It’s new to me, this grieving. A while ago I was
cleaning up odds and
ends around my place and pickup a Father’s Day thank-you card from a
local restaurant giving a token to dad’s eating there on Father’s Day.
So I choke-up thinking back to getting the card on the first Father’s
Day I couldn’t call dad and just talk.
Things happened fast in slow motion.
He was ready, we were almost
ready. And he passed as he wished. I think we did him justice with the
memorial service. Last weekend we settled with the mortuary and
finished the paperwork with the bank accounts. Still some paperwork.
But most is done. And the first round of poems are done. More to come.
More slowly, I hope.
Dad was a quiet force of nature. Casual purpose buried in conversation
and discussion. You don’t miss it until it isn’t heard out loud. Oh,
yes, the conversations continue. Felt rather than heard.
I treasure pictures from him building his dream house, of him
discussing his plan with his father-in-law leaning
over the table saw. Casual
purpose buried in conversation and discussion, for both of them. It was
a wonder to remember those conversations as I study that photo, now
digitized and enduring.
I remember his dad too, the time he visited and slept on a cot in the
second bedroom with me and my brother. What I remember is two things:
1) him on his cot staring at me sitting on my bed staring at him, 2)
the day he headed down to where dad worked and didn’t return. He said
he was going down to talk to dad. For years I thought I was the last
one to see him but this spring dad said his dad had stopped in and
explained why he was moving on. I think it was more complicated than
the reason he gave dad. Dad had come to terms with his dad’s life
struggles years ago.
We all step into adulthood when we think we’re ready. We learn more
(and faster than we know) as responsibility knocks on our door at
unexpected times. We handle what we know. Hopefully we learn to handle
what’s important. Dad did that. It wasn’t easy, but he kept at it until
the lesson settled into his heart each time.
He learned to trust that process, to let it set its own pace, its own
path. I try to do that too. Especially now.
Wishing the best to all,
Russ
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