five minute friday - Visit

I was in a deep sleep that summer's night, when my Father woke me up. He wanted to visit with me, alone, just the two of us. So I brewed a pot of coffee, and we sat down at the kitchen table.

He asked me what was troubling me. My teenage daughter and I had been arguing that night. I had been questioning my parenting as she was growing up and becoming a woman.

He looked me in the eye,

with nothing but silence in the room with us, and he said to me:

“She is learning who she is and this is her time. I know it is difficult to sit back and allow your child to make a mistake, even the smallest one, you want to protect her. But you have to allow her to make mistakes while they are small, that way she will learn how hard they are to clean up. She will learn, on her own, how difficult some of life's decisions can be and she will develop her own sense of self.”

We sat there drinking coffee while having a long conversation about my deepest worries.

Then he took the last drink from his cup,

gave me a hug

and said goodbye.

Then, I heard the phone ringing. It just kept ringing and ringing and ringing. I awoke and slipped down the hall to answer it. My brother was calling from miles away. He called to tell me our Father had passed away just a few minutes ago. The cancer had taken his last breath. I didn't feel upset, scared or angry. I felt calm, and I felt a sense of peace within.

For before he left,

he had come to visit me.

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Linking up with

Lisa-Jo today.

Today's word: Visit

Five minute friday with

Lisa-Jo Baker

over at

http://lisajobaker.com/2014/01/five-minute-friday-visit/

Every Friday Lisa posts a word to be used as a subject that we can then take five minutes to write about, unedited, without thinking, stopping when the five minutes is up.

This was my "Five Minutes" today.