Debris and Other Routes to Grief... (warning this is sad)

Well a casual observer may conclude that I am a bit of a pack rat or even a bit untidy, and there may be a bit of truth to that. However a deeper truth is that I have the heart of a poet, and I understand that things can transform into symbols, and that symbols can possess the magic to transport, to carry significant weights for the soul, and to connect across time and space. And so it is not by accident or coincidence or the lack of a trash can that I reach into my sock drawer this week and reveal that my hand was drawn to a scrap of history that takes me to a place I've been leaning towards in my mind all month. Several places...

One is standing in front of MD Anderson Cancer Clinic in numbed and relieved shock on Christmas morning talking to my kids on my cell phone saying that Grandpa is feeling better now and I will be home soon.

Another is sitting there at his side Christmas morning as his breaths spaced further and further apart, thinking of how he was getting closer to his God and marveling at how his face looked like a saint in an El Greco painting. Stroking that fine and noble forehead and clasping his hand that finally was releasing its firm grip that I recognized across the whole broad sweep of my life.

Or earlier when I knew the end was near. Standing in the school yard in the flat but bright light of a December afternoon. The last week of school before vacation. Waiting for the school bell and to pick up the kids. Standing there I called him at his hotel in Huston where he was staying for treatment - to say hi, to offer encouragement to check in, to say I'd mailed a package.

He answered. In pain. In fear. In quiet desperation. In a room alone far from home with only my voice. He didn't have the strength to be brave for me. My knees buckled imperceptibly - matching the sinking feeling in my gut, I measured the tone of my voice and did not let him understand that I appreciated the fear and pain in his voice. I knew before the doctors told him that it was over. I had been buoyed by Dad and Becky's optimism occasionally throughout the preceding months. I had ignored the statistics that said 95% mortality in the first 18 months, despite teaching statistics and knowing better. I had listened when he said come and visit after Christmas when we get back to Arkansas. But in a moment I knew better.

And the bell was ringing now and laughing and oblivious children were streaming out of the school... and mine would be swirling about in the torrent in moments. Compose compose. Grapple with the world spinning apart and yet swirling tight to the hearth of home all in the same moment. "Hey kiddos how was school today? Are you excited about Christmas vacation? Grandpa says "Hi" "

Every time I've passed the school this week - the last week before Christmas break - I think of standing there in the faintest of snow falls as the sound of my father's voice faltered in my ear and sent a chill through me deeper than any December ever has. I can't escape it. I'm not sure I want to. I drove past tonight and balled like a baby.

So many of these December memories are now over taking me. Like waves that do not relent - marching out of a darkened night sea and I feel that soon I'll be trying to catch my breath and I won't succeed.

It took me until July of this year to clear my desk of a lot of what collected there last November and December. I filed some away. Threw out a few things. But there is more debris I'm sure - things I know of things I will discover - a receipt for a taxi from the airport to the hospital. A mint. A napkin from the hospital cafeteria... A scrap of paper with one of many itineraries that may or may not have got me there on time. Broken wood from the barn he made by hand. A scar on my hand from the fishing knife he gave me as a boy.

A certain quality of my children's generosity or sense of justice. Some of the things I strain to teach them. These symbols will keep pulling me to a place of reflection and appreciation. Perhaps when I least expect it, but I trust always when I most need it.