From Whence Came the Poet
On this day (Jan 15) in 2022, we officially said goodbye to the father of many. My sibling family is a large one consisting of both sisters and brothers. Some are half-siblings, step-siblings, and adopted siblings, but they are all mine. The sister I was raised with has her own special place in my heart and life, but I carry each of my siblings in pockets of my heart—and often to God’s throne in prayer.
You see, I am the first born to this man who was wild yet called. His life was a wrestling match of soul and spirit with a God who never gave up on him. He ran from God geographically (though that’s not truly possible), and he ran emotionally, but he always came back. Whether it was a grenade in the face when his tunnel rat duties got him too close to the enemy in Vietnam, or a moment when lyrics or poetry came pouring out of him to remind him that God still loved and pursued him, something was always pulling him back to a place to consider God again.
He left my mom and sister and I just after I turned 5 years old. My mom kept all his pictures and told me stories of things like his interview with Jerry Dunphy after the incident in Vietnam. She said he was in a hospital bed and told the reporter that he prayed for God to give him his eyesight back, so he could see his girls. My favorite picture was the one with guys from his Brave Lions group that showed my name tattooed on his arm. And, yes, I wrote a song about that tattoo.
The years after that were scattered and chaotic. He had multiple marriages and other children. I struggled with my mom’s emotional and spiritual issues. But something always made this little girl long for her daddy. One winter, as a teenager, I ran away and found him in Kansas. I didn’t stay long, and I’ll share that story in another post, but it wasn’t time for us to be a permanent family yet. During that short time, though, I got to see his poetic, musical, and artistic sides. I was only gifted the ability to write poetry and sing. I’ve tried to learn an instrument, but it just never settled with me, and drawing without the help of technology never came naturally. But I love that I can see him as the DNA source of my love for words.
Somehow, that thing of finding himself oft pursued by The Lord also came to me. In my case, I was looking for deeper meaning more than a good time party, but it still filled my life with a mix of dead-ends and a few major moments with God before I willingly gave my life to Him.
As I’ve met and gotten to know my siblings, I’ve found similar stories in their life journeys. Some have finally let God catch up to them, and some are still looking for other answers. But I still call our journeys Grace by DNA because it seems we all took pieces from our shared father’s journey and made them part of our own journeys. I’ll be gathering those journey stories into a book I started back in 2020, but I’ll tell you bits and pieces here in this blog.
While writing this post, I searched and searched for the tattoo song, but I cannot find it right now, so I guess it’s not time to share it. The gist is a comparison of my father’s tattoo with the carved names in the midst of God’s palm, and it’s called Daddy Can Never Forget Me. It talks about how even if he tried to have it removed, the scar would always remind him of me, and then it talks about the nail scars in Jesus’ hands. I sent the lyrics to my dad at one point, along with a letter reminding him that God could never forget him either. He said it made him cry, and I hope it planted a seed that helped to bring him back to The Lord in his last years.
We did have some periods of distance between us through the years, just as I had times where I was distant from my Heavenly Father. But, thankfully, Dad and I didn’t give up on each other. And God never gave up on either of us as He led us to an eventual reconciliation before Dad left this world in 2021.
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