My father tells me, almost every time I see him, about an art contest he entered when he was 12 years old. He won, and the prize was being accepted into an art school. “The people came to the house,” he said, “I was a kid, and I had no one to encourage me to go.”

My father has been a stranger to me most of my life. I have two, maybe three childhood memories of him. One, being afraid to sit on his lap after my mama asked me to.

Another, me watching him through our front door, walking down the block away from our house in New York. He was wearing his brown UPS uniform on his way to catch the train to work. My parents divorced when I was five.

That’s it.

I don’t know much about him, or his past, except that it was hard.

I know that his mama put him in an orphanage, a place he refers to as “The Home”. It was an orphanage a few blocks from where she lived. She didn’t want him or his brothers anymore.

She’d visit on the holidays.

He tells another story, a story I’ve heard countless times.

“I asked my mother for a dollar once. She yelled at me for asking her. So, I started working, and never asked anyone for anything, again.”

He worked his whole life.

Three years ago at my husband’s mama’s funeral, as one could image, I was pondering deeply about life after death. My dad was waiting at the back of the church when I saw him. The first thing that poured out was, “I want you to be in heaven. I want to know I’ll see you there.”

His reply, I’ll never forget. “The things that happened to me when I was a kid, you can’t hear. You couldn’t handle it. If there was a God who loved, He wouldn’t have let that happen to a kid.”

What do I do with that?

Pray.

God knows how to reach a heart like his. I’ve told him the Gospel. My only job now is to live it, and to love him to life.

He not been the easiest to love, and loving me hasn’t come easy to him. Perhaps, it’s showing it that hasn’t. I’ve only ever heard him say “I love you” aloud, once. It was the moment he gave me away at my wedding.

I save every birthday and Christmas card he’s ever given me, because he writes it in them. This Christmas, I even saw my first, “Very much,” after his handwritten, “I love you.”

Now, I’m much older than the little girl that was afraid to sit on his lap, and I understand things differently. Daughters need their father’s love, yes. But now he needs my love more.

I don’t get to decide what kind of dad I have, but I get to decide what kind of daughter he gets. Father God has helped me to see him through His grace-filled eyes.

For as long as I’ve known God, I’ve been in awe and wonder over His creativity. I love Creator, Designer, and Architect God. And maybe it’s because inside my dad — is an artist.

My dad hadn’t drawn or painted in decades. When he semi-retired, he had too much time on his hands. Bored, he picked up a paint brush, and he began. And, I know it took the 65 year old man courage.

I’ve searched for words to say what it means to me. They’re still liquid.

When he shows me his work, I see more of him. I know more about this stranger of a man I call, Dad. Somehow, it makes him easier to love. I see walls around his heart have tumbled. Maybe, God is at work.

I still feel grief for all those years he lived an un-lived life, with the artist locked up inside of him. I imagine where he would be if he went to that art school.  I wonder what he would be doing today, or what his gift would look like fully developed if he practiced his art from childhood.

We usually have a short visit with each other on Christmas. We exchange gifts. When I went this time, I wasn’t leaving without some pieces of his art.

“I want to pick a few of your paintings out. I want to hang them around my house, because when I see them, I see you. And, I’m going to pay for them,” was the first thing I told him after, “Merry Christmas.”

We went around his small house, walls now covered with his work,  him showing and telling. He had stories for every drawing, painting, and piece of art. I could choose any one I wanted. Unintentionally, I picked one that was his most favorite, and was that was his least, and a few in between.

He told me about how he sold some paintings at a yard sale for $5.00 each, and I told him that it was too little. So, I gave him more. He didn’t want my money, but I insisted, telling him he needed to know I value his art, because I value him.

Because, somehow, my father’s courage to create art helps me remember there is artist in me that is still longing to come out.