Farewell Daddy - Jan 2011 Poem ...

You have always been leaving;


leaving me behind…like when at age five you abandoned us.



Left without a daddy, in the 1960’s, was a shameful state;

not at all the common lifestyle of kids during that time.

Left me to navigate the world without you,

growing up so differently than many girls:

left to become and do so much without you.



Your leaving taught me much over the many years.

There is an unspoken wisdom that comes from such deep loss.

And, fortuitously, it seems your absence shielded me from decades of harm.

Left was a space for Providence to father and shape me with a heavenly healing balm.



You have always been leaving; interspersed by random phone calls, rare visits and

occasional greeting cards.

25 years came and went…



On the other side of the gap from your leaving, time then provided years for us to create re-united memories.

Not always easy and sometimes awkward; many times we tripped over a new-found relationship.

Still, we walked restoration’s path, imperfectly, with desire to have something versus nothing.



Bridging the lost years included bittersweet visits, laughter, tears and snapshots in time of failed attempts at normalcy.

Upon each goodbye, I felt left with something and still so aware of what I was left without.

The reconciliation years gave way to forming witness of each other’s life’s cycles and seasons.

I began to feel left with more than what I had been left without.



You’ve always been leaving. As such your sense of home, and mine, has been fractured.



This time you left me with peace.

You left me with a deep sense of grace.

Happily and lovingly, I wave you on to a new home where there is no fracture, where

there is no more leaving; a place where Spirit embraces you to rest and simply be ---

You leave me with feeling left with more than what I was ever left without.





- Delena Beth Knight

January 7, 2011