Dia, What are you doing? Dia! Look at me, look at me. What are you doing? You are Dia Vandy, of the proud Mende tribe. You are a good boy who loves soccer and school. Your mother loves you so much…I know they made you do bad things, but you are not a bad boy. I am your father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son again.         —Solomon Vandy, Blood Diamond

Luke, I am your father. –Darth Vader, Star Wars

2010 is the year the BF and I left New York.  It’s the year we moved to Atlanta and got new jobs.  It’s the year we got married and he became The Husband.  It’s the year my sister had her first baby, a bombass daughter.  And it’s the year that a family member was diagnosed with cancer.

True to my fallen nature, I was wondering just when the bottom was going to fall out.  Everything was going way too well–and that makes me nervous.  Then, on Monday morning, I got the phone call.  I got to work and immediately broke down in front of my office manager.  Then I went to the computer and read the email from the agent rejecting my manuscript.  Then The Husband called and informed me that the deal on the house had likely fallen through.

What a craptacular day, I thought to myself, wondering on the one hand if my blog viewership would increase now that I’m not constantly teeming with good news (we all know how annoying that can be) and on the other if it would be awkward to go back to the DMV and change my name to Job.  Then I climbed into my car to head home just as the bottom fell out again–of the sky, flooding my path and turning the driving public into imbeciles.  Self included.

I have a father whom I have grown to appreciate more over the years, as he has aged like a fine wine and I have…well, become less ignorant.  He taught me to ride a bike, write a letter, and succeed in school.  He operates at a level of intelligence that makes you dread getting into a debate with him, and yet he’s still the guy who takes his blood pressure at the machine inside a CVS and, diagnosing it as High, goes home and pops one of Mom’s Verapamil.  He is flawed and contradictory, and I’m learning every day that I am much more like him than I ever realized.

When the bottom falls out of life, we all need a dad.  Not all of us are lucky enough to have one still or ever around, and some who do would rather trade him in for a newer model.  But we all need that person who can tell us that Everything Is Going To Be Okay with such authority that we are convinced. Growing up in Sunday and Vacation Bible School, I was told that I had a Father who took care of me and watched over me.  “Say what?” I asked, if only in my head.  “Watching me do what?”  I imagined him sitting between the cherubim with a Mont Blanc in one hand and a yellow legal pad in the other, jotting down performance notes:  Hit sister in the head, minus one.  Wore matching socks, plus one. Such a Father’s credibility extends only as far as my likability, which most days didn’t feel like much.  No matter how well things were going, I always looked around anxiously, fearing the rug would be pulled out from under me. Later I found out that rug was cheap, fabricated out of self-improvement projects and attempts to remain comfortable and all my efforts to prove myself.  And the only thing it did was separate me from the rock upon which I could have been–should have been–standing.

I’m getting a little old now to be told by anyone down here that it’s all going to be okay.  We are all clocks winding down, and high blood pressure is among the least of our worries.  (That sentence brought to you jointly by Debbie Downer and Harsh Truth.  Wah wah…Word.)  I need someone who offers more than Band-Aids and platitudes, and with such authority that I am convinced.  If frequency is an indication of favoritism, then HELP is my preferred prayer.  And there waiting, beneath my feet and above my head, is the one who gives me an identity beyond titles and checklists, a hope beyond diagnoses and deals.  When the bottom upon which I have been mistakenly standing falls out, Abba takes over and whispers with words that move mountains:  I am your Father, and you will come home with me.  I know how this one turns out in the end.