Seven years ago I lost my biological father. He was a man that I had met twice. I looked a lot like him, but he was a stranger to me and three other of his children.

I was a columnist for a local newspaper at that time. I wrote a column that spurred e-mails from missing dads from all over the region. In honor of Father’s day, I dug out that old piece to once again remember what a gift my “real dad” is–the man who married my mother when I was a little girl, a man who looks nothing like me, but who has my heart.

May I share it with you?

Dying for a Second Chance, Muskogee Phoenix, Feb., 2000 by Suzie Eller

This past week I stood in front of an open grave that waited to receive the body of my biological father. I was sad for I couldn’t find the emotion necessary to say a proper good-bye. You see, he was a virtual stranger to me. I am one of seven children, like so many seed scattered from the various broken relationships over sixty-six years of living.

The mellow voice of ole’ Blue-Eyes crooned as they lowered the casket: “Regrets, I’ve had a few . . . I planned each charted course, each careful step, along the byway, oh and more, much more than this, I did it my way.”

I’m sure this Frank Sinatra song was chosen as a testament to his life, but to me it was a eulogy of selfishness. Each of his choices created a wide circle of influence, like a stone rippling calm water. None of us, unless we are an island, can testify that doing things our way regardless of the outcome is admirable.

My sister and I were lucky. A man came into our lives when I was 1 and she was 4. He married my mother and and stepped into the role of father. A man who changed my diapers, who kicked the tires of my first car. Who walked me down the aisle, who was there at the birth of my first child. Who calls me “babes” when I call him on the phone. The father who held me at my hospital bedside when I found out I had cancer.

This is a man at whose graveside one day I will not be able to contain my tears.

I could not help but recognize the others were not so fortunate as I looked into the eyes of the the grown children who stood at the front of the church. While my life was etched with his absence, their lives were marked by his presence.

In his last hours my biological father desperately wanted to mend broken fences. His pain was not the ache of cancer, but of regret. In the midst of this sorrow, a pastor shared the message of the gospel—mercy, forgiveness, eternity, second chances. He had heard these words before, but pushed aside as the mantra of the weak. Somehow, they made perfect sense now. Those who surrounded him in the last hours could not help but tell of the peace that radiated in the hospital room.

“If you had asked me a week ago if my dad could tell me he loved me,” his son said, “I would have laughed in your face. I don’t know what came over him.”

I know. I really do, and I’m thankful. God’s mercy still amazes me.

There is wisdom in Isaiah 55:6-7 (NIV). “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.” Further down this passage shares the bounty of such a choice: “Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.”

In my biological father’s absence, and even in his death, there powerful lessons to be learned: Don’t wait too long while regrets pile up like so much refuse. Don’t fail to nurture and love your children today while you can. Honor your spouse and the commitment to love through hard times and good. Make unselfish choices that will benefit your entire family.

But may I be honest? I struggled all the way home from the funeral. The words, “I did it my way” resounded in my heart as I thought about how precious my relationship with my own children have been.

I was angry at what could have been, at what he had missed, and at the fact that I and three other children were not included in his last moments of regret.

Give it to me, Suz. Words whispered by the ultimate Father.

I had a decision to make: To forgive a man who didn’t know how to be a father, and to live with compassion and ask for mercy for my own heart.

For my choices do matter, and doing it my way just may not be the be the best way.

FROM SUZIE TODAY: If you have a husband or father who stepped in to love a child not his own, will you give them a hug for me today? I’m going to call my dad, though Father’s Day has passed and tell him one more time that his girl loves him.

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