LIfe Goes Full Spiral

All Things Revealed

So, I'm better now.  In between the waves. Another Thanksgiving has come an gone. I just wish Dad could of checked out after all these holidays. His birthday is this Friday, December 4th. He would of been 71. Seventy One. Seventy One.

I get mad when I see old men walking down the street. I got mad at Michaels last Thursday when all these OLD men came in all dressed in their business suits for Rotary Club. Its not fair. My dad was so handsome when he dressed for work. My dad should of been sitting there. My dad should be walking down the street. My dad should NOT be gone. But he is and I know he's in a better place. He suffered so...

Dad loved his job and being a business man. He would always tell me when I was a young teen ager to put down that damn guitar and take typing lessons and being the defiant teenager that I was. Of course I didn't. I also remember him telling me, What are you? A quitter? When I couldn't figure out a math problem. I still suck at math but I did apply his question to other aspects of my life. I'm still playing that damn guitar. In the last couple of years, Dad  would make a point of coming out as much as possible to support my music. The last thing he gave me was a little white guitar pin hand carved out of ivory. He found it in a flea market somewhere in Maine when he and Mom went on a rug hooking vacation. I cherish this guitar pin.  At my last gig at the Georgetown Inn, Nancy the owner told me how sorry she was to hear about the loss of my father. I thought I was fine that night but when I told her that he would of been here listening, I lost it.

Ironically my son Nick has the same size feet as Dad. Mom gave him all Dad's shoes. I love my son Nick but he has some pretty big shoes to fill. I took back the wing tips. I have the black pair and my brother Gary has the brown.

I have to go back to the night my father died. But first I need to start with hunting.

As I grow older I've noticed how life seems to spiral. Almost like a full circle but not really. Life is a spiral. For example, I started out as a solo guitarist, did the duo scene, the full band scene to a trio scene then back to solo.

Another example, I started out hiking the woods as a child, always ending up at the waterfalls up the creek from my house on Swan Hill Road. Then our family did the camping scene in the Adirondacks. This, by the way was the most special gift my father could have given me. Those camping trips in those beautiful mountains.

We never did no stinking Disney Land or Bush Gardens! Nope! We would load up in the station wagon, drive around the lake to Raquette village, get an ice cream cone and go to dump to wait for the bears. Now here I am forty years later almost full spiral again, kayaking and camping any place I can up there, and looking for the bears. Another spiral. When I'm not in the Adirondacks, I'm blessed with having the Brookfield horse trails merely three miles from my house. In my other back yard, I have the nine mile swamp. I live and love right in the middle of god's pocket.

I guess these spirals and coincidences mean I'm living my life right. The way I should.

So this brings me to another spiral.

Probably the only strenuous thing my dad was allowed to do as a kid, was to hunt.

What a coincidence! He died during hunting season!

Dad was born December  4th, weighing in at only 3 1/2 pounds. He also had rheumatic fever when he was young. Dad was never healthy. This upsets me and is totally not fair. I never really thought about it much.

So Dad never got to play sports as a teenager. He did manage his younger brother, Dale in all his sporting endeavors. I just learned this from my Uncle. What an awesome brother my dad was.

So Dad's big adventure with his father and brothers was getting up at the crack of dawn, to go hunting. As a young girl I remember waiting for my dad to come out of the woods in his black and red checkered wool hunting outfit, hauling his twenty two over his shoulder. My sister Nancy and I could hardly wait to see if there were any candy bars left in his dark, deep pockets. I don't remember him ever hauling out a dead deer. I like to believe that he didn't have the heart to kill one as his heart was to weak to actually carry one out if he shot one.

Since our family lived in a new split level house on Swan Hill Road, we had the best garage for hanging the poor dear, dead bambi's . Dad and the Uncles would slaughter the deer and I would help the aunts with the white freezer paper and rolls of masking tape wrapping the deer steaks and roasts. We mostly cut up the meat into chunks for speidies, as that was everyone's favorite.

Those were some fond memories! My grandfather loved his boys.

When my grandfather died, (about the same time of the year as my dad) there were deer antlers and fall leaves on his casket. The moon the night my grandfather died was amazing!  It was a fullest, right-in-your-face moon I ever saw! And of the most incredible orange, golden color.

The moon, the night we had my father's viewing was the same moon as on the night of my grandfathers. It was as if my grandfather came and said to my dad. Enough is enough! You are coming with me! For the man that was lying in the funeral home was NOT the same man that was my father, dead in St. Elizabeths. My father's face was the face of my grandfather, but thirty years younger. My father was out of pain and looked so peaceful. I knew then that my father's death was good.
Death is good. Sad as all hell. But good. Death is life and life is death. The death and life spiral. I guess in this situation the spiral does become full circle.

Dad loved deer. He called them his girls. Whenever we went any where and happened to see a herd of deer grazing in a field or meadow. He would say. There's the girls!  Or, The girls are out!
One Saturday this past summer when Mom and Dad were up in Maine. Bill and I were in charge of hauling the trailer of Skyway Loungers and hooked rugs and setting up our booth in the Hamilton's Farmers Market. Just as we pulled on to route 12. I saw the strangest sight! A mother deer and her fawn were crossing the road right in front of us. The fawn gracefully jumped over the guard rail while the mother had to go under it as she had broken her front right leg and it had healed absolutely back wards! Its hard to describe, the leg was broken at the knee and healed like an L shape. Look at the letter L and imagine a hoof at the bottom of the L. Then turn it upside down and to the right.
Just then my cell phone rang and it was Dad. I said, "Dad"! , "I just saw the most incredible thing"! I then proceeded to tell him and he said,"Oh, Thats Limpy"! "Did she have her fawn with her"? I said, "Well yes"!  And Dad said, "Yep thats Limpy"! , "She's been living in our back yard for years"! Probably cause Limpy knew that Dad would never shoot her.

The night my dad died.  Mom and I got home around 7:30. Dad had made it through the angioplasty thing.  I told him I loved him and that we would be back first thing in the morning to get him home. Mom and I drove home…in a snow squall of course.  When ever Dad had a procedure, I was always driving us home in a snow storm. He never had procedures in the summer it seemed.

Then the call came at roughly 2:30 in the morning. Bill and I ran in circles getting dressed. I had dropped mom off at her house the night before so I had her car. As we pulled out of our driveway and around the corner. There in the road was a large buck.  It was a true sign, now that I think back. The buck stood there about the exact time my father died. I knew then with out admitting to myself, that dad had gone. I wonder if I hadn't of honked the horn to scare the buck out of the road and hit the buck instead. Maybe my father would still be here. Not the case.

On a Brookfield hike, the day after my dad passed away, I began talking out loud to the leafless trees. I said, "Ok Dad"! "I know you are on your merry way to someplace better"! "Good for you"! " Just show me a sign once in a while telling me that you are alright"! It wasn't a minute later when a beautiful doe jumped out of the woods and crossed my path.

So many signs. Malcolm, my sister Nancy's husband is an avid hunter. Dad taught him. Dad said to Malcome. "Now pay attention"! When it came to gutting the deer. "Because I'm only gonna show you once". Malcolm did, as he always has a freezer of deer meat to prove it. This past weekend, Malcolm had a nice ten pointer buck right in front of him. He was furious that he missed! He shot four times and missed. A sign.
My father also LOVED cats! Another sign here...My brother adopted a pure white angora cat soon after all the funeral festivities ended. The cat is deaf as hell but with the most amazing teal green eyes I ever saw. I think this cat will be good for my brother, who is lonely but doesn't know it.

That last hike on Brookfield, I dressed in a white jacket as I had no neon. I knew it was dangerous to be hiking during hunting season. I just had to be on the  trails. Its where I find the most peace, the woods. I had a silly thought of Dad, sitting under a tree, leaning up against the warm bark in his red and black wool trousers and jacket. Gun laid at his feet, munching on a candy bar. Just watching the deer dance by unharmed and far from alarm. Dad wouldn't of dreamed of shooting deer in his old age. Not even at seventy one.

Then suddenly I stopped. i heard something. I stood really still and turned my head and there were two hunters not 100 yards away from me. With guns. Aimed.

I screamed, "Don't shoot! I'm NOT a deer"! They didn't. Another sign. Dad is with me…every where.

My life has changed...forever

The time had come. November 6th at roughly 2:30 in the morning. My dad died.
I'm over the shock. He suffers no more and I know in my heart of hearts he's in a better place.
It seems every thing is revealed in death. The shock is over and the grieving hits me in waves.
I sometimes feel like I'm out of control and tossed around in a big sad blue ocean. The waves. So many stories have come out of the past two weeks that I'm just not ready to write about.

Oh how I loved my father.