Goodbye Dad – One Year Later

Dad,

One year ago today I stood on that Tennessee hillside in dress shoes that had no business being in red clay looking down at the old pond that overflowed on the papaw King’s properity. Josh, Jason, Eason, the two funeral-home guys, and me—six of us carried you from the hurst to the grave site. Your casket was heavier than any server I’ve ever racked, heavier than anything I carried on one of your job sites, heavier than every line of code I’ve ever shipped to keep the lights on. When we lowered you on those ropes, my palms burned the same way yours must have after a twelve-hour day of framing houses.

I’ve been a programmer now for over twenty-seven years, counting down the last seven until retirement. I sit in quiet rooms under fluorescent lights and wrestle invisible bugs while most people sleep, just like you wrestled 2x4s from dawn till you couldn’t see the nail. Different battlefield, same fight: keep the family safe, keep the roof paid for, try to build something that outlasts me.

After work and on weekends, in whatever free time I can steal, I write for the internet—blogs, mostly. I try to tell people how good God really is, how wide Jesus’ love actually reaches, and how so many who claim to speak for Him get it wrong.

Five hundred and eighty miles north, one whiff of fresh-cut pine still puts me right back in the passenger seat of that black 1980 F-150, sawdust on the dash, you singing off-key to some country song while we bounced down backroads through a dozen little towns in Tennessee and Kentucky headed to or from a job site, or through a dozen little towns in Ohio chasing yard sales for furniture you’d fix up and flip on the weekends.

Some nights I still wake up at 3 a.m. with my fists clenched, feeling those ropes paying out, hearing the clods of clay hit the lid as we covered you ourselves. I needed to be one of the six, Dad. Needed these soft programmer hands to do one hard, real thing for you. Because for every promise you couldn’t keep, I got to keep the only one that still mattered: I helped lay you down with honor, on the family ground, right beside your brother and sister.

I remember the letter you sent me at Fort Jackson when I was nineteen and drowning in Basic Training—failing push-ups, getting smoked every morning, sure I’d ruined my life. Your shaky handwriting showed up in mail call: “I’m proud of you, son.” I sat on my bunk and read it until the paper went soft from sweat and tears. One of the only times I ever cried in the Army, and the only time anybody saw it. Those words carried me through the rest of those ten weeks and a lot of hard days after. I never said thank you. Consider this my very late reply.

The past has been coming back in two different ways.

Some of it is the stories you told after I moved away—things you said to customers, co-workers, some of my old friends—things that made me look smaller or stranger than I was. Most of what I have heard was gossip you told around a work site or at the lumber yard. Years later those stories still drift north like bad packets that never got dropped. Some days they sting. Some days I just feel sad for all of us.

The other part is older, deeper: things a kid shouldn’t have to carry. Things I buried so deep they left giant blank spots in my memory. They’re coming up now in slow, jagged pieces that don’t always fit together yet. I may never see the whole picture, but I’ve seen enough to know the good wasn’t the whole story.

Truth is, both the good and the bad had their moments. There were mornings you were the best dad a kid could ask for, and there were nights the house felt too small for all of us. I’m learning to hold them both without letting either one own me.

Here’s what I need you to hear, Dad, and I need it to be crystal clear: Whatever else rises—every harsh word, every repeated rumor, every memory still hiding in the dark—I’m choosing to forgive it all. I’m laying every ounce of that weight down on that Tennessee hillside, right beside the coffin we lowered.

You don’t have to carry it anymore; I choose not to carry it any more, either.

In that last private phone conversation—when dementia briefly lifted its fog and gave you back to me—you spoke clearly into the receiver, looked through the distance as if you could see me, and said, “They’re claiming I said things I never did.” You spent your final lucid breath defending me, my wife, my daughter. I wish to God you’d said it years sooner, when it could have spared us some scars, but I understand why you waited. You said it when it counted most, and that single line rewrote everything. Best code you ever wrote, Dad—clean, honest, shipped at the absolute last second. Bug fixed. Heart patched.

So tonight I’m raising a beer to you in a city you never saw, in a life that would’ve looked like science fiction to you. I’m still writing code so my girl—who’s in college now and doesn’t care much for fishing—can chase whatever dream she wants without ever looking over her shoulder at the bills. I’m doing my damnedest to keep every promise I make to her and my wife. In an odd way, I learned that from you.

You’re home now. Hammer down. Boots off. Rest easy on the ground that you grew up on with your brother on one side and your sister on the other.

I’ll keep writing clean code until the day I retire, God willing. I’ll keep writing about grace in my free time.

I love you, Dad.

#1980F150Memories #BasicTrainingLetter #bloggingAboutJesus #breakingTheCycle #buryingDadWithHonor #buryingFatherByHand #carpenterFather #childhoodMemoriesGap #childhoodTraumaHealing #ChristianGrief #complicatedFatherSonRelationship #complicatedGrief #complicatedLoveFather #ConwayTwitty #dadInHeaven #deathAnniversaryPost #deathbedApology #deathbedClarity #dementiaCaregiverStory #dementiaClarityMoment #dementiaFinalWords #faithAfterLoss #familyCemeteryTennessee #familyLandBurial #familyPlotBurial #fatherDefendedMe #fatherProudLetter #fatherSonForgiveness #fatherSonReconciliationAfterDeath #fatherSonTribute #fatherWasnTPerfect #fatherWoundsHealing #fatherSDeathAnniversary #fatherSFinalWords #forgivenessJourney #forgivenessTestimony #forgivingAParent #FortJackson #FreewillBaptist #GapCreekChurch #GapCreekFreewillBaptist #generationalCycles #generationalHealing #goodAndBadMemories #gossipAboutSon #graceAndForgiveness #grief #griefAndFaith #griefAndGrace #griefBlog #griefJourney2026 #healingAfterLoss #honestGrief #ILlFlyAwayHymn #January26DeathAnniversary #JesusLoveBlog #keepingPromisesToKids #KentuckyRoots #lastBreathDefense #lastLucidWords #lettingGoOfResentment #lossOfFather #lovingImperfectFather #loweringCasketRopes #MerleHaggard #MichiganDadBlog #mountainBurial #oneYearDeathAnniversary #pallbearerExperience #pallbearerSon #programmerDadTribute #programmerSon #raisingDaughterDifferently #rawGrief #redClayFuneral #redClayTennessee #repressedMemoriesSurfacing #retirementCountdown #revivalMemories #ruralTennesseeBurial #sawdustMemories #seeYouAgainDad #southernFatherMemories #storiesFatherTold #TennesseeHillsideBurial #tributeToDad #writingAboutGrace #yardSaleRuns

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unless someone is actually deceased, “too late” is a concept that I don’t really think is accurate.

Example: let’s say u & friend had a disagreement; they’re offended by your stance on something to the extent they blame u & leave.

You might not actually argued but end up not speaking for 3 years!

4 years later, somehow the time / distance resolved the hurts & you’re able to be friends again because you’re still alive.

someone shared this happened #relationships #generationalhealing #hottake

Childhood Neglect Is a Generational Curse

Bronwyn Schweigerdt shares how being unseen and unheard as a child becomes internalized as shame—and how that pain gets passed down. Learn more at www.FishingWithoutBait.com

#Mindfulness #EmotionalHealth #GenerationalHealing #MentalHealth #FishingWithoutBait #PodcastClips

Martyrdom Is Not a Love Language: What We’re Really Teaching Our Kids

Part 2

In our household, we don’t do martyrdom. At least, we try not to. But sometimes, the ghosts of how we were raised sneak in and set the table before we even get there.

The other night, something small happened—over a few meatball, of all things. My stepdaughter wanted the last few. I gently reminded her, “Your dad hasn’t had any yet.” Immediately, the mood shifted. She withdrew. My husband did his usual—I’m-fine-I-don’t-need-any charade. And I was left with the sinking feeling that once again, I had disrupted a script they were all too familiar with.

Here’s the thing: my husband grew up poor. Like many who’ve lived through scarcity, he learned early that love looked like sacrifice. Parents who went without so their kids could eat. Adults who silenced their needs and never complained. Survival required that mindset—but once survival is no longer on the table, that kind of self-neglect turns toxic.

Today, my husband has more than enough. We’re okay. And yet, when the opportunity comes to assert a small need—to say “yes, I’d like the last meatball”—he doesn’t. He backs away. Smiles. Declines. He still wears his poverty like armor, even when there’s no battle.

And what gets modeled to the kids in moments like that is dangerous:

• That love means going hungry (literally and metaphorically).
• That setting boundaries is selfish.
• That your needs should always come last—especially if you’re the adult.
• That being “good” means being invisible.

I don’t want to raise children who grow up thinking love is measured by how much of yourself you erase.

I want them to learn that yes, love includes compromise and care—but also self-respect. That adults can speak up for themselves without guilt. That boundaries are not barriers—they’re blueprints for healthy relationships.

So when I speak up at the dinner table, it’s not about the food. It’s about the message.

Because too many of us were raised by martyrs, and while we’re grateful for their sacrifices, we’re also carrying the cost of never learning how to advocate for ourselves without guilt.

I want more for our kids than a life of quiet suffering disguised as devotion. I don’t want them to be depleted parents or spouses, or partners who never figure out what they really want out of life or who they really are because they only know how to give love by punishing themselves in the name of love. Instead, I dream of them embracing a life filled with joy, self-discovery, and authentic connections. They should learn to cherish their own needs and desires, nurturing their passions while fostering relationships built on mutual respect and understanding. I envision a future where they can freely express their emotions without fear of judgment or guilt, recognizing that true love does not come from sacrifice or self-neglect, but from a place of fulfillment and balance. I hope to instill in them the courage to pursue their dreams and the wisdom to understand that their worth is not defined by the pain they endure, but by the happiness they cultivate and share with others. It is my deepest wish that they grow up knowing that love is about upliftment and support, encouraging them to thrive rather than merely survive.

It’s hard to unlearn martyrdom when it was modeled as love. But that’s exactly why we must do it—so our kids don’t confuse silence with strength or self-neglect with love. We break the cycle not by staying quiet, but by showing them a different way.

Stay tuned for next Sunday’s Part 3

#blendedFamilyDynamics #boundariesAndLove #emotionalModeling #generationalHealing #gentleParenting #raisingEmotionallyHealthyKids