The Promise I Kept

by Jackie Madden Haugh

  “Thank you,” I answered, grabbing for a tissue in my purse. “Yes, my father was a remarkable man.”

  I once heard that while we have a birthdate and a death date on our tombstone, it’s the hyphen in the middle that says it all, for it’s the story of our lives. Accepting the box in the blue velvet bag, I thought of how my father had punctuated all our lives. The trajectory of my life would forever change because of his example. I would strive to live a life of gratitude, prayer, and hope.

  It was a gray day when we celebrated his life on an inconvenient day on the calendar so close to Christmas, yet, the room had a nice representation of friends to celebrate his life with us, not too big, not too small. Just the way he would have liked it. He never wanted a fuss.

  I sat smiling as I soaked in the experience. The pain of his loss was fading some and I’d stopped crying every day. As the music played, I looked at his eight grandchildren. Timmy, who was now living abroad, had come home from Spain as a surprise and I was thrilled to see all the children together. There were also Dad’s four children, two daughters-in-law, even his former son-in-law, Dave, and I couldn’t help but be proud. My father was loved.

  My brother David patted my shoulder.

  “It’s perfect, Jackie,” he whispered. “Dad would have loved this.”

  “Yes, it is perfect, isn’t it? And, now he can truly rest in peace.”

  EPILOGUE

  Time to Move On

  Shortly after my father’s passing, my promise to Jenni was fulfilled as well: her room was restored to a pretty, feminine, and diaper-free space.

  Tim and I decided to clear out everything in Dad’s room—all his clothes, shoes, toiletries, walker, and hospital bed—within hours of his passing. By the end of the day, it was as if he’d never lived there, except for the stains on the floor and the bruised and battered furniture and walls from his misguided wheelchair. Just like my childhood room the day I emptied it to prepare our family home for market, the space looked naked. Soon after, I painted the walls a more subdued shade of yellow, fresh carpet was laid, and new blue, green, and white linens adorned her bed. The soft colors reminded me of springtime, and despite the fact Jenni once feared her grandfather would die in her private space, it now became a place of joy, not only for her but for all of us, for he was allowed a peaceful death in a loving environment. The end of his life had been everything I prayed it would be, and I could move on knowing I did my best.

  By 2014, life was beginning to feel somewhat normal again. Dad had been gone two years, and I was back working more regularly. David and I had settled his living trust and divided the assets between his four children as Dad requested. I was learning to explore life again, taking an art class, new exercise classes, and getting together with long-lost friends. While the pain of his absence was still fresh in my heart, I was pleased time was doing her magic and healing the emptiness. It was also teaching me to not only learn to be grateful for our experience together, but to treasure it. If I hadn’t taken on the job, I would have missed so much—like who my father truly was and who I was born to be.

  On February 11 (the day that would have been his ninety-eighth birthday), I was looking through Jenni’s closet for a coat she’d asked me to send her. Opening the doors, I found myself marveling at how quickly she had made her presence known again in this house. She’d been living in San Diego for eight years, but somehow, just like the stuff in my parents’ home after the fire, her excess wardrobe had found its way back.

  “Really Jenni!” I giggled to myself. “You haven’t worn these things since college. Maybe it’s time to purge.”

  Pushing aside seven dresses and five pairs of slacks, I found my way to three coats. Pulling out the one she wanted, I noticed my father’s blue suit.

  “I forgot about you,” I heard myself saying, as if I’d just discovered a long-lost friend.

  Pulling it out, I began to tear up. This wasn’t just some piece of outdated men’s apparel. It was a symbol of who my dad was: dignified, dependable, trustworthy, a man who respected himself and others. Every time he wore it, I thought, He’s the handsomest man in the world.

  Taking the jacket off the hanger, I put my arms into the sleeves and wrapped them around my waist, remembering how he hugged me in it on my wedding day.

  We were in the waiting room. Mom had just put the finishing touches on the flowers in my veil. Dad and I stood alone as panic seeped through every vein in my quivering body. By the look on my face, he knew I was having second thoughts.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, putting his hand to my face.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, a tear now escaping down my freshly made-up cheeks. My life was about to drastically change. Not only was I taking on another man’s name, a name that for some was hard to pronounce, but we’d be moving to San Diego, 483 miles away. “What will I do without you nearby every day?”

  He gently pushed the tear aside with his index finger and enfolded me in his arms. Silently, we held each other until we heard the church coordinator say, “It’s time.”

  Releasing me from his loving grip, he looked deep into my eyes and said, “You’ll be just fine.”

  Then, with a kiss, he led me down the aisle to give me away. Little did I know, he was holding back his own tears.

  Standing before the mirror thirty-four years later, I stared at the image of an aging woman drowning in a blue jacket.

  “Dad, I want you back,” I sobbed as I clung to the coat. Putting my nose into the fabric, I could still smell him. “I lied when I told you I’d be just fine. Nothing is the same without you.

  “I want to be little and sit in your lap again. I want to dance with you one more time. I want you to hold my hand and tell me over and over that you love me.” I wept uncontrollably, covering my eyes with the long sleeves. “No one will ever love me the way you did.”

  When I was a little girl, I spent much of my solitary time in fantasyland, making up stories in my head of the man who would one day love me, marry me, and have a passel of children with me. We’d also live happily ever after.

  When my marriage failed, I began searching for my true love, only to be constantly disappointed. Dating in your fifties is not like it is in your twenties. It felt like all the good ones were still married.

  Studying the image before me, I mourned the lack of a relationship in my life. This was not how I was supposed to turn out. I knew all sorts of shitty things would happen, but the one thing I never considered was becoming a single woman.

  Crying over the unfairness of it all, again I studied my reflection swaddled in the image of my dad and suddenly had an epiphany.

  “I’ve been so stupid,” I said aloud. “The love I was looking for . . . I had it all along.”

  What I hadn’t seen was that what I had wanted was a soulful love that didn’t just shine in present time but was eternal. I had this with my father. From the moment I was born, we connected on a spiritual plane that went beyond the physical connection to a metaphysical truth, where hearts and souls rise above egos.

  Wiping the tears that now soaked not only my cheeks but the sleeves of his jacket, I began to smile. I would be just fine because I was given the gift of truly knowing unconditional love. I needed to move on. It’s what he’d want. It’s what he’d prepared me for.

  Taking off the jacket, I carefully folded it and laid it on the bed next to his pants.

  “It’s time I gave you away,” I said, smoothing out the wrinkles. “You belong in the hands of another wonderful father so that they too can one day walk their daughter down the aisle.”

  The suit was about to have a rebirth, just like me.

  While like my mother, I never wanted to throw out anything that had a memory attached to it, I realized I no longer needed the suit to remind me of my sweet father. The memory of him would be forever inscribed on my heart with indelible gold ink, just like that promise I’d made so many years before.

  If I ever missed the sound of his voice, a
ll I had to do to bring him near was close my eyes and remember those two strong hands that held mine from the day I was born until he left this world. The final circle of life was complete and I would be “just fine.”

  About the Author

  Jackie Madden Haugh calls herself the Guardian of Memories, a storyteller who preserves family history in the written form. Her first book, My Life in a Tutu, the story of a single woman in her fifties searching for the woman she was born to be after divorce, was launched in 2015. She is a columnist for a local newspaper, The Los Altos Town Crier, where she writes musings on how she sees the world. Jackie was born and raised in the Bay Area of northern California and is the mother of four adult children.