January 23, 2013
-
Remembering My Father
It has been 14 years since my father died, and I can only remember, for picking out his coffin on January 20th is what we did on my birthday, and my mother and daddy wanted the most lined, intact body buried as such the earth could not touch them, and they wanted to be dressed in their best and prettiest clothes when the spirit left their body, for they would tell you the old self was worn out, and they were tired, and we had no doubt that they would be spirits united with all the spirits gone before when they left their body, but I thought our example of The Crucifiction gave us insight into when Jesus would reappear, so I counted the hours as if it was a Good Friday, and for whatever it does or does not mean to you — Jusus died, and was buried, and he would reappear on the third day — Arising body and Holy Spirit from the dead — So for me, I accept that my father’s spirit had to be away, and that it would leave before we burried him, for it took an extra day for us to have the funeral and just to get all of the family in to say, “Farewell,” But then there was the hawk which I have written about before, that as the graveside prayers were concluding, stormed out of the grave, soaring up like a Blue Angel, making a perfect spin and climbing at a speed which was so rapid that we all stood dumb struck as it flashed out of site, and we knew what had happened, and I have no problems with your disagreement, but you were not there, and everyone near to the lowering of Daddy’s body stepped back, our mouths opened, and finally my sister Marcie got the picture. Dad’s spirit was leaving us, and the poor tired body was going to rest at Walnut Grove, and in our belief; Those who died in Christ will be the first to arise from the grave, so at some point the new body and the new spirit will be one again.
It sounds like an impossibility to so many who can imagine nothing beyond this short time here, and people will argue over what happens to the body of the dead, and they will quote scripture chapter and verse for their logic, but I earnestly witnessed that sign, and I accepted that the inner being of my father had taken on the powerful Indian symbol of the mighty hawk, and he wanted us to be struck without words; For what we hear that are not spoken words leave an impression like no other. He would be with his oldest and best friends, with my mother’s folks, and all too soon, our mother would join him, and we gave her all of the best as well, no funeral cost left to cover, for they had taken all they needed with them, and the hawk family still watches, watches us to see the comings and goings, and we have to go to Walnut Grove one more time for certain, for our broken brother, James, so injured from birth is now so fragile, feeble and ready to be with our Mom and Dad again.
That night after the burial terrible storms would come to Tennessee, for the temperature that day rose to 70 degrees, and pictures we had made after the women of the community served food, and no one left hungry after the long service; But every picture of Dad’s children and grandchildren show our garment twisted and turned as the sun filled sky filled with beautiful cumulus clouds, and we were not thinking too much unusual, for Tennessee is the kind of state that can go from and ice storm to a cloudless warm day, and the earth usually reaks with the fragrance of spring — Earth’s civities open for the new growth, for the new and precious plants which are started from seed as February comes to an end. Among my greatest fortunes is that, even if I could not see a season, I would know it, for the fragrance of the changing seasons is remarkable to me, but spring is the essence of Mother Earth and Father Sky getting ready for the biggest pallette of color and for the mightiness of human beings to plant the food and catch fresh water from the over flowing troughs of water where seasons are relevant.
People died that night, and we had left Mama with her house full of company, and we stayed in Winchester, for that is what we do when we grieve; We gather in, and the years have soared while the very last of my Daddy’s siblings, all of his best old friends, and neighbors are in that someplace where we can not go, for it has been a harvest of our parent’s generation, and while Mama and Daddy would beg us to cry no more, just to watch the Hawk families, and if we have a few extra flowers, then scatter them over other graves; Just now and then, the same old feelings well up, especially now that our old home place, after we sold it, wound up in foreclosure, and they cut down Dad’s beautiful pecan trees which shaded us all of the summers through decades before; Then we can hear them, and they want us to just let it go. We will know our mother, for she will have a nosegay of little pink roses which we had placed in her hands, and Daddy will have on the green dress shirt and his best shoes, and on that day when the earth flames open with fire and majesty, and the great storms finally end; That is how we shall know them, for if one believes in Bible Liturgy, then one must also believe in the mystical, for Heaven and Hell hold vast accounts of what to expect, but we have to endeavor to make sense from the ancient written text to understand that this life just gives us clues, and no living persons we know or have ever met has been to Heaven — More likely some have known Hell on Earth as bombs explode in war; But the Hell of the Bible is caught in paintings which may have been inspired by glances in; For all things are possible.
Each of you have known of mystical times and events, and they come more often as glimpses as we look back and remember moments of last good-byes. I will not sit and argue religion with anyone, but it works for me to believe that each of us have a dying day, and we have our personal Easter when we have to leave our loved ones for a time; But The Blue Angel of a Hawk, in the dead of January, on a day brilliant with warmth and sunshine to collapse in to powerful storms which was so out of place for Middle Tennessee’s southern border has left me with a feeling and a message that all is well, but I wanted to know you longer my Mother and my Father, and to let you know I published my book, and it has some coast to coast following. The Atlanta girls still keep watch on James, and we will put him away — just like you want us to, and when that last day comes; Just know that his arms will no longer be contractured, that his pain is over, and if he gets to you before us, I am going to send you a spool of thread, my parents, and you will get the joke.
Another birthday has passed, and a new year of life finds me repressing the urge to long for you here; So I will let you both go back to a nice warm sleep, for every day is your Easter until we all meet again.
Barbara Everett Heintz – “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle Ready, KDP, and Create Space
