“Dad Morning”

c. 2018 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(7-18)

Sleep.

I woke up just before 4:00 a. m. with a sense of accomplishment lingering in the air. While making coffee, I pondered having slept about 4 ½ hours. My longest session in bed since the month of May. My body felt rejuvenated. Like some energy potion swelled my veins.

The household Bunn coffeemaker gurgled purposefully on our kitchen counter. Meanwhile, my Black Lab snored away on the living room rug. Waiting for a first cup of brew, I turned toward the framed photo of my late father that sat on our entertainment center.

“Good morning, Dad,” I whispered.

The ritual was familiar, if subdued. I had offered the same greeting since he passed away in April. Each time, I felt a gnawing sense of emptiness in my belly.

I started to make toast when a familiar voice boomed through the house, in response. “Good morning, Rodney!”

I dropped the loaf of bread. “What? What was that?”

The dog did not seem to notice. He continued to snooze. I put the bread by my coffee pot and went back to the living room. Sweat began to trickle from my forehead. “Hello?”

Again, the voice filled my ears. “Good morning, Rodney!”

My hands were shaking. “Dad?”

“Certainly so,” he answered.

I rubbed my eyes. Suddenly, they were wet with tears. “Good morning! God morning, good morning! You know, I have been expecting something like this… you know… some sign from eternity...”

“I know,” he said.

“You know everything now...” I replied. “Rennie said that, recently.”

“Your brother is right,” he observed.

“Yeahhhh… everything,” I coughed. “Look, there are a few transgressions I should probably explain...”

My father began to laugh. “Rodney, I am not here to judge. Just to say that God has taken me home. I am well. Do you understand? This has all been an interesting experience. I met Issac Asimov yesterday. And Kurt Vonnegut. We sat and listened to a jam session with Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly.”

“Incredible,” I mused.

“I do miss your mother,” he confessed.

“Of course,” I said. “We are taking care of her. It is a conundrum for us as we would like to have her close, especially now. But we all agree that her care seems best near your old home. Neighbors and church members visit on a regular basis. Some of the nursing facility staff actually grew up with both of you in the community. We reckon that moving her would only add to the confusion of her dementia and risk losing the personal touch. That extra measure of care.”

“I agree,” he said. “Don’t feel guilty.”

I stared at his picture for a moment, in silence.

“You had something more to say?” he wondered aloud.

“Well yes,” I replied. “Yessss… there are so many questions I have wanted to ask. About your insurance policies and the bank accounts and...”

“No Rodney,” he interrupted. “There is something more on your mind. Something of greater importance.”

“Yessss,” I admitted, wheezing. “Having time to think has made me fear that liberty...”

“What I used to call ‘the perverseness of nature’ sometimes,” he said.

My eyes went wide open.

“I did my best to teach all three of you,” he remembered. “WHAT to think was always less important than HOW to think. I wanted you to have the toolkit. The methodology to find answers for yourself. To find truth and nurture your faith.”

“Faith, that’s it,” I stammered. “You and Mom provided an example of life lived with a sense of duty and discipline. But lived with joy. With the belief in a higher calling.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

My eyes were growing wet once again. “So… I must say that we all expected more. I did, anyway. A dramatic clap of thunder when you passed. A lightning flash across the sky. Angels singing. Trumpets blaring from the clouds. Something dramatic! Even a visitation, later on...”

His photo seemed to grin. “Of course. You have a writer’s soul. Something only you inherited from me… perhaps you will put pen to paper and create a version of the story with that kind of embellishment.”

“We just expected more,” I said.

“YOU expected more,” he proclaimed.

“Yes,” I acquiesced.

“Rodney, I was very tired,” he explained. “I was a very old and tired man. Your mother had been in decline for years, seeing imaginary visitors and members of her family that were long deceased. I cared for her with all my strength. With all my love. Despite the woeful failings of an aging body. Even with my own mobility nearly gone. She was happiest at home. But God’s plan was in motion. For both of us… for all of us...”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Love endures above all else,” he preached. “Read 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13. Division, prejudice, pomposity, self-importance, legalism, grandeur… all of that goes pale when viewed against the final moment of mortality. Love continues onward.”

“Yes,” I said again.

“You do not need a sign,” he laughed. “No alignment of stars or vision in the night. My love is in you. In your brother and sister, It is with your mother, even as we speak. You are all carrying that energy forward.”

“Right,” I echoed.

“When you are at the office desk, I am there,” he continued. “Writing was my craft. It is yours as well. I am with you in the vibration of strings on your guitar. In the exhaust note of your motorcycle. In the pale hues of morning over your rural neighborhood...”

“You are!” I cheered, silently.

“Take care of YOU,” he insisted. “I watch you hobble around the house. Fretting and drinking and cursing fate and responsibilities. Remember that we are all on a journey. Each soul is in motion, like the universe itself. Your path is not my path. Yet we are in concert with each other. My light is in you as it always has been. I am not gone...”

“We sometimes think that it feels like you are sitting in your office,” I smiled. “Reading a book or working on a manuscript. Just out of sight for a moment.”

“And that is literally true,” he said. “In my office… in a new location...”

I paused in reflection. But the air had gone stale and still.

“It is good that we had this talk,” I said.

My Black Lab raised his head. Almost as if someone had shut the front door.

“Dad?” I shouted. There was no reply. “DAD!!!”

He was gone, again.

The dog went running for our couch. My hands were shaking. I tipped the coffee mug for a final swig, but it was empty. Empty like the room full of trinkets and trash.

My anguish turned to hope while pondering his photograph. I raised the cup in a salute.

“Love you, Dad,” I whispered. My morning at the keyboard had only begun to shine.

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