uglyreal

DISCLAIMER: Read the “About” page, and understand why this blog is called uglyreal.

A whole lot of you aren’t gonna like this. And I understand that.

I don’t like it either.

And yet, it is uglyreal.

It just is.

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So, Daddy, here we are again.

Daddy + Football = Sad

I wonder if there will ever be a day when I don’t equate the two. I seriously doubt it. Y’all were inextricably woven together. Football and Daddy. Daddy and Football. Neither seem right without the other. So I can’t get over it. I can’t un-intertwine y’all.

Y’all just are.

And for any readers out there, it probably seems random to start off this topic with football, but I can explain:

Every single time I watch Mac play football, pick up a football, watch a football game, it leads me to the big question:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, DADDY?

 

Tonight, Mac played football. In Starkville. They won. He had a pretty amazing tackle. You would have freaking LOVED it.

So because I can’t NOT think about it, I’m asking, out loud, the question I ask silently every single time I think about you and football.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING???????

 

Since I know Heaven doesn’t give a hoot about football, and because I have come to realize you don’t even know we exist down here while you are in Heaven, I want to know what you are doing.

Every day. Every minute. All day long, I ask myself:  What are you doing, Daddy?

 

I can barely stand it because I don’t know WHAT. YOU. ARE. DOING.

 

Down here, you knew everything we did. You made sure you did.

You knew everything we did, because you were a part of almost everything we did.

And if you were not a part of it, you knew about it. You knew about it because you were getting pictures and updates and phone calls and texts and videos.

You made sure you knew. We made sure you knew.

Hell, I couldn’t ride to Jackson without telling you or Mama or Anna or Scott or Brother where I was going, how long I was going to be there, and which stores I was going to visit.

But honestly, I didn’t mind it.

We just did that.

That was us.

That was us keeping tabs.

That was us making sure we were all safe.

That was us making sure that, if one of us needed something in Jackson, the other may be able to take care of it for us.

That was us taking care of one another.

 

And now you are in a place that I can’t get to, and I don’t know what you are doing there.

And that means, I can’t take care of you.

And that means, you can’t take care of me.

Because you don’t even know I’m me.

And you don’t know what I want or need.

Because if you did, and if you could, you would be back.

 

But you aren’t.

 

Let’s get this straight.

I don’t hate Heaven. Don’t hear me say that.

I just don’t understand why you wanted to be in Heaven instead of here right now.

And I don’t understand what you are doing in Heaven, because I can’t understand it completely. I can read what the Bible says about it, but I still don’t know what you are doing, all “day,” every “day.”

I don’t even know if there are days in Heaven.

I can read other people’s accounts of Heaven.

But I just don’t know what you are doing in Heaven.

So all that to say, I hate the sky, because the sky reminds me of Heaven, and it makes me wonder what you are doing.

Almost every morning, I walk outside and see the remnants of a beautiful sunrise, and I just scowl at it, because it is in the sky, which reminds me of Heaven, which makes me wonder what you are doing.

Tonight, on the way home from Mac’s football game in Starkville, we noticed funny cloud formations in the sky and we all decided what they looked like.

And I did it. I participated.

But it made me mad.

Because the clouds were in the sky and that made me think of Heaven and that made me wonder what you were doing.

And I don’t know.

And I can’t know.

 

And that is just so wrong.

That is so not us.

 

I don’t know what you were doing that morning, that morning you left.

I don’t know what you were thinking that morning.

I don’t know THAT you were thinking that morning, and I don’t know what you were doing while you were or weren’t thinking.

Were you thinking or not thinking?

At this point, I don’t care which.

Just let me have an answer.

It doesn’t matter.  I don’t care what the answer is.

You are up there in the sky, doing your thing, whatever your thing is.

And I’m down here, not knowing.

That is so not us.

 

Us, us down here on the Earth…we still are keeping tabs. On each other. We do that. We’ve always done that.

We are still doing that. Now more than ever.

Except we can’t keep tabs on you.

So what are you doing?

Are you just floating around up there?

Are you exploring the room in your mansion? What does it look like? I pretty much can’t stand knowing you are living in a room in a mansion in Heaven that I have no idea how to picture in my head.

I could never have lived anywhere on this Earth that you wouldn’t have known how to describe it, in complete detail, to someone else.

That’s very, very not us.

 

Are you sitting at the feet of Jesus? I can understand that may last a while. I get that.

But still…3-months-tomorrow later? Are you still just sitting? Or are y’all walking? Are y’all talking? What are y’all talking about?

Are y’all watching the sunrise upside down? Is He letting you help paint it? Is that what is taking up your time?

Did you help form those clouds we saw tonight? Is there a message in a cloud that Mac decided looked like a cruise ship? How about the one I decided was probably a bear-skin rug?

Is that just to tease us? Or did you intend for them to be something?

Or are you not on the Cloud Committee?

 

Are you hanging out with Baw and Grandaddy? That would take some time. Y’all have a lot to catch up on.

Have you visited with Nana and Mac? I bet Nana had a few choice words for you about leaving. Oh, wait. She doesn’t know we exist either. Never mind.

Are you hanging out with Billy Bob? Laughing with him would take some time. Y’all had a heck of a lot of them together down here.

Have you thrown a dummy to Jed with Skinny? How long does that last before the you-I-knew gets a little tired of throwing a dummy? I mean, football may be on.

Have you gotten to talk to Laurie and Brooke and baby Mary Witten about me? Oh, wait. They don’t know I exist. So, how do you make the connection that you knew them in life because of me, and now you know them in Heaven, but not because of me?

Are you back in the body you were at 18, throwing the football as far as you could throw it then? Oh, wait. There isn’t football in Heaven.

 

SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING, DADDY????????

 

I know I shouldn’t question it. I should just be satisfied with you being up there with Him and all that means.

I should just cling to the faith of Heaven.

I should just find comfort in the fact that you are in Heaven.

I just just find comfort in Heaven itself.

 

I wish I could, Daddy. I want to.

 

But I just know that, you can’t know about us, that you can’t look in on us, or you would see just how sad we are….and I know there isn’t anything sad in Heaven.

And knowing you aren’t looking in on us makes me REALLY sad. It makes me sadder than sad. Because if you were at least looking in on us, it may make me still feel connected to you.

But thinking about you, up there, without us, and not looking in on us, is so not us.

It is so not you.

It is so not you to check in on us.

How can that even be? I can’t wrap my head around that.

And that makes me really sad.

And that makes me not very happy when I think about you being in Heaven.

 

I don’t want to question, but I can’t help but question, because no matter that you are up there, I’m still down here, and I’m still me, and that is what I do.

I question.

I think.

I think based on what I know.

I think based on what I believe.

I think based on what I believe I know.

I question what I think.

 

And I don’t know what to think.

 

Because this is what I knew:

I knew who you were.

I knew what you loved.

I knew whom you loved.

I knew what you loved to do.

I knew what you loved to eat.

I knew what you loved to hear.

I knew what you loved to see.

I knew how you loved to be.

I knew how you loved.

 

But up there, I don’t know who you are.

I don’t know what you know.

I don’t know what you don’t know.

I don’t know whom you know.

I don’t know what you love to do.

I don’t know that you eat.

I don’t know that you hear.

I don’t know what you see.

I don’t know whom you love.

 

 

Down here, you loved a whole lot of things.

You loved a whole lot of people.

And all of those people loved you back.

Ferociously.

I was one of a few who led the pack.

 

And down here, you loved the game of football.

Football=You.

And there isn’t football up there.

 

So what about us now?

What about football now? Not necessarily the game itself, but how about Mac on the football field.

It just doesn’t matter any more?

Does he matter anymore?

Cause you sure as hell matter to him. And to me. And to Mama. To Brother. To Scott. To Anna. To Leelee. To Reid. To your sisters and brother. To your nieces and nephews. To Steve. To Bill Hurt. To all of your other buddies. To the girls at the office. To your clients. And to about a zillion other people who knew you and who loved you.

And literally, there may be a zillion. I could never name them all.

It would take me a zillion years.

 

WHAT.

ARE.

YOU.

DOING?

A zillion people and me want to know.

 

But only a few deserve to know.

And I am one of them.

I don’t care if that is selfish.

And I know enough about Jesus to know that He gets where I’m coming from.

I have no issues with Jesus.

I have many issues with you being in Heaven.

 

Because you are my daddy, and you are in Heaven, and I don’t know what you are doing, and that is wrong.

It is wrong as if I had taken off to who-knows-where and not told anyone.

Y’all all would have been up-in-arms.

YOU would have been up-in-arms.

You wouldn’t be able to bear it.

 

So forgive me……

……I just don’t get it…

….you give yourself a Golden Hot Air Balloon trip to Heaven and leave us here, just not knowing?

I’m up-in-arms over that, Daddy.

It’s wrong.

And it will always be wrong, until you figure out a way to tell us.

To tell me.

 

Oh, wait. You don’t know I exist.

 

Well, I guess we are even.

Because I don’t know what you are doing.

 

And it is pretty much the same thing.