Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

[Note: I haven't posted a "Wind Vane" story in a long time, now, even though my blog is "Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles." This is a very special one, close to my heart. It's that time of year]

For most people, September 15 has no special meaning. It comes a week before fall officially blows in; one of the last "dog days" of summer. To the IRS it means money – the day third quarter estimated taxes come due. It held no meaning for me – until September 15, 1996.

Although I had often since thought of that day – the last with my dad – I didn’t fully appreciate it’s impact until I visited my mom one recent spring. One morning my mom walked into my bedroom and placed a single, perfect, apricot-hued rose in a small crystal vase on the table by my bed.

At the sight of the rose, memories flooded my mind, spilling over in an unbidden river of tears, yet joy, that swept me back through time to the September day in 1996 spent in this very room, and a similar bedside rose from the same bush outside the window.

The significance of that faraway day was wrought and wrung out in the minute details, beginning with a late blooming, unattended, unnoticed-until-that-day, brilliant rose growing outside next to the alley – within a window’s peek of finding. But no one looked out that window.

I had seen it early that morning while running an errand for my ailing dad. Surprised at the find, I decided to cut it when I came back in, but got busy and soon forgot. Mom’s trip to the bank jogged my memory, and I rushed out to cut it.

I dug out a small crystal vase to place the rose in, added water and set it down gently near dad’s bed, where he could see.

The bright rose matched the bright spirits of my dad, who smiled every time he opened his intense blue eyes. He was happy I was near to keep him company. He was the reason I was there. He was ill and needed me.

The time with dad was especially significant for me, as only in recent years had we come to have a close and loving relationship. He had seemed distant and foreboding to me since the earliest, innocent days of childhood, when he was a young, loving father to a happy little girl. All that had changed somehow; a darkness had swept over our lives when I was about ten, stealing upon us without mercy or reason. Forces beyond my understanding separated what was once a loving, carefree bond, propelling us an eternity apart, walls of silence between.

My younger brother died, my family fractured, my father figuratively disappeared. He grieved my brother’s loss and his own parents’ futilities at dealing with mental illness and unspeakable tragic flaws by disappearing into himself, into a world of right and wrong, black and white – where life was never gay, or warm, or free. And I became afraid.

After that time, I had never once opened myself up to my dad until a critical juncture occurring in my 43rd year.

Following a bitter divorce that ended a long marriage, I had fallen deeply and completely in love with Tom and had just introduced him to my dad, still a formidable foe to suitors, to say the least. Those who had known my dad, including most of all me, knew him to be a man of stern countenance, strong conviction and few words. When he spoke, others listened. I quaked. But, my new found love compelled me to act despite my fear, to try to reveal to dad, for the first time ever, what was in my heart.

At first, he refused to listen or to even acknowledge, that I might have a valid point of view apart from his, falling naturally into well-worn patterns of myth and memory, which had long ago permanently etched the terms of our relationship. Such patterns are hard to erase.

For the first time ever, I stood my ground and spoke my mind; I poured out my heart and expressed my fear – especially of Dad. He had no idea; was shocked by all I said.

Then, slowly, surely, he stretched beyond the barriers of long lost years and a lifetime of silent sentiment to listen to my heart and to share with me his own. All obstructions disappeared, replaced once more by a father’s tender concern. The first crucial steps toward a real and lasting relationship were began. We became whole again.

Eight short years later, it was coming to an end. As the rose stood watch with me that sunny September morning, I lovingly tended my dad. Few words were spoken; there was no need. To sit and watch and hold his hand became my only tender task. Every detail of the room captured my wandering eye – the rose, the sun streaming in on dusty diamonds of light.

The sight of his thick, unworn glasses lying next to the rose, ripped at my heart. Glasses never missed or mentioned, or even once remembered in some swiftly passing thought, by one so nearsighted as to be blind without them. Never mentioned. Never missed. Never requested. But, never needed to see what really mattered that glorious, sunny day. I finally felt compelled to put them away until needed again. They never were, and my heart tears even now at the remembering.

Did I mention the breeze? The cool breeze drifting through the north windows I opened to capture the autumn wind? I suppose, technically, it was a late summer cool spell. But to me it held the earthy smell of fall and my mind’s eye clearly saw ripening, bursting bolls of cotton down the road. I could almost smell the burrs burning at the gin – a favorite childhood memory.

Where I grew up, there were no bright-colored leaves of fall; only golden grains and chalk-white cotton, and that glorious earthy smell of burrs burning at the gin. Smoke saturated not only the air for miles around with a pungent acrid smell, but indelibly infused my mind. At the gin, where cotton was separated from seed and burr, baled and weighed, burrs burned constantly in a glowing blaze that lit the sky for miles.

My dad had once farmed; his engineer mind striving to impose order on the land; his long, square fingers tooled more to work an engineer’s square than a farmer’s tools. His love for the farm never left, although he did, forced away by the times. His farmer’s life, long since gone, swept me toward thoughts of him now; still strong in mind, now sweet in spirit, happy in heart, capable of facing death as he faced life – never wavering in faith and hope.

All he had been had worn away – only the essence remained, including his love for me. His life was complete.

"You’ve lived life well," I softly told him.

His radiant blue eyes opened and beamed with joy; he wept.

The cool-warm breezes blew in – drifting along the sheer edges of the curtains, lifting them ever so slowly and gently patting them down again. Strains of music filled the wind-warmed air on unseen waves of sound that lifted hearts and gently smoothed them out again.

Dad’s selection; Chet Atkins’ gentle guitar. All except for the last, clear song of the hour, when Atkins sang words to two hearts beating so closely in tune as to be one strong beat. My dad’s heart and mine.

The song was one that neither of us expected and for which neither was prepared. From a boy child, son, grown-older man about his long-missed dad. "I still can’t say good-bye," Atkins crooned, and our hearts sang the words, as well.

Our hearts knew the song, and cried for the boy child, son, grown-older man who so long ago had lost his dad and still could not bring himself to say goodbye.

Now this girl child, daughter, grown-older woman sat with her dad still here, in this bed next to the table top vase holding perfect rose, and grieved for the singer of the song. She denied her own coming loss – unable to even think goodbye after such a short time, much less endure the coming pain. Enough to grieve the song’s sad son.

A while afterward came a nearly futile chase to find the perfect lunch to compliment the perfect day so swiftly sliding by. Nothing pleased. Nothing satisfied. No notion could capture the imagination to stir the soul, or stomach, to ingest even a bite of food. Until I suddenly knew the perfect food: knowledge captured from memories of being ill and wanting nothing more than clear broth to soothe the wearied body. I suggested tortilla soup from an eatery a few miles away.

The near-futility of the trip had to do with local laws prohibiting the "carrying out" of any kind of insulated container which could contain a "most vile" alcoholic remedy, rather than chicken broth. Such strong remedy was not required this day and would have been too much for such a perfect noon. There was a delay.

But a slow-rising crescendo of wounded words about the "perfectness" of the day touched a heart, captured a prayer, and resulted in the savory concoction being "carried out" despite the dire predictions of being waylaid by "the law."

It was a successful lunch. Only one in attendance at the table, and one to attend. Not much was actually eaten after all the fuss about the cup, but lunch was graciously received.

Several days later I remembered the soup and finished it off in good spirits, savoring the cilantro-sour, onion-sharp green flecks floating in the deliciously warm and soothing broth. Satisfying, still.

As the afternoon idly drifted by, we sat in silence, side by side, in breezy, blowing air, still filling the sun-warmed room with bursting curtain balloons, falling back in sheer collapse. Hearts played songs from long lost tunes; anthems with age-old themes. The single, perfect rose drew toward the light and brightened even more in the setting sun’s glowing rays. I secretly prayed the day would never end.

Death-dark shadows momentarily blocked the sun, but were denied by the quicksilver brightness of the present day; the breeze, the rose, the lovely peace and graceful songs.

This wonderful, perfect last day of summer, first day of fall, life full of memories and memories-full-of-life kind of day. The kind of day to be remembered in minutia for a lifetime, to honor a lifetime’s last breathtaking, glorious day.

I’ve often thought since it was the kind of day I would like to have as the last day of my life, as it was his. To tiptoe toward death quietly, at home and full of years; a single perfect rose, freedom from bottle-thick glasses, music borne on a perfect breeze, and clear, soothing soup. A quiet reverie spent between dad and daughter – and God – who, that day, gave us both a small glimpse of infinite truth and vision of all a day can be.

As my dad and I had so aptly begun to learn eight years before, when one embraces love – including its pain, life is composed of singular, crystal-pure, delicately crafted days, each flawless in its own way. Each moment must be grasped and appreciated for what it individually is and all it holds, stretching out through time to become the lifetime allotted to each, as we ever search for that next great dawn which lingers so near, just past the last, peaceful night.

Sometime early the next morn, before I could see the dawn, my dad’s bright soul took heavenly flight to eagerly await and see, before I could know, the glow of a new perfect day where he lingers still. He waits for me; to come sit in the breeze next to a perfect rose, smell the burning burrs and sing a happy song.

I now often think of how my heart sought courage to challenge my dad’s, how his bravely accepted and embraced the challenge and how we redeemed a connection with one another.

I think of how valiant Dad was to give up his lifelong’s certitude and to open his heart to mine.

Most of all, I think of that brilliant apricot rose from that perfect September day and find other such days come along now more and more. I appreciate each for what it is and quietly observe the exquisite, infinite details, as I did that day long ago.

I remember Dad, too. And, I still can’t say goodbye.