Happy Birthday!

I've been thinking of my dad a lot lately.  Probably because today he would have been 91 years old.  He dropped dead (literally) of a heart attack getting ready for bed, 11:20pm, February 25th, 1983.  Ten days after his 59th birthday.  BAM! Just like that. One moment sitting in the family room watching television with my friend Maryann and me, smoking a cigarette and drinking his nightly cup of coffee, the next moment (okay, 20 minutes later) falling to the floor in the bathroom most likely (and hopefully) leaving this world before hitting the linoleum.  There. Not there. No tearful good-byes, no "I love you's", no last last minute deathbed apologies for past trespasses.  Here.  Not here.  Nothing Hollywood-worthy or novel-worthy. Just...gone.  

It was shocking and sad and absolutely awful for all of us.  All but my dad and that makes it all okay in my mind.  It's how I would want to go; quickly with no more and hopefully less than a moment's pain or fear.  Feeling relatively good one moment and nothing the next.  No suffering, no doctors hovering, no tubes or hard decisions for my loved ones to have to make.  Just peace and quiet until Jesus comes to take me home.  Doesn't seem so bad when you look it that way, right?

See this way too, I get to remember my dad the way he was most of the time; alive, smiling, busting chops, bantering and playing with his grandchildren, losing his patience...ahem.  I look at it as a blessing.  I knew his heart wasn't well and he was suffering with chest pains more often than not and although I never would have thought it then, perhaps my hindsight has shown me that he probably wasn't going to grow to be an old man with my mom.  But what if he did?  Would he have gotten miraculously healthy and lived that long life happily and pain free?  Probably not.  So yes, it was a blessing.

My father-in-law died a slow and painful death.  Painful for him and painful for my husband and his family.  I remember my mother-in-law saying angrily, "I'm so angry at myself for begging God to let me keep him with me!!  I should have been praying that God take him and end his pain but I was selfish and didn't want him to go."  I felt so terrible for her that she was carrying this guilt around years after he had passed.  What she asked God for is absolutely what I would have asked God for if it had been my husband, father, brother or anyone I loved!  And anyone who has prayed that prayer has probably experienced the same guilt as my mother-in-law.  

So although I'm obviously not glad my father passed away when I was still in high school and hadn't come to the realization of how much I needed him in my life to advise and guide, I'm glad he was taken as quickly as he was.  I'm not sorry I didn't get to say good-bye or "I'm sorry" (I was a teenager after all so clearly an apology would have been necessary for something!) because I believe with all my heart, and have from the moment of his passing, that I could talk to him anytime I liked!  No, he couldn't say "I love you too" or "I forgive you", but I know he would have and that's enough for me.  It really is.

James Francis Cassidy, born February 15, 1924 was a loving man filled with quiet humor and subdued affection.  He could instill fear when he yelled (even in my older brothers) and calm when he quietly comforted.  He was impatient and quick to anger (a trait I thankfully didn't get...right?!) but when I think of him now, almost 32 years after his untimely death, I am filled with love and gratitude that God found both of us worthy enough to belong to each other as father and daughter even if for only a short time.

I love you still, Daddy, and will always.  Happy birthday in Heaven!

~ Eileen Cassidy Bishop