Tailor Made

My friend LV wanted me to tell this story because we were talking about the tailor made blessings from the Lord. It started a couple of weeks ago when our bible study was talking about icons of faith. My mind went to icons of people, specifically the image of a sailboat always reminding me of my dad. Not long after that, my father passed away.

About a week later, I wrote a poem called My Dad is a Sailboat. I was very happy with the way it turned out.
Two months later, when we were sorting through stuff, the kids went through boxes of beads and related items. Sam ended up with the bulk of it. However, the day we came home with some of his personal belongings, we were still raw with emotion and a strange obsessive materialism that wasn’t me. I didn’t NEED the stuff I’d brought home. It was as though I was looking for him in it.
“Mom, I found something I bet you’ll like.” She held up a little brass sculpture about 2 ½
Inches tall. A sailboat. When I saw it, I knew I didn’t need another thing. And really, I didn’t need the sailboat. I just knew that it was the perfect size, a little two sail deal and I would remember him every time I saw it. Sam and I called that a postcard from Heaven. And peace came with it.
Anyway, that’s the story. I hope you liked it.

Milestone

Six months ago I thought a father passing away was the worst day of a persons life. But what I've come to realize is, that it isn't.

In the days that followed my father's death, it's the unexpected ways that I am reminded of him that cause my tears. Military holidays, rope knots, pine scented saw dust, running saws and Cracker Barrel. There will be many more triggers, and the memories will strike sometimes like a trickle and sometimes like a tsunami.

I don't think it's bad. My heart still feels like it's free-falling when there's a question that I want to ask him and he isn't available. I am conscious of his total absence in waves. For days on end I'm keenly aware, and on other days I almost forget.

But I won't ever really forget. It will just sting a little less everyday until the emotional triggers get pulled or the unexpected memory surfaces. If I'm crying, it's not all bad either. It doesn't mean I'm depressed. It just means he still touches my heart and his love for me wasn't wasted.

Clouds and Dreaming

Three nights ago, I dreamt about the back of my dad’s head.

He and his wife were sitting in the pew in front of me.

Before the service was over, he had disappeared, and she sat in the row behind us.

I ponder again the strangeness of dreams.

Having flying dreams and paralysis dreams and wonder if

all of it is a sort of premonition via sleep.

Can our souls see the future?

Is the dream state really the cross roads where our soul

tries to communicate with our consciousness?
I’ve dreamt of being shot, although in a dream it is hard to tell if you die or not.

I didn’t attend my funeral.

But until lately, I only dreamt of a funeral once at 17, having never been to one.

Before he finally passed I had dreamt about my father dying

at least three times. They were years apart,

but disconcerting nonetheless.

I have never awakened from one not feeling depressed

and like I’d cried for a week.
I have even dreamt of a few close friends passing.

Such dreams just make me wonder if they mean anything.

I guess it’s a little like trying to read clouds for picture messages.

I mean, is that silly?

Don’t tell anyone, but I do that too.

Coffee with Dad

I'd taken the last of Dad's old books to sell. I have to say, this place had enough books-in-waiting to start another store, which told me I probably wouldn't be getting much for my half-dozen.

They called my name and made an offer that was the equivalent of two cups of coffee and a tip. Slightly insulted, I decided to take the offer, because I thought this might be Dad's way of treating my daughter and me to coffee.
I talked to my her about it and we decided that the next time we stopped for coffee, Dad was buying.

Later in the evening, in one of our favorites haunts, Barnes and Noble, we stood at the Starbucks counter ordering half-and-half venti's. When we got them, we both said thanks to Dad and sat at a little round table perusing interesting books we might buy.

I paged through a thick magazine size book of Post Secrets. It started as a comunity art project where people made postcards regarding a secret they've been carrying around, things they can't seem to say aloud, or to the person they want to tell. Some have been carrying these burdens for years--decades even-- and they send them to an address. Since it's inception lf less than five years, the creator of the concept has received more than 150,000 postcards from around the world. He published them in a volume of which, there are three. He also has a site: postsecret.com . ( I can't vouch for the purity of this site or its language. Look at your own risk.)

Many of them touched me, but one in paricular really got to me. When the writer's father died she was disturbed that she had not dreamt about him since. She wanted him to tell her he was alright. She happened to mention it to a friend, and that night, she had a lovely dream about him holding her face, telling her he was fine. Yeah....I'm feeling the first part of that one.

I'm saving the paper sleeve and dating it so I can remember having coffee with Dad this way.

While I looked at books, I felt particularly drawn to "God Will Make a Way" by Townsend and Cloud. It's practically a writing prompt book. I loved the questions which are designed to get one thinking, realizing and begin healing.
So we each got one.

Thanks, Dad. Coffee and Advice. You're the best.

Photo Essay

Saturday I inherited a collection of negatives and black and white photos.

Dad was a Navy photographer and stored pictures in little yellow envelopes marked Official Navy Photograph. I hope they don't want them back...



Here's a shot labeled Beirut early 50's. More to follow.

Birthday Tribute

My Dad the Dreamer

Looking out second-story windows we saw city sunsets cut through with telephone wires and pierced by electric poles. Exhaust fumes hung heavy in the air, except in those first few moments after a rainstorm. My dad is a dreamer.
“We’ll have a house in the country one day with fresh air and a big wide open sky. Every night sunsets will be painted all the way across as far as we can see,” my dad said. In my eight-year-old mind, God’s watercolors washed across the heavens. How could my Dad see beyond now into the future? I saw swatches of firmament between tall brick buildings and neatly rowed two-story houses. I didn’t see our new house in the country.
The summer after I turned ten, Dad bought a piece of country land with a real dirt road along side. We stood atop our knoll, surrounded by five acres of goldenrod, milkweed and thistles. Facing west, we watched the sun dip behind the maple woods. When the colors began to rainbow across the clear expanse, he winked at me. That moment, a dream became real.
“The front window of our new house will face the sunset and we’ll watch them every night,” he said, unwrapping another dream for me. One day we’ll leave our three-bedroom walk-up and live in a four-bedroom ranch-style home with a family room.
Before I started the sixth grade, we moved into our new, not-quite-finished house. Aside from the appliances and a cold-water sink the kitchen hadn’t been constructed.
“All you kids will get to help me build the kitchen,” Dad said. “When it’s done we’ll have a big banana-split party and you can each invite a friend.” For two years he made mounds of oak sawdust. He mopped up small white puddles of hide glue after clamping precision-cut pieces of wood together, making all the cabinets, doors and drawers. We kids sanded miles of board feet and rubbed off the fine grit from reams of sandpaper, making sharp edges soft. When we finished our project, an eat-in bar stood between the kitchen and the dining room with honey-stained, solid-wood cabinets above and below on all four walls. I was fifteen.
Just as I dreamed, friends came over for a banana-split party. My dad scooped everybody’s choice of flavors into banana-lined bowls. We topped ice cream balls with caramel, strawberry syrup and chocolate sauce. All afternoon, my dad practically glowed with pride in that kitchen. Our friends saw the sunset through the front windows of our new house.
“I want to accomplish so many projects,” Dad said. “I’ll have to live to be to get them all finished.” Just like that, another dream planted itself in my head, where it lived until I turned forty-two.
Then, Dad had a heart attack. Because of complications, the doctors didn’t expect him to live through the night. I drove a hundred miles to stand by his ICU bed. I tried to think of something to hold his unconscious body to this side of Heaven.

“I always dreamed you’d live to be a-hundred-and-twenty. You still have fifty-one years left.” I said. He kept right on living. Four years later, my dad is still a dreamer. Because of him, I am too.

Dark Spring

Some days I wake up and think, today will be a great day. I already feel light. More so if the sun is shining. I feel like I'm going to be okay.

Then I remember. My mind slips to autopilot doing daily chores that should be done. If I'm still overwhelmed and can't think, I clean.

Today, a month ago, we sat in the stone chapel while sharply dressed military men recited from a piece of paper their gratitude for dad's service to his country. When they fired their rounds into the sky, I heard the brass casings ping off the bricks. Then they handed a folded triangular flag to my step mom.

I still couldn't believe it. I couldn't connect to it, actually felt like I was watching this happen to other people, not me or my family. Even thought I stood in the hospital and heard the pronouncement, still know the time of day, can see through the window to outside, still see several people milling around looking morose. It just happened. It feels like the day before yesterday.

I don't remember much of the last 31 days, making 31 pots of coffee, packing lunches or doing laundry but once, even though I did it every week.
I Can't, and I Don't Care fight over who will own my day. I walk Sam to school and then walk on to the Library where no one bothers me.

The great news I received yesterday about the publications thrilled me and even made me smile, and I hung onto it as long as I could. But by evening I could barely breathe for crying.

My dad isn't around to hear my good news and cheer me on. It was like seeing a candle go out. My world felt a little lonelier, a little darker and a little sadder too. He was that powerful encourager for many, I realized. His words rewarded that drive to succeed, that need to be recognized, appreciated, patted on the back.
I missed it, missed him. In that moment, the loss crystallized into grief. The kind of grief that folds a person in two and pulls their eyelids into flat crinkles had finally found me.

My lightness slipped away and I wanted to take my sad self and heavy heart back to bed. After some cleansing tears, the Lord reminded me that I have a circle of people who are very excited about the accomplishments of my life. They enjoy being included in the good reports. And just so you know, I am really grateful more than ever for those who love me.

The Cloud of My Thoughts

Over the years, I've had dreams in which my father had passed away. I woke up exhausted, inconsolable and heart broken until I realized they were just terrible dreams. They prompted me to develop and enjoy a solid, wonderful relationship with him, and accept him unconditionally.

Based on events from those dreams, I expected to experience his actual death similarly. Since it hasn't happened that way, I've begun to think something is wrong. Maybe I'm deeply in denial. Maybe the belief that he's somewhere around here, just out of sight blocks my "real" grief.

I want to call and tell him about this, but the thought short circuits when I realize, I would be talking about him. I still feel emotionally agog.

Aside from the mindless rituals of the day, I'm ashamed to say, not much is getting done around here.

I don't want to eat so much as drink, and drinking isn't a wise option. I don't need help feeling numb, or to be immobilized. I find myself staring like a catatonic too much of the time as it is.

How can someone who no longer occupies physical space on this earth occupy so much of my mind? I desperately want to disengage, go on a road trip, stare out some fog shrouded windows, soak in a hot tub, toast my skin on some sunny beach and listen to the sea.

None of that would really help. Wherever I go, I'm still within the cloud of my thoughts .

What I'd really like more than anything: to wake up in the morning and have this not be real just one more time.

Traveling Home

Usually surrounding the hospitalization there's a flurry of activity and the retelling of events, explanations of procedures. Usually people sit around soggy-eyed trying to think the best, hope for the best thought, remember people who pulled through similar situations. The waiting seems interminable. To pass the time, my sister brought a book and I had brought the laptop.

My sister and I shared resurrection stories on our trip to Akron City hospital. Neither of us allowed the other to dwell in that space that allowed the waterworks to spring a leak and start a flood.

We talked of happy times and future plans that included Dad. Neither of us wanted to entertain the slightest notion that we may be seeing him for the last time. The little voice in my head had spoken, "He's not going to make it this time." I wanted that voice to be wrong.

When we arrived at the hospital, I called my youngest brother of four still in transit from Atlanta. Driving brother number three.

"Where are you?" I asked.
"Tennessee. Where are you?"
"Hospital parking deck. Why?"
"You need to get your butt upstairs."

But the hospital had changed since our "Six Pack" had been in it five years ago. Nothing looked the same. The renovations had removed all the familiar trails. My sister and I searched four floors before coming to an unoccupied reception desk. The halls were pretty empty. Ones who worked there were occupied on the phonewith lines forming. We found elevators and stood in front of them.

And realized we were standing by my 15 year-old-nephew I hadn't seen since I don't know when and brother number two who had been missing for two years. Reunions hugs and smiles were passed all around. We rode the car to the second floor. When the elevator opened, I saw brother number one, Eric.
"Dad's already gone."

They led us to the elevators that led to a hallway and waiting area, and finally, with an escort to the room where my father lay.
Isn't life unpredictable? The one I never thought I'd see again, is here. And the one I had hoped to see one more time, has traveled home.