My Road to Healing

Something unexpected led her to forgive her father.

- Pamela Haskin

I DIDN’T REALLY MISS MY DAD after he died. That sounds terrible, I know. I had hoped that all the pain and hurt he had caused would go away with him. It didn’t. Even though he had been gone for 20 years, the memories were always lurking. Sometimes the most innocuous, mundane thing would bring them back to the surface.

“Want a soda?” my husband, Jeff, asked.

I nodded. We’d stopped at a convenience store on our way to drop him off for a flight. Jeff works in the oil fields in Alaska, so we made the two-hour drive to the airport every three weeks. 

“I’ll be right back,” he said. 

I nodded again. Quiet because something about sitting there in the car had sent my mind hurtling back to my childhood, back to the road trips Dad took our family on. He would pack us into the car and we’d drive from our home in New Mexico to visit relatives all around the country.

I loved hanging over the front seat, back when that was legal, listening to Dad tell stories as he drove. One of my favorites was the one he made up for my little brother and me one time on a long trip to Texas to see our grandparents.

“A flying saucer landed in the desert just five miles from our house,” Dad began. “The aliens climbed out and—” 

“Were they scary, Daddy?” 

“No. But they weren’t too happy. The first thing they did was bump into a cactus!” That got us giggling. We laughed even harder when Dad disclosed the little-known fact that aliens can sing. He knew their language, so he would sing their songs to us. Sometimes, if he forgot the words, he would whistle the songs instead. He was a great whistler. He could even whistle with a mouthful of crackers.