Healing a Memory

Yesterday we gathered to remember my dad.

Yesterday we gathered to remember my dad. I almost didn’t speak, but my brother read the words for my dad that I had posted the day before and encouraged me to share. This encouragement unlocked a gate I had been standing behind all my life and it meant the world to me. My brother has a different perspective on our family but still felt it was important for me to share mine. After the service, many family and old friends and strangers came up to me to embrace me and tell me about their experiences and it was the most healing day of my life.

My brother also shared about Dad, about how far he had come, and what it meant for him as a man with a beautiful family of his own. Everything he said was true, and it was an important part of my dad’s story, too big for any single person to carry.

The question came up indirectly, why say that at his memorial service? It’s a fair question that I wanted to be clear in what I shared. All my life, there’s been a side of Al Bollwerk that is talked about and loved and also another side. They are both important parts of a man of enormous depth, who started from nothing and came so far, and if we only remember some parts of him, we aren’t really remembering him. We risk missing out on some of the important truth that shines from his life. Since I was very young, I’ve tried to find the right way to call attention to this problem, and I held myself back with shame and fear of hurting people that I loved. Among the people I did not want to hurt was my dad, but no words can hurt him now, a strange kind of grace.

Words can still hurt the people who loved him, and I have agonized over that. Speaking them was the most difficult thing I have ever done. I feared that I would see in their eyes resentment and anger, but that is not what I saw, only love. Their response is the biggest part of my healing.

Given how far Dad came in his life, there might still be people who think I should have kept the darker parts private, to be healed privately. To be clear, the darkest parts have not yet been spoken even by me. My dad did a lot of good things and he also did unspeakable things and coming to terms with the latter without forgetting the first has been the challenge of a lifetime. I see no reason to dwell on his faults, but there is still a very good reason to think about the faults in a belief system and community that should have done more to help. I do not wish to challenge anyone’s faith, but I do wish to challenge how it may be applied, and some will see that as a healthy challenge. I hoped that my words might raise the question, how could this happen among us? Is this happening right now among us?

I named one person in particular, my dad’s pastor, and he happened to be in the unenviable position of speaking after me. I deeply respected his response, both humble and strong. And the memorial he prepared for my dad captured his character so well that it was as if Dad was sitting among us, in the way we both spoke of him, with his mouth open and tears streaming down his face. Afterwards he shared with me his own story of a struggle happening right now and I wish for his whole family a healing resolution. I hope that my challenge will not discourage him but somehow be a blessing.

People came up to me afterwards and told me it was the most honest memorial service they had ever been a part of. There will be another service next year around Father’s Day in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where my dad comes from, and where we will finally commit him to the earth. No doubt that one will be honest too, but I think it will also be lighter. Not because we will hold back, but speaking for myself, I will feel a little stronger.

And I think it will be more fun, which is fitting, because my dad loved fun.