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By Rebecca Dieterman
June 2, 2017. One of the more important dates in my life up to this point: my high school graduation. I had gone to school for 14 years in order to finally say goodbye to a place that had been home for so long.
My feelings were mixed, but I was ready nonetheless. I walked the halls for the last time as a student, passed the classrooms where I learned, laughed, cried, and struggled. These are the things that most people feel on their graduation day. My graduation was a slightly different experience. As I reminisced, I did feel mixed emotions of excitement and sadness, but there was more to it than that.
This was just the first aisle I would walk down without my dad there. The first one of at least three, hopefully. I would get through this day just as I had every other day leading up to this point.
You see, grief is funny that way. It catches you off guard and forces you to live out a story that you never anticipated. Grief does not discriminate; it hands itself out like candy at a parade—people not knowing until they look down that what they hold is their least favorite candy. The kind of candy that people try to trade away but no one wants. It’s a nagging reminder that you cannot neglect the inevitable; Grief handed itself out…to you.
Grief and I walked hand in hand through my years at school. We became best friends and learned each other’s personalities and favorite things. Grief understood me in a way that other people did not. Grief understood that I did not want to go to my friend’s house and hang out with her family just to realize that my family dynamics would never look that way. Grief knew that when people talked about their dad’s jobs, it was best for me to just walk away. Grief knew me like the back of its hand.
Losing someone when you are young looks much different than losing someone when you are older. As a young child, there are no holds to what grief is. The loss exists as something that grows alongside you, like the markings of measured heights—at various ages—on the wall in your childhood house. As a child, you do not know what you are grieving. The adults are crying, and somehow you know that you are different than most kids with normal families. But the hole in your life does not define itself until years down the road when you can associate words and memories with grief.
My graduation remains a memory associated with grief. What should have been a happy celebration was another reminder that I was the girl without a father. I started to curl my hair, put on my makeup, choose my dress and heels, and then looked in the mirror for the last time before I left the house. He would’ve liked to see this, I thought to myself. Then, I went to high school for the last time.
I grew up in a small town in northern Michigan. All the people knew what my life had been like. As I drove to my school, I can name the people who live in the houses along the way and which farms are owned by which people. I know these things because everyone knows everything about everybody where I am from. Which is why when my dad died, the community shook. It still shakes when people say his name.
“Are you Terry Dieterman’s daughter?”
“Yes, I am.” But don’t ask me what that looks like or if I remember him, because as much as I wish I could, I don’t, I think to myself.
“He would be so proud of the woman you are today.”
I am his daughter, of course he would. I have lived my life silently hoping to present it to him one day and say, “This is what I did with it. Are you proud of me?” I have striven to make someone proud that I do not know.
My dad used to sing all around at different churches and events around my town and the surrounding area. He was a 6’8” giant with a voice that could fill an entire room. I know this because the CD’s of him singing are some of the only things that I have left of him.
I sing because he sang. I perform because he performed. I love my dad and the legacy he has left behind for me. But, I am not him. I would guess that if you looked at us you would notice that our eyes and nose are a little different. Our laughs and voices do not sound quite the same. What the people do not understand is that all of those things are not his legacy… I am. It was never the material things he left behind, his voice, or his humor, or his songs. His legacy has always been us, his family.
When I perform, I walk onto the stage and I search the room for his face; knowing that it will never be among the faces that stare expectantly back at me. I close my eyes for just a moment before I begin my song. I picture his face in my mind; I smile because he’s there. I can feel it with every piece of my being, and then... I sing. The singing started out being about him. I listened to his songs and hoped that one day I could be an influence to people just as he had been when he was here. I wanted to leave a legacy just like his.
My graduation day, I walked down the first of many aisles; I waited for them to give me my cue as my name was called from the stage. This stage was new to me. I did not have to perform when I got there, I just had to be me, something I had not done for a long time. I started to walk slowly as people turned to see me and smiled as if to say, “You did it.” Among their faces, I looked for his, as I always do. I found the faces of my mom, my stepdad, my relatives, and the shouts of my brothers. I closed my eyes again because I had to summon the courage to walk down the aisle without him.
So, I plaster on a smile for the cameras, and I place my graduation flower in the vase in the front of the gymnasium. I walk up the stairs of the stage and I look out among the people who have helped me get to the place where I am today. They championed next to me as I felt alone and unqualified, they pushed me to be the best that I could be, and now they were sending me off into the next stage of life— to inevitably walk down the next aisle.
We tossed our hats and said goodbye. All the kids in my class ran to get pictures taken with their families. I sat for a moment and reminisced about all of the things that I had walked through to get me to that point— the struggles I had overcome.
I remind myself that this was the easiest aisle to walk and the ones that would come later in life would be much different. My next aisle will come in a few more years at my college graduation and will be much like the first. But my third aisle is the one I fear the most. It is the day where I am supposed to be the happiest woman in the world; it is my wedding day. How do I walk down the aisle without my dad to give me away to the love of my life? I am not there yet, and probably will not be there for awhile. But, these thoughts plague my mind of the grief that will take place alongside the happiness.
Grief still knocks on my door from time to time—wants to reminisce with me about the hurt that resides somewhere deep within my heart. Sometimes, I invite Grief in to sit down and stay awhile; other times, I close the door and leave Grief alone on the doorstep to my heart. Because Grief is funny that way... isn’t it? If there is one thing that Grief is good at, it is waiting. It sits by my door just waiting for me to open it up again. I have played this game with Grief for 18 years.
However, through it all, one thing has remained more constant than Grief in my life—someone who knows me better than grief ever could. I walk to my heart’s doorstep and find grief gone and in its place stands my Father. God redeemed a place in my heart where a father was needed and resides there now. He offers strength for every thing that I have walked through and ever will walk through.
Therefore, I will boldly walk down the three aisles.
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