Ode to Daddy

Most of you that read this know that my father has died. The more time that passes, the more the anger fades. I really didn't think I would feel anything, especially anger, but it does tend to come and go. I'm not particularly interested in singing at his funeral- you see, I'm a funeral singer sometimes, but I think I'd just like to be one of the crowd. I think there will be crying, but I don't know if it will be from me. I'm not even sure that it will be from any of us kids, except my aunt and half-sister and then my dad's friends maybe.

On a church note, my mom and dad are still sealed together, even with a temporal divorce you still don't get a temple divorce unless the woman has someone else to be sealed to, at least that's how it was back in the 80's and so that's how it's been. But because of his choices, he had to be re-baptized after Sarah, kid #3, was born. So the three older kids are technically born under the covenant of a temple marriage. But us younger three weren't, since he chose to give up those blessings. And even though he was re-baptized before I was born, those blessings weren't restored until just a few years ago. And because us younger kids weren't born under the covenant, we'd have to get sealed to them, but because they aren't temporally married, we couldn't. It kind of sounds complicated and it is, and mom always said that when they died, we could seal them together again, and then be sealed to them if we wanted, although none of us wanted to be sealed to him, even her, but we all want to be sealed to her- whew! A mouthful, but I kind of always wanted to be sealed to him, in a teeny tiny way. And so my mom is clarifying if we can all be sealed together, now that he is dead. I like to hope, in a teeny tiny way, that he would want that too.

But this is a song that I wrote about him a few months ago. Some facts had been changed slightly for artistic reasons, and to shed a little bit more compassion for the man:

The Man From Saint Petersburg

He was born across the sea
Another land to you and me
An American was his daddy
A Russian bride, for his mommy

Momma raised her boy up right
Never left him out of sight
Tried to teach him not to fight
And the difference from wrong and right

Chorus:
But then came January
And things were turning to gray
But he was just a young boy
They said he'd be okay
And she started to pray- yeah, yeah

And the boy became a man
Tried to do what Momma said
Found a wife and had some kids
Gotta job to pay the bills

Played his music on the side
Started staying out all night
Things were fogging up his mind
And he wanted to live another life

Chorus:
And then cam January
And things were turning to gray
He told his wife,"I'm leaving"
And she begged him to stay
He went anyway- yeah, yeah

Then the days turned into years
His momma shed so many tears
Her boy was now a lonely man
And he'd nearly lost all he'd ever had

His kids were strangers to his eyes
He knew nothing about their lives
He'd told himself so many lies
They'd been better off, and it was no surprise

Chorus:
That he lived in January
Where everything was gray
His past mistakes consumed him
But Momma taught him to pray
And he started to pray- yeah, yeah

I think we and our mom are going to try to get together with just us and talk about things. I feel like we can't be really honest with our feelings at the funeral, and maybe we shouldn't be. I'm not one for hanging someone's dirty laundry out in public, especially at their funeral. But there's a lot of stuff to be hashed out and some of us our further along in our healing processes that could help others- I think we all can help each other. And we can all talk about what we did/do appreciate about him and why and etc. I'm looking forward to it.