and for all the judgments out there on this subject, please reserve them for God and trust that we have received enough information on the subject to believe that he is telling the truth.  He is now in a halfway house with a job.

The accomplice to the crime also received a life sentence.  Even though he did want to be there, did not pull the trigger or commit the rape he received almost the same sentence as the man who did.  We understand the legality of the situation and now as we look back we also wonder if prison saved his life.  Where would he be if he had been on the outside?  He is now working full time in a half way house as a counselor; completely rehabilitated and a Christian.

For my Dad, a man of God and strong faith, the fact that these two men are now on a path to God would have been reason enough to give his life.  It is reason enough to say that he did not die in vain.  But the other side is that all these men had to do was ask for help and my Dad would have done anything for them.  No one had to die that day.

I have found the positive and the reason, or as much as my human mind can comprehend, so the bullet has less power over my life.  And if I can find the reason for my Dad’s murder everything else seems a whole lot easier.  I’m thankful for what my Dad did I just wish he wouldn’t have had to do it.

I’m sitting on the Lake of the Woods in Warroad, Minnesota.  The water is so calm and clear.  The sky is a calm light blue with a few storm clouds to the South.  The wind is cool coming off the water.  The campers and boats are out in force on this American long weekend.

The lake itself brings back memories.   When I was a kid my Mom and Grandma would bring us to the restaurant with our bathing suits.  After lunch my sister and I would change and head out to the water and swim.  I can still see my Mom and Grandma watching from their seats inside.  The water was absolutely freezing but we didn’t care.  Now there are signs, “No swimming allowed.”  The lake shore has been dug out for the boats to dock so it is no longer safe to swim.  It is progress, but sad.  The restaurant has been beautifully renovated and expanded.  And there are more play structures.  But the memories are still here every time I come.

Warroad is where my Mom was born and lived most of the years before marrying my Dad.  But the house out in the country is really where the memories are kept.  No one lives there anymore.  My Mom’s brother and sister keep the yard enough so you can drive in and walk around.  My Aunt has her flower beds, it is her retreat.  If you walk out through the field to just beyond the tree line there is a beautiful creek, or as my Grandma always called it, the “Crick”.  The garage is still there and holds a thousand memories.  My Grandpa died a few months before I turned 4.  But I have quite a few memories of him, for the amount of time we had together.  When I’ve discussed these memories with my Mom and my Aunt we discovered that these memories are from the spring and summer that I was 2 and turning 3.

I remember my Grandpa taking me out to the garage, him opening the doors and seeing the whole floor covered in baby chicks in their warmers.  The smell comes back to me like yesterday and it’s comforting.  I remember him putting them in my hands and the little feet poking me.  I was amazed and a little frightened all at once.  We would also go out to the garage to build things.  Well, Grandpa gave me a little hammer, a piece of wood and some nails.  He was doing the building or fixing.  But that stuck with me.  And when I go into the garage his work shelf is still there with some of his tools.  It takes me back in time instantly.  I also remember him taking my sister and me to the store.  We climbed up in his light blue truck and had to take turns sitting by Grandpa.  He took us up the road a few miles to the little store in Swift.  It was so exciting just to be with Grandpa.  And from the days of seatbelts not being required; I guess my Grandparents had issues with me sticking my head out the window while they drove.  So, one day I was sitting by the flowerbed at the back of the house and I asked Grandpa why he had no hair.  He told me that one day he stuck his head out the window when he was driving really fast and it his hair just flew away.  I never stuck my head out the car window again.  I remember waking up in the early morning and seeing him sitting in his chair in the living room and I would climb in his lap and we would wait for the rest of the house to wake up.

Grandparents are so incredibly important, if you are fortunate enough to have them.  I missed out a lot from my Grandfathers, them both being gone by the time I was 4.  But I wonder if I treasure the memories that I do have so much more because that’s all I’ve got.

Well, I have to go find my children.  They are off making new memories with their Dad and Great Aunt.

Pasith’s Dad passed away 3 years ago today.  It is one of those days that I will never forget.  But, it’s his life that is more important than his death.  I am not the expert that I would like to be on my Father-in-law, Bpoo (Laos name for Grandpa), but I will tell one story from my perspective.  There are many more to be told.

Bpoo was quiet with sadness in his eyes.  His losses were many; family, friends, war buddies, and his country.  He had a justifiable anger in him that wasn’t always aimed at the source, but isn’t that the case for most of us?  Pasith took me home to meet his parents and I remember the big smile on his Mom’s face as she nodded hello to me.  His Dad was in the kitchen and he was busy; didn’t look up.  But I saw a look in his eye that said he did not approve.  I didn’t take it personally and didn’t think much of it at all.  I was 16.  A few days later Pasith told me that I wasn’t allowed at the house if his Dad was home.  Pasith didn’t take this too well and I think this is where he and his Dad are a lot alike – they are both fighters.  They both fight for what they believe and who they are.  Well, Pasith pushed back a few times.  I told him that I didn’t want to make trouble between the two of them.  But Pasith said that it wasn’t fair that I was being shut out because I was white and he was going to prove it to his Dad.  He was 18.  But for me I understood that this country was not of their choosing, even though it had provided safety it had also brought them pain.  And now he was losing his son to this country.  They were hanging on to their culture for dear life and I was there to ruin a part of that.  For Pasith, he was and is a Canadian and our relationship only made sense.

His Dad put up a wall for a year, hoping I would go away.  It was hard on Pasith; he felt that his Dad just needed to get to know me.  I told him it would all happen in time.  And it did.  After a year Bpoo finally realized that I was there to stay and said that I was allowed over to the house.  A year after that Pasith and I got married.  After the wedding we were at his parent’s house where they were having a huge party and his Dad asked us into the back bedroom.  He told me that I was now their daughter and a Laotian.  I was very touched.  They each gave me a hug and we never looked back.

There were a million questions that I wanted to ask Bpoo over the years.  I wanted to know him and what had happened in his life.  But the language barrier prevented me from asking most of the questions as well as the fact that I didn’t want to pry into subjects that were so painful for him.  So, when he got sick I knew that my time was up.  I was never going to know him.  Now that is 2 fathers I would never know.

A few months before he passed away Pasith and I went to see him in the hospital.  Bpoo suddenly got serious and was trying to tell me something but couldn’t get the words right so he got Pasith to translate.  Bpoo said that he owed me an apology.  I was stunned and asked what and why?  Bpoo said that he had mistreated me in that first year and that he was truly sorry for what he had done.  He asked for my forgiveness.  I said there was nothing to forgive; that I had understood his reaction then and now.

Bpoo was a loving and doting Grandpa to my children.  Alex won’t remember him but we have pictures.  Sidney spent a lot of time with him and it was a very deep loss for her.  I had so hoped that my children would not know death at a young age like I did.  Bpoo said she was his breath, his life.