Last week I was finishing the last in the Harry Potter series in the quiet hours of the morning, sitting in the chair I had sat in a year or so before while my Dad sat on the couch next to me in the late, quiet hours of another night, when into my mind came a picture. I was looking into my old church. The Episcopal cathedral that I attended with my Dad when I was young. The same place that we held my Grandmothers memorial service. I remember as a little girl sitting in the pews and just looking around in wonder at the stained glass windows, the thick smell of incense in the air. I saw the room and saw the pews with the kneelers, I looked around first from the main aisle and then from the pulpit, or maybe it is only called the pulpit in the Baptist church, I'm not sure. It's the same place I sat on an April Fool's day many years ago and, while a prayer began and I should have had my eyes closed, I instead turned and whispered for him to look at a bird that had flown into the rafters. He believed me, of course and began looking and then, snickering, I said full of pride that the trick had worked, "April fools". It's a story we retell each other often. That day he turned with absolutely no expression and replied,"You are in so much trouble when we get home." I was horrified at what I had done, and just sure that this punishment would be quite severe as I couldn't ever remember having been in "so much trouble" with him before. I hadn't received a spanking that I could remember in all my years of being his daughter and so I began to cry. His face softened and he whispered into my ear,"April Fools". We laugh about it all now because I was just sure that I had finally pushed him to the place where I would be in trouble for making a joke, which never had, nor has since happened. But this time I was standing in the aisle of an empty Cathedral and I could hear Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" playing. This is significant because back on the night that I sat in the same chair where I now found myself, we were watching "Feast of Love", a movie that I had needed to see from the first time I saw the trailer and then once seen had to own and share. As we began to watch I became embarrassed, as the first time I watched alone, and couldn't be embarrassed about the amount of nudity. I had forgotten it because it is a beautiful story about relationships and love and tragedy and well, the nudity was not absorbed as much as the lesson of never being afraid to love deeply. As we watched the music began and I remember saying how much the music spoke to me and Dad sighed and said that song was one of the songs he wanted played at his funeral. And so I sat in the wee hours of the morning thinking about Dad and his funeral and the Cathedral and the odor of wafting incense. As morning began and the littles woke and began their morning routines I couldn't lose the song. Later while folding laundry I began to hum a tune, which usually happens for some reason when I fold laundry. I think because I am alone and can sing without fear of being heard. As I hummed I began to sing,
"I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free,
for his eye is on the sparrow
and he watches over me. "
The lyrics are really,"And I know He watches me", but for some reason, "He watches over me", is what I know, and what I sing when I'm all alone in the laundry room.
Later that afternoon my Brother called, which is rare, but not unexpected as he will be here this weekend. He had called to tell me that my Dad had been in a accident. My heart sank and the first thing that came out of my mouth was that I had known it all day long. My brother knowing me well said that he knew when he called that that is what I would say.
I don't think I'm psychic, not at all, but so many times I have picked up the phone to call my Mom and it was busy because she was calling me. Even once when I had a land line I picked up to call and she was already on the line, she had heard the ring on her end but I had not yet on mine. There are times when my Dad has called when I needed him to without plan or consciousness on either of our parts. I think this is God's way of connecting us one to another. His way of tapping us on the shoulder. And I don't think that me in the church with a song in my mind that will be played at my Father's funeral is a premonition of his death either. I think it is my way of shoring up. Just as the same morning that I had sung "His eye is on the sparrow" standing in the laundry room of my own home, my Mom had been singing it to herself in her home, not telling each other or sharing, it was placed in both of our minds so that when my Brother called her on his way home from visiting Dad in the E.R. she would remind him of the same thing that I had been singing throughout the day.
Yesterday and the evening before I read Joan Dideon's the Year of Magical Thinking, a book I have wanted to read for the longest time, but never made it to the library to get, until a few days ago, in which she mentions her way of shoring up for disaster. She writes how she was prepared with emergency candles and numbers and papers, and that it was her way of shoring up for disaster. I have my important papers and my flashlights, but in a true emergency I doubt that I will think to grab the papers or have working batteries in the flashlights, as I usually find them strewn about the house burned out. I don't feel the need for paper work, I instead feel the need to shore up my own heart, not to block out love, but so that I am prepared emotionally when there is a loss of someone I love, not that there is any real way to do that.
Yesterday with littlest at the grandparents the biggers and I decided to take a hike on some local trails. I packed a lunch and grabbed the bug spray and as I did I kept thinking of other things to pack. We had food already, so I grabbed matches, and a box cutter and a clean towel and the Benadryl and anything else, oh yes, band aids, I could think of that we might need if we became lost or were attacked by a bear or if one of the kids cut themselves or had a reaction. For a three hour walk through the woods on well marked trails, I needed all of this. I guess in some ways I do shore up for disaster, but none came and we had a wonderful time and had a picnic on a rock by the stream. On the way I had said a quick prayer, "Lord please don't take Dad, I'm just not ready." Rather than praying as I should have and allowing God to do what He does in His time and in His way, but as a little girl asking to not have to leave the park yet, because she isn't done playing.
When we lost my Step Dad in January we were all crushed. I know that even as an adult, I am still my parents child and childlike with them in many ways. When I have a really bad day or am sad about whatever it is I am sad about, I need my husband and my children, but I need my parents as well. I need their advice and their laughter and the way they make me smile and feel safe just as they did when I was really a child. I need my husband who thinks it's silly to pack a box cutter in case some escaped convict jumps out from behind a tree and the parents who think that while I may not have to use them, I am somewhat protected by the things that I have packed, because they themselves cannot be there to protect me. And so when Jimmy died we were extremely sad, but he was ready and had been for while a while. It was justifiable. His mind had gone, and it would confuse him to have visitors, anything away from his normal routine would confuse him and while in selfishness we wanted him to stay we were comforted by the knowledge that he was Home. I joked at the time that he was on the back nine of the most beautiful golf course he had ever seen and was able to stand without help and swing the club harder than he had in years. He was no longer sick, or confused and was Home, where he belonged and well deserved to be.
I remember back years ago when my Grandfather (my Step-Mothers father) passed away and then not long after my Grandmother (my Dad's mom) followed. I remember walking with my Dad to see her and say goodbye and as I began to cry I mumbled "I hate this". Not understanding what I meant my Dad reassured that we didn't have to see her. "Not this", I cried making circles with my hands trying to represent the current moment, and then held my hands out in front of me, again making circles,"This". The whole thing, death. Losing two people who I loved in a matter of months, it was just too hard. Losing two people years apart is too hard, losing someone you love is just too hard. They were in a better place, out of pain and at peace, but it was too hard for me. God's timing is hard and it doesn't make sense to our mortal hearts. The loss of grandparents is normal, the loss of parents to an adult child is normal, the loss of children is not normal in any way, shape or form, but no matter the relation, I believe that God has His reason and his timing that we may never fully understand but we must trust, until we do. Age justifies death, just as illness. No one wants to say goodbye to a loved one just as no one wants to see that loved one hurting or in pain or confusion from which they will not return. I'm not ready for my Grandmothers to go although they have both told me that they are ready. And I get it. They have had long happy lives, they are strong beautiful women who raised their own children and saw the generation after that grow and raise the one after that which continues to grow. They were wives to the men they loved and they miss them and I have no doubt that even as we cry when they are called Home, they will be welcomed into the arms of their soul mates who went before them.
I don't dwell on future death of loved ones, but I do sometimes find myself imagining the aisles of the Churches and what will be said and whether I will be able to speak or to even form words. I wonder how long I will be able to pick up the phone and call my parents, or how many more times our calls will pass on those lines. It isn't for me to know, of which I am glad, and it isn't for me to ask for in my own time, because that would never come. And so I pray and I try to shore my own self up, so that when the call does come I will be prepared even though I know that it doesn't work that way. Just as we are still sad and heartbroken and grieving while holding the knowledge that they were ready. But I do know this and it is in disagreement with the last line from Ms. Dideon's book, His eye is most definitely on the sparrow, on the smallest of beings and on the largest, the strongest and most frail and He does absolutely watch over me, and you, and I'm sure that tune will mix with others in future years as I stand and say goodbye to loved ones. And I'm sure that no matter what lyrics are sung I will drift off and remember the graham cracker marshmallow treats and the candy dishes that define my Grandmother's for me, and I will remember the songs that my Mom sang to me at bedtime and the April fools joke and inappropriate laughter and movie watching with Dad, the strength and tuna casserole that are my Step-Mom and the vows I made to my husband. And through the tears I will most likely chuckle just a bit a funny memory, not out of disrespect but out of love for someone who once made me laugh. Because even if they aren't here to embrace, or answer the questions that I need to ask, or chuckle at the silly things I do, I have shored up their memory and I will carry those things, the most precious of all gifts with me and then one day they will be waiting for me, with open arms in a blinding brightness. And I will say...
I did my best,it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
(Leonard Cohen)
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