On This Day 2/27/2020

On this day, Dad died. 

I thought about this last week but forgot until today when I was journaling my prayers. I had an image of Dad suddenly, beaming and shooting out big, rolling laughs with a Hollywood-manufactured celestial light circling around him. His cheeks were rosy, and he was doing the very “Van Engen” man thing of tucking his chin back a bit into his neck, a pleased expression on his face. I admit, he looked a bit like a Dutch Santa Claus minus one red suit. He was beyond happy.

I miss my dad.

At the most unexpected times, I will think of things he’s said to me. Sometimes I think of him in photographs. I can’t see minutes beyond those moments frozen in time, but I can feel them. 

Right now, for instance. 

I remember the scratchy peach carpet at our first house in Iowa — Dad sprawled over it — eyes closed — one striped cat (Mr. Ba-Booga / stage name: El Gato), also asleep, his body curved over the arc of Dad’s belly.

Dad, helping me move into my very first post-college apartment. Dad, buying me a toaster before he took the eleven-hour drive home because as every Van Engen knows, toast smothered in peanut butter and jelly (preferably strawberry in the big jar from Cub Foods), is an essential part of starting the day off right.

The significant moments I repeat to myself, so I don’t forget them.

Dad, sitting on the steps leading into his foyer, stopping me as I handled my luggage, telling me to “come here, I want to tell you something.” And then proceeding to shatter my perception of him as he says, “I’m sorry,” for not being around much when I was growing up under his roof.

The unspoken hurt fell away in that moment but he gave me something too. His “I’m sorry” communicated I had been seen.

And then the last moments. 

Dad in a pool of sunshine on the living room couch, in a dream he wouldn’t wake from, calling out things that made little sense but made me believe he was in a tussle with God — telling Him, I am ready to come home.