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| The Sunken Garden - my childhood secret place |
He uses a cane, wrapped in leather, tribal colors woven in amongst the brown.
I helped him in and out of the bed. Never a bulky man - I get my build from my mother - he seemed birdlike and frail.
His eyes were alternatively bright, smiling and dull depending on the moment.
As I took my leave in the darkened room - a ravishing Oklahoma sunset painting the view outside his ninth-floor window - he held his arms out to me from the bed. I climbed over to his side, felt his grizzled cheek, just as I did all those years ago when he came home from work every day, usually giving me a Twinkie saved from his lunch.
That moment, in the Cherokee way, seemed eternal. I was blessed, for that moment, to be a child again, to feel the grace and love that holds us up in our parent's arms when we just cannot stand any longer, to feel the shield and buckler of love defending the fire of our souls until we learn to feed it on our own.
I took a moment to scream in my mind "Never, never, never forget this! Remember it, feel it, you'll need it someday, maybe soon, there are children, friends that will need you to give this to them!"
And then I shut my mind up and became lost - no, found - in the moment.
Releasing him was one of the hardest things I've done in a long time.
When I conduct, rarely now, or write a piece of music I experience the whole piece in one moment, I know that a change here will mean a difference there and that the whole thing is connected. The experience is a sense of the flow of time in an instant - and I know now that comes from my Cherokee sense of time.
As I began to walk away I felt both the tears I knew would come and the present laughter because I knew, I knew as sure as I feel the chair I'm sitting on, hear the music playing as I write - I knew that it was fine, that somehow we were complete and whole, even if only steps away from the abyss of death.
Happy/sad. Confused/certain. Gracious/jealous. Angry/peaceful.
English - human language in general, I suppose - is so limited in how it expresses feelings - or feelings just don't fit the words. Better to just go ahead and feel, suss it out later.
The words finally came, inevitable, thick, powerful. "I love you Dad. I'll see you soon."
From the bed in the dark: "I love you, son. Go with God's blessing. Go with mine."
Cherokee has no word for "goodbye". Our relationships never end, they just change and if you pay attention you can see them all at once. A story finishes, a new one starts.
So I turned and went into the hallway, gently pulled the door closed so he could sleep. Stood against an exercise machine next to the door, the end of the hall.
The tears came then, a physical ensign of the depth of my love, joy, heartbreak, pride, sorrow, anger, fear, none of them different, all the same in one moment.
They stopped and I pulled out my iPhone to post to Facebook that I'd "just left my father ...." - and once done, made as to leave. Suddenly I thought, "no, I'm leaving too soon, I think I need to stay on the mountain for a moment longer".
And sure enough, my unfinished business was still there and I stepped right back into the tears, the joy, the moment on top of the mountain.
But I knew that I had friends who would see the post, who would reach out, even if only to "like" it. As I took the elevator down to the car I was flooded with their presence, that people hundreds of miles away, across the ocean, were taking a moment to think of me.
The tears came again, neither healing nor hurting - just showing how full my life was at the wonderful, graceful moment.
We are the shield and buckler defending the fire of each other's souls. At our best we feed each other, we reflect each other, the universe is brighter - and the shadows more clearly defined - because our light glows, dazzles, even at the end of our time.
So now I have gone home; I have come home.
And I am going on.
Portland, Maine
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