When Hope Is Lost

 

After yesterday, I started thinking more about my grandfather. He was a good man. He was a great man. He did right by me in a MILLION ways. He loved me fiercely and in tangible ways. He didn’t enable me (although I’m sure my mom would disagree) but he was gentle with me because I was the only granddaughter. That said, when I turned 17 and wanted to buy my first car for $500 (crazy, right?) he loaned me the money and included the terms of the loan with the payoff amount and monthly payment due by the 15^th of each month. I worked at a Hallmark store after school and barely made enough each month  to cover my gas, insurance and $67.50 car payment.

When I ended up attending a Christian college very close to home, he would sometimes come and join me at chapels. I promise he was the only 70something wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap. I always felt like an oddball in my family because I was a collection of recessive genes. Blond hair, blue eyes, left handed and fair skin. I got all of it from my grandpa. And the similarities went deeper. We bonded over Root Beer Floats and breakfast. I can’t tell you how many breakfasts we shared over the last 15 years of his life. We would not talk much (unless it was about the stock market), but we were just together.  After he retired in 1986 he kept himself extremely busy by volunteering his time with various civic duties and church activities. A lot of times he probably took on too much, but I think he enjoyed most everything he did and I know I felt a sense of pride in all the good he was doing. My reasoning for mentioning this is that he did a 1 year term as Lieutenant Governor for Kiwanis in 1996. I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember that there was a cruise scheduled for Kiwanis that coincided with my college graduation. To this day, I am still the only member of my family with a 4 year college degree. My grandpa and grandma went on the cruise instead.

There were a lot of people that were at my graduation. I think my dad was there, but I don’t remember to be honest. The one person that I needed to be there…was not there. And I don’t think he ever really apologized for it. I know he said he was sorry that it conflicted, but I never saw that it bothered him as much as it bothered me. Maybe he just didn’t show it to me, but I needed him to. Because to this day, I wonder if maybe it just wasn’t as important to him as it was to me…which turns into maybe I wasn’t  as important to him and he was to me. I know that isn’t true, but at 41 I still can’t understand why he didn’t choose me over the cruise. I know it is the past and there is no way to fix it, but this is just one example of what my brain does…the lie that I believe…why wasn’t it me? Why wasn’t I more important? And my answer…because you aren’t.  This isn’t about having people come around me and tell me I am important, this is about the people who are important to me telling me I am important to them. And when they don’t, I tell myself I’m not important. And I have now reached a point in life where I wake up literally everyday telling myself “I’m not important” and “I’m not loved” so that I know what to expect. And when I hope or start to think that maybe just maybe I have more value than I think, I go and test it out and am reminded again, I’m not important.

This isn’t about my children…I know I am important to them. That involves an entirely different tank and I will be damned if I ever choose what I want over what they NEED. When they need me there…I am going to be there. My hope and prayer is that they never have to question their importance…then again, I don’t struggle nearly as much with knowing my value with the females in my life.

So since I can’t write a letter and talk this out with my grandpa, maybe it is time I move down the line and reach out to my dad. It has been a few years. The thought of reaching out terrifies me because there is a 99% chance that I will be reminded that I’m not important. I don’t think he is equipped to respond in a way that is apologetic. And I don’t think I’m looking to reestablish a relationship, rather I’m hoping that he will say that he is sorry for leading me to believe that I was not important.  That word…HOPE…I hate it. I don’t have it. I lost it when my grandpa died. I knew I would never be loved like that again and so I stopped hoping that I would be and accepted that I would have to OK on my own.