on my way, way back home

Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
Walt Whitman

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
Whispering I love you, before long I die,
I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look'd on you,
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you.

Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe,
Return in peace to the ocean my love,
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated,
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;
Be not impatient--a little space--know you I salute the air, the
ocean and the land,
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.

*

Sometime during the last two months of my father’s life, he sat me down on the couch beside him and we talked. I don’t know how he knew, maybe because he was going home him self, but he told me something that rings more and more true the longer I live.
He told me that after he was gone we were all going to go through a period of mourning. Each of us, in our own way, was going to have to face the reality that he was gone, and for each of us, in our own way, it was going to be a process. There would be days when we wouldn’t want to get out of bed, but they would pass. There would be days when we were angry at the world and bitter and confused and sad that it was Dad, but those too would pass. He told me that even though, from where we were sitting, it seemed impossible to imagine a time when the process would ever be through, no matter how dark it looked, there would be sunny days again. He assured me that no matter how dark it gets, life goes on, one day at a time. He said he didn’t want us to lose sight of what is really good and beautiful and worth living in life, living with a passion.
He told me we were all going to mourn and grieve and heal in our own way, and if we could we should try to support each other, but he seemed to know somehow that we all would have to heal in our own way as well. No matter how hard it was to imagine what a happy day on the horizon might possibly look like from there, he assured me life would go on, we would heal, and we would find happiness and faith again. He wanted to make sure that we knew that we had a lot of life left to live, he wanted to make sure we didn’t get bitter and grow up too fast, before we had a chance to really live life and learn it’s truths on our own, in our own way, each of us. Dad was so modest he tried to help me start healing before he even went. I cannot tell you how blessed I feel that I am to be so close to such a radiant example of unconditional love for 19 years of my life. Dad told me that eventually we would need to move on and keep growing and keep becoming ourselves and doing all those things he spent his whole life encouraging us to do.
The most poignant thing he said to me that day, the things that sticks with me and comes back again and again, is especially fitting for today, on the eve of my flight home. He told me that in the coming years, every time I came home it was going to be a little different. He said that the experience of coming home would be powerful, and it would change every time. At first it was going to be weird and sad, maybe even a little awkward. Christmas would be tough because it would bring back memories, coming home from college, everything, it was all just going to be a little different. But each time it would be a little bit better than the last time, and each time everyone will be a little further in their healing, and even though I couldn’t see it now, after enough times it would be all good again. It’s not that we would ever forget him; Dad will always be the fiber of our family. Dad will always be “on the back roads of our memories ever gentle on our minds”. He told me we would reach a point when we could celebrate his memories, and miss him, but not be so burdened down with the emotions of pain and loss we were all feeling right then. He wanted to assure me not to lose faith in the fact that we would be happy again. In a way, coming home would become a way to mark progress in my self and see how I’ve been doing dealing with Dad’s absence since I’d last been there. He said that not only would each trip home be different, each trip home would be a little bit better, a little bit easier and a little fuller and a little more whole. Sometime, somewhere down the road I’d be coming home to a full house again, a full home.
As I get ready to fly with Grandma out to California tomorrow, to show off the house Dad worked so hard to provide us with, it strikes me that I’ve only been home for less than two months since I graduated from college last May. After my five-month adventure on the road last Summer/Fall, I made it home early November just in time to go to the dentist and move out to Utah for the winter. After Utah I stopped by down here in Columbiana and literally drove right into where I needed to be to help Pop move across the great divide and Grandma adjust to being alone for the first time in 64 years. Now here it is, that fateful Sunday before thanksgiving, on the eve of my first trip home in a long time, and again I hear Dad’s words bubbling up into my self and making me wonder where I've been since then. How am I doing in my healing process? What all has gone on since that day Dad sat me down next to him on the couch and foreshadowed all this?
I’m thinking about it and I don’t know why I haven’t been home more. I mean, I love home, I love being in the house and I love Pasadena and my friends there. There’s nothing not to love, it just hasn’t really worked out that California is the neck of the woods I’ve been in since graduation. I haven’t been avoiding home, right? To be honest I haven’t even thought of coming home, or not coming home, for some reason it just doesn’t seem to even come into my I-stream very often. Weird.
In my quest to “surrender to the flow” I don’t ask too many questions that don’t have worthwhile answers to them, but maybe this isn’t one of those questions. I wonder if, on some sort of unconscious level, I put off “coming home” sometimes because Dad was right; every time I come home things are a little different, or even a lot different.
All the memories are still there, I still remember being in each room with my father on all sorts of different occasion. I remember when he put in the pool house, I remember the parties he did or didn’t let me have, and I remember him reading the paper and eating his breakfast on the back porch. I remember him in his closet, I remember the things he had hanging up in his closet. I remember that he could afford to spend so much time on the pool house because he was home doing his chemo for so long, it was all he could do. It was sort of like his arts and crafts project I guess.
I also remember when he was real sick that first year and he couldn’t get up the stairs so we had him in that hospital bed downstairs. I remember he lost 60 pounds. I remember how much pain he was in, but only now when the memories come up can I really grasp it, and it overwhelms me sometimes. I remember him and mom would watch TV together at night, he’d post up on that couch right there because it was the most comfortable place for him and his tumor. I remember the stretches of time when we considered it a good day if he came downstairs at all. And I remember, clear as anything, the day I said goodbye to him because I had to go back to school like he wanted. I remember how cool his bald head was on my chin when I hugged him for the last time, and then left out the side door in the dining room to drive out to school.
As loaded as the house is with all the good times, there is nothing I can do to remember them without remembering them with the hard times we had in that house too. It brings back an inner understanding and perspective on my self and who I was when that was all going on that I can’t get anywhere else. The walls and the yard literally resonate with past layers of myself, my father, my family, my life.
So you see it’s not fair to say I don’t like coming home, because I do, though perhaps its fair to say I might unconsciously avoid it sometimes because it’s not just coming home. I can’t really just come home anymore, it isn’t that simple, because the process, the experience of coming home comes right along with all those loaded memories and it’s always a lot to deal with sometimes, consciously or not. Short of repressing and denying and avoiding all the painful, emotional images that come to mind, the other option is to walk straight into them, chin up, as honestly and openly as I can. There are times in my life when I’m more or less prepared and stable to do just that, and I’m thinking, I’m hoping, this time is one of those times.
This time truly is special and will certainly be different, because this time I’m taking Grandma out there with me and the whole family is going to be there. Grandma has never been out to California since we lived here, never seen our house, and she hasn’t been out of Alabama and off the farm in more years than she can remember. On top of that, not only is our whole side of the family going ot be their (except for Christian and Justin and Spencer and Kate because they are tiny) but Mollie’s whole family is going to be their too I believe. This quickly adds up to not only Thanksgiving, but an engagement party as well. Our first group in-law experience! Oh boy!
This time home is also really special for me because I feel like I get to show off for Dad. Not show off in a bad way either, but show off what Dad accomplished for his family, show off only and to none other than, his very own mother. Having lived with Grandma on the farm for the past several months, and really taking the time to root myself in this small town, and after doing my best to recreate what some of my father’s childhood was like and really getting a sense for where he came from as best is possible, I can honestly say that I don’t think Grandma has any idea what’s in store for her. I don’t think she ever really got a chance to comprehend where Dad worked his way up to after he left the farm, and the culture shock on top of that, I can’t wait! In many ways this is the trip of a lifetime for her, and for me too I suppose. I remember all of Dad’s coworker’s talking about how all Dad could do was brag about Brooks and I and our sports awards or scouts or school or whatever it was we were doing, and now I get to be the one to brag about Dad to his mom, to let her know and see this whole other aspect of who Dad was and what he did with his life that she’s only ever heard of, but never gotten to see. I know I may be making too much out of it, and I’m biased and all, but I don’t think so. This is a really sweet deal, Grandma is the best. With me it was going from the big city to the small city, now we have the small city out to the big city, and I can’t wait to her what Grandma thinks.
As proud of Dad as Grandma is, which is indescribably proud already I’m sure, I think this trip might find a way to make her feel something new, something more, something wider even. Not that any of it makes a difference really, but when you’re 89, to find yourself moved on deep, inner levels, is a very profound thing I would imagine.
So as for me, I hope I’m ready to come home with strength and clarity this time, but I’m not really worried about me this time. I have the perfect excuse not to worry about me, which is that I can put all that energy towards making sure Grandma has a good time. Just like Dad lives vicariously through me, maybe I live vicariously through Grandma. Hmmm? Just thoughts I play with…
This trip home I’m an escort for daddy’s mama, and that is what makes my heart glow more than anything else. Thank you God for all we’ve been given. Thank you for the foundation my life is built upon, the stock we come from and the examples we’ve had set for us. I pray for the strength to mold my own life into a life of example that is even one tenth what Dad, and Pop, and Grandma, and Papa Joe and Mama Nell and my own mother the Dawn have set. Thank you for the opportunity to show Grandma a new part of the world and a new part of her son, after all these years. We pray for safe travels, good timing, and can’t wait to hang out with good friends once we land.