The luck of the Irish

About 85% of our backyard is covered in patches of clover.  I have recently started searching for four leaf clovers while I’m outside with the kids and I have actually found quite a few! My dad could find them just by quickly glancing at the ground. And my brother has the same talent. I don’t have the talent, and I don’t always find one, but I enjoy doing it. It makes me feel close to my dad, who I lost just before I started middle school. It makes me feel close to my brother, who I love dearly, and who has moved to North Carolina for school. So much has taken place in my life since the day that my dad took his life, that it can often be hard to reconcile the old life with him in it, to my teenage years, to my life now. Sometimes I don’t even know if I have ever really grieved that loss. But when I am picking four leaf clovers and putting them in my favorite book, or when my siblings and I are together, I feel his spirit alive within me. 

We have a picture of my dad on the fridge and everyday my daughter points to it and calls him pop pop. The weird thing is, I can’t remember ever calling him that to her. It’s like she has chosen what his name would have been if he were still alive. 

It is in this that I know that even if we try and escape this world, we never really disappear from it. My dads time on this earth ended way too soon, and so many will forever miss him. But he’s still with us. He is remembered by those he left behind, and known by people who he never even had the chance to meet. 

Every life leaves things behind, and I guess, it’s really up to us as to what those things are. The first part of my life left behind things that I am not proud of. And there are people out there who when they remember me will not feel joy or experience a happy memory. But my life is not over yet, and I will continue to fight to live a life that reflects Gods truly amazing grace, and one day at a time, shape the spirit that will be remembered, long after I am gone.