Reflections on My Dad

Daddy. Dadya, I called him when I was a wee one. 

It’s been 5 years now since my dad took his final sip of air and quietly transitioned from this earthly realm. 

He died the way he lived. Fully on his terms. 

He orchestrated his final act with the same haphazard precision he poured into everything he did. 

He knew just how he wanted everything to go. And, as crazy making as it was to pull it off, we rallied and gave him the send-off he wished for.

Recently, I looked everywhere for the light blue cotton bedspread I’d had for years. 

I looked, and I looked, and I was totally stumped until I remembered that I’d thought to swaddle Dad’s frail body in it before we placed him in the shroud he’d ordered for himself, knowing that’s how he wanted to be laid to rest. 

What a proud moment and honor it was to anoint him with oils together with Dan and Liz after the hospice nurse washed him one last time. 

I chose oils like frankincense and clove, myrrh, sandalwood, blue tansy, and manuka to support his spirit in transitioning, unburdened, supported, pure, and free. 

I’ll visit him this spring and sit on the bench by the weeping willow tree we planted above him, with lilies circling its base just like he commanded. "When I die, I want to become a weeping willow tree," he'd told us for years. 

Is he reunited now with his father and mother, Bubbies and Zaydas? 

Or, did he time-travel further, returning to his heart home, the mysterious world of the lost continent he recalled so viscerally in his bones and wrote about prolifically. 

A psychic once told me that my dad and I had been connected for many, many lifetimes, including as far back as the times of Atlantis. 

That we'd been colleagues working together to create a new technology and infrastructure upon which a new civilization was to be formed. 

He was so excited when I shared this with him, and he wanted to learn more. Dad always believed he was an Atlantean.

Somehow, though it feels like such an intangible piece of information to fully embody, I can’t deny that I feel a resonance in the deepest depths of my being; a knowingness that he and I have journeyed together throughout many lifetimes. 

That together, we were teachers and pioneers of a new world order. And, no doubt, we will be together again sometime, somewhere.

It’s undeniable that he and I had work to do with one another here in this lifetime because we each triggered one another’s wounded parts in ways that gave rise to volcanic eruptions of such primal rage; it was sometimes terrifying. 

Yet, the love and adoration I held and still hold for him are so much a part of me. I feel his presence every day. He was a rare freaking bird, to say the least.

And, although I know in my highest consciousness how much my dad adored and cherished me, and that he was proud of me, and he believed in me while he was still here… Our egos clashed often, usually when our sense of security felt threatened, and my liminal mind, or lizard brain, could still easily get caught in the trance of believing otherwise.

I welcome the peaceful resolve that has filled me following the loss of both of my parents, knowing that there is only pure, abiding love here now. 

And I find comfort in knowing that just like I’ve felt so held and seen and cheered on by my mama throughout the past almost thirty-four years since she’s been gone, so too is my dad hanging around to keep ushering me forward in pursuit of my dreams. 

I recently came upon a deer while walking in the woods. We stood still and stared at one another for a good long spell. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was him popping in for a visit just like he used to do when we’d sit sipping coffee on the front porch of my tiny house, talking about our dreams, or what we were reading, or what to plant in the garden, or make for dinner. 

Sometimes I feel his presence as the eagle flying overhead when I sit up at the bluff overlooking the river. Or sometimes, I hear his voice echoing in my mind when I wake up, “Julie. You need to write.” So I write even if it’s not always good or worth sharing. 

I get a little teary sometimes when memories surface of all the ways he tried to engage us when we were little, and how he modeled for us what a life well lived looks like. 

He’d spend what felt like hours with us on early spring afternoons playing whiffle ball or having relay races in the back yard until the sun dipped beneath the tall spruce and cedar trees that bordered the sprawling yard, and the sky turned inky and the stars came out, and I’d wish upon the first one I’d see…starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight… before we’d go inside to eat dinner around the humble kitchen table. 

He was so nimble and fast then, and I marveled at seeing him outrun my brothers; the peach trees he planted for me on my eighth birthday in the distance, and his huge vegetable garden taking up one whole length of the little urban utopia on Carpenter Lane. 

He was God-like to me then. And I remember thinking he was so handsome when I was a little girl. I idolized him even as I sometimes felt gutted by his obliviousness and missteps as a flawed human. 

Now, a warm smile fills me when I remember his goofy humor and redundant tales, and how dazzled I was to see him tap dance at the end of graduation ceremonies each year at the schools he founded. 

Well into his sixties, he could still do one of those crazy jumping wide splits where he'd touch his toes as his legs splayed wide from side to side and he'd quickly land and continue his routine as if he were still a much younger man. 

He taught us how to “shuffle step, shuffle step…” And, he’d often break out in song, or he’d hum while he made bagels, or washed the dishes, or brushed the broom across the weathered wood floors in his cabin; never actually ridding the floor of dirt, but just moving it. And then he’d say of the tumbleweeds of dust, hair, crumbs, and ash from the wood stoves that had accumulated in the corners or under tables and chairs, “Oh… I meant to put that there,” and a familiar wry smile and mischievous look appeared in his eyes.

And, the time in my grandparents’ living room when he taught me the words to the first song he wrote when he was sixteen as he strummed his ukulele… “Did you know that I care, did you know, did you know? Did you know that I’d share every dream, every prayer…”  How glad it made him when Keira and I sang it together with him when we visited him in Panama. 

If ever there was anyone who marched to the beat of his own drum, it was my dad. He followed his heart and pursued his dreams as if there was no tomorrow. 

Moving to Panama when he was 78 with nothing more than a backpack, his laptop, and the clothes on his back, and meeting the love of his life and falling in love at 80 is a prime example of his free spirit. It didn’t make sense to many, but that didn’t stop him. 

“I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love with Rebecca,” he crooned over and over again in his final weeks. His happiness was infectious. Who could want anything less for an old dude whose light was fading far too soon? He’d always said he planned to live into his nineties. 

He accomplished a lot of great things, and I don’t think he died with many regrets, if any. He felt so much genuine appreciation for the wonder of life, and his astonishment at the magnitude of beauty and love that he experienced could be felt in his poetry and in his presence. 

I feel grateful and blessed for the ways he modeled for me being a lifelong learner and always regarding others in light of their strengths and positive attributes rather than their shortcomings. 

I miss my daddy. He was a kind and benevolent soul, wide-eyed and filled with wonder until the bittersweet end.