How My Husband and I Keep the Spirit of My Father Alive with Our Kids

Raising kids can be a challenge on any given day. It can be even more challenging when you’ve lost one of your own parents—from not having the built-in support system to your kids not knowing their grandparents. One local mom shares how she and her husband are addressing the latter and keeping the memory of her father alive.

My 20s were a whirlwind. I am sure it’s a feeling many of us share. I graduated college at 21, met my future husband at 22, started grad school at 23, then got married at 25. I finished grad school and had my first baby just a few weeks apart. I was 27.

My Dad died when I was 29. And since that day, everything in my life has been divided into two parts: before Daddy died and after.

His death made me the first among my friends to lose a parent as an adult. Trust me, that’s not the kind of distinction anyone wants. As many people will tell you, the loss of a parent is something from which you never truly recover. The lucky ones among us figure out how to keep moving forward.

Our daughter turned 5 last summer. When she was born, my Dad was nine years into his battle with kidney disease. With medication, lots of doctor’s appointments, daily dialysis, and copious amounts of support from my Mom, our extended family, and their friends, he was managing it. December marked four years since my Dad passed. In December our son, named after my Dad, also turned 3.

It’s hard for me—for both me and my husband—raising our kids without my Dad. Grandpa was a role he was born to play. Almost from day one he jumped into the deep end. There was no greater gift the world could’ve given him than becoming a grandpa. Unfortunately, our time together was cut short; he died when our daughter was 17 months old. Our daughter doesn’t remember him, and our son is still too young to comprehend the loss. But we talk about my Dad a lot.