Text to a Deceased Beloved

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Dad, Shelly, I’m quite sure no one will ever see this because it is text to your phone and who knows where someone who dies phone goes?  Those are the questions I’m haunted with in the last few days.  I didn’t know how else to send you a message except this way; telling of our times, trying to process, get it off my heart, I guess it could have been prayer but you know, technology…..blogs…..I did prayer too, just FYI, hehe.

You died Wednesday morning and it is now Saturday evening.  I feel the need to tell you, even if you never see this, and even if no one else sees this how much you did for me, how much you meant to me, how amazingly there you were for me first as a mentor in the business world 30 years ago and later as a surrogate father.  I know why I wasn’t invited to your wedding to Myra and I know why I have not been informed about the funeral.  It’s okay.  I was and am a weird threat to a couple of your five biological kids and I get that.

Your soul has moved on and I don’t need the formalities.  Our relationship was one of the most beautiful things in my life.  You helped me in ways that could never be understood by others.  In fact, our innocent father/daughter platonic relationship has of course been misunderstood. I don’t care.  You were amazing to me and THEN you set me up on a blind date in the old days before internet dating with my husband of 20 years now and my soulmate, Steve.  I love you so much, Dad, and I will NOT say rest
in peace.

DON’T! Don’t rest!  Continue to do the amazing work you do to help people learn and grow like you did in this life.  l say continue on your journey with joy and I’ll SEE you when I get there!  All my deepest love.  Andy

My Dad Died

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My Dad’s name was Shelly Dobkins.  He and my now husband Steve worked together for World Savings way back when my husband Steve was a young up and comer and before I knew him.  Shelly always saw something in Steve and admired his intelligence, integrity and class.

I met Shelly when I was young and green in the corporate world after I graduated with a minor in psychology and a major in business management. At 24 years my senior, he became a friend and mentor to me for business and corporate advice.  Then as we talked more deeply over the years he learned that I was (mostly verbally, but sometimes a little more) abused by my biological father and my step father.  He then started taking on more of a personal role in my life paternally.

I finally asked him 20 or so years ago if I could call him Dad.  He was thrilled.  He came when I got a new apartment to check the security, he checked the tires on my car, he made sure the gas stove was working properly, he did all the things no one had ever done for me and that I never even knew needed to be done.

Steve had married young to an Asian American woman and they never had kids.  I think he was married to her for about 7 years.  In the course of their divorce, Shelly being the jewish Dad started harping Steve about meeting me. It pissed Steve off and he told Shelly that he and his wife were not even living separately yet, how would he dare try to set him up on a date so soon! He was harping me too and I thought why would this very good looking man going through a divorce want a woman 3 years older?  Shelly, my Jewish Dad, of course was trying to get me settled with a good man.  So sweet.

Shelly finally invited us to a “huge BBQ” at his and Myra’s house in Newport Beach.  It was four of us.  They left the two of us alone on the patio overlooking the bay with wine.  The rest is history.  I’m married and living with my soul mate.  Shelly found him for me.

So, this man, my Dad, not only tremendously in so many ways helped me as a young, vulnerable woman in the corporate world, he gave me the gift of my life, which is my husband.

I grieve my Father’s death tonight.