Left Behind?

Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.
~Paulo Coelho

August of 1991.

I had just completed freshman orientation at Hope College.  I had my dorm outfitted for my first year away from home and the security of my parents.  From hereon forth I was to be an independent woman and discover myself.  I can do anything I want and be whatever it is I want to be!  This will be WONDERFUL! I am 8.5 hours from home and not a care in the world!  Ha ha right!!!

Saturday night and my parents are leaving the next morning, I find myself crying my eyes out and letting loose enough water that even Moses might be afeard to part.  Getting me to stop was going to take a miracle it would seem.  Mom tried in her own way to get me to stop…thinking “a girl just needs her mother.”  Nope.  Thank you for playing, kind of need dad.  Dad pulls me aside and tells me about living in “the towers” at Cleveland State University; about how a bowling ball when dropped off their 23^rd story balcony WILL go through a VW bug; about how one should never drive on the sidewalks of downtown Cleveland; and about how in his first semester away he discovered that “his old man” actually knew what he was talking about.  Through the tears I nodded, blew my nose and hoped for the best.

Sunday morning my parents departed north for home, with an 8.5-hour trek, they wouldn’t get home until suppertime and hopefully my little brother hadn’t set fire to the house.  Suddenly as they pulled away from my dorm and away from me I found myself running after their car, frantically trying to get their attention shouting, “you’d better not leave me here!” or maybe it was “if you love me you won’t leave me here!”  My mother slunk down in the car seat, and told  my father just to keep driving.  If ever there was a “drive the car, Louise” moment, this was it.

April 1, 2012.

As my father lay dying and I find myself 18 years old again, and running after that same car shouting, “if you love me you won’t leave me!”  Only now the car isn’t a car but my father himself.  But he did leave.  He needed to go, he had to go.  His body had betrayed him, but his spirit is still strong.

August 18, 2013.

I lay on my couch sobbing hysterically.  I am over tired, over worked and emotionally drained from rehearsals four nights a week.  I suddenly look over my shoulder and there’s my father, plain as day.  He’s never been to my house, but he was there that night.  He always comforted me when I cried, even if he didn’t know how to fix it, he tried.  Bad haircut?  Dad offered you a hat and a hug.  Boy trouble?  Dad offered a walk around the block and as many “free” curse words you could spout off in a city block walk and not tell mom.  My mother typically charged per curse words….some were a dime, there was a quarter one, and then there was the fifty center.  Maybe by now with inflation it would be a dollar.

So as much as I find myself chasing after that car shouting, “DON’T LEAVE ME HERE!!!” I know that he hasn’t.  Somehow he finds a way to still comfort his broken-hearted, weary and creative, manic, artistic daughter.

Vuja De

“How can I hold the part of me that only you can carry
It needs a strength I haven’t found
But if it’s frightening, I’ll bear the cold
And on the telephone
You offer warm asylum.”
~Toad the Wet Sprocket, “I will not take these things for granted”

One would think I’d learn my lesson.  But I don’t.   A little déjà vu happened today as I found myself today at the bank cashing a check.  I got my money back from the teller and there was 62 cents in change.  Two pennies, two quarters and ONE dime.

Once again my subconscious betrays me as I turn over the dime. “Talk to me dad,” I hear from the depths of my brain.  And I’m beginning to notice that any time the dime is a message, it’s face down as if waiting for the reveal; that it’s a secret just for me.  Dimes that are face up are not messages from beyond.  (And now I suspect you think I’m a little kookaburra.  I assure you I am not.)

My hands shaking as I sit in the drive thru, I turn over this dime and it’s so shiny and lovely and immaculate.  It’s beautiful and sparkling in my hand. The sun warms it in my palm.

2012.

The year my father died.  The year I want to forget but cannot.  The year I put over 8,000 miles alone on my car just to be with my dad.  2012, the year my heart shattered and worlds collided.

Panicking, I put the dime on the front seat of the car.  Is this it?  Are there to be no more?  Has he grown tired of this parlor trick?  Will I receive no more communications from beyond?  I’ve got over two dollars in dimes alone.  Daddy?  Don’t leave.  Please not yet.  I can’t say goodbye.

I’m not ready to say goodbye again.

Come talk to me…

“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold!  We are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”
~J. R.R. Tolkien

Four simple words uttered in the depths of my subconscious, “talk to me Dad” as I thought as I paid for my snack at the bookstore.  It came to 90 cents; I paid with a dollar.  I received a dime.  Looking at what I’d received and the words that were unspoken, I slowly turned the time over and felt the color drain from my face.

1976.

The year I was informed I was to become (dramatic music please) a BIG SISTER.  This was also the year that President Gerald R. Ford’s Presidential cavalcade passed behind our townhouse on the highway behind our little subdivision just outside Detroit.  I remember all of us gathering and watching as the three long black cars drove past.  We all waved thinking MAYBE just maybe President Ford would see us.

1976 was also the bicentennial of the United States.  My father had a flag that was special just for this celebration.  It was a circle of stars on that field of blue with the number 76.  It is no longer part of the collection as someone else felt the need to have it as their own.  But I have the memory.  I have the memory of my father so proudly flying that flag outside our townhouse.  I have the memory of the Presidential honk that went with that year, the memory that went with that flag, but I no longer have my father, and I have that memory too.