No
man ever steps in the same river twice – Heraclitus
“The
giant climbed down the beanstalk chasing Jack, and when Jack got to
the bottom, he ran into the house, and what did he get?”
I
can almost see myself as a child, thinking hard, focusing on
remembering the right word. “He got...a shovel?” I hear my tiny
three-year-old voice say on the tape recording. My dad laughs. I
imagine tears in the corners of his eyes – his eyes always
glistened when he laughed fully, rich with pure delight.
“No,”
he says. “An ax!”
As
I listen to this treasure from the past, I picture us sitting in my
grandmother’s living room, where she used to tell me, “I love you
the most,” and where my daddy and I made this recording. I think of
night sounds of the country coming in through the open window as the
wispy curtains blow. I made mud pies in that yard. I once picked my
grandma’s yellow tulips and brought her a bouquet. She was so
disappointed but tried not to let it show. I hear the voices from my
childhood, and I cling to the innocence and joy. I imagine who my
father was before the iron grip of addiction grabbed hold. I hear the
gentleness in his voice and wonder how the years could have been
different. I look at my son and think about how my grandma must have
loved my dad, her youngest, her baby boy. Oh, the dreams she must
have had for him.
Years
later I sit on my bed and hold the phone to my ear as I listen to the
end of a dream. “He’s been down for some time,” the coroner
says.
It’s
the one piece of information that I’m not comprehending, that just
isn’t processing. I keep thinking, “No, wait. I’ll just go
back. If I just go back...” Even though whatever rationality is
left in me knows that can’t make any sense, it’s the strongest
urge, the loudest thought. I’ll just go back. To the last
phone call. To a few days earlier. To before he drew his last breath,
alone in his apartment.
Heart
attack, the death certificate says. Was tobacco a factor?
Probably, it says. I once tried to hide his cigarettes. There
was so much more to him, though, than the struggles he faced. He was
compassionate. He saw the best in people. He gave even when he didn’t
have enough. He loved animals so much because he saw in them what
human beings were lacking. He was fun-loving and adventurous, despite
the fear that sometimes kept that hidden. He wanted better for
himself. He learned lessons. He taught others. His life held meaning
and purpose beyond a scope any of us could ever envision. If only we
all could see that every time we looked into someone else’s eyes.
I
experience God in the days that follow. I see clearly how he has led
me through these trials, feel His presence, and have a peace and
assuredness that I don’t know how to explain. And all of it leaves
me just as quickly when darkness consumes me once again. This is the
course that mere mortals take.
A
couple of weeks after my dad’s funeral, I am home alone when Monte
knocks at my door. He happens to be in town and says he just wants to
give me a hug. We talk in my kitchen, and I am somehow aware of the
significance of this moment, of how much it means to me that the
skinny, goofy little boy I used to know grew up to be one of the good
men, a role model for my children as they grow up. I am thankful for
this brother I gained when I married my husband, for his presence and
influence in our lives. We’ve hiked trails together, climbed
mountains, talked about the deep stuff around campfires. He’s a
comfort and a constant. I find myself thinking forward to years down
the road, as we all grow old together. I’m so glad he’ll be there
to the end.
Four
months later, on the morning Monte dies, I drive the hour and a half
to his house in disbelief, struggling to piece together what to say
to Jessica – just in case it’s actually true, on the off-chance
that a perfectly healthy 31-year-old can truly die in his sleep, with
no warning. Of course, that’s ridiculous. I’m sure it’s a
mistake – they’ve revived him, and no one has told me yet.
I
pull up to a yard full of cars where people in shock are inside the
house looking for things like his wallet and his wedding ring to make
sure they are safe. Except for him. He isn’t here, because his body
has been taken away. I go outside to Jessica and try to think of
words. What words would I want someone to say to me?
I
stroke Jessica’s hair as the scorching July sun bears down on us
with no remorse. “Amadeus won’t remember his father,” she says,
broken. I say nothing. There is nothing to say.
At
Monte’s funeral, his four-year-old daughter runs over to me during
the final worship song. I stretch out my arms, and she grins and
leaps into them. I hold her to my chest; she leans back and beams up
at me, our eyes locking. I’ve always loved her daddy’s eyes –
the deepest brown, a gentle humor twinkling in their depths. Do
you know you have your daddy’s eyes, sweet girl? I can’t bear
it and put her head to my shoulder. Why can’t he be here? Why? I
weep as joyful praise music fills the room; the throb of aching
hearts pulses louder.
We
cling to one another as we wrestle with a plan that we do not
understand. We say we want to go back, but the only hope we have is
that of reunion, of dreams restored and realized, of love eternal and
oceans of tears parting. I will have my dad whole again. I will hug
my brother again. I will know that blessed peace again, and one day
it will never leave me.
Two
years to the day we laid my dad to rest, I think about how cold it
was that morning and how today holds signs of spring, with warm
sunshine and wild wind left over from this morning’s storms. The
sky is so blue; all the gray has passed. My children are roaming in
the woods by our house on legs that are getting longer by the day,
their features growing and changing minute by minute – their
speech, their voices, their smiles. I want to bottle them up and keep
them as they are today – ripe with joy and innocence, their lives
spilling over with possibility. And yet I know that what I really
want is the moving forward, the unending flow that never keeps us
stuck in one place. On this day next year, not one will remain the
same. None of us remains as we are now, forever.
The
river is not the same, and neither am I.
