I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted, and behold, service was joy. (Rabindranath Tagore) Fernald Nature Preserve, 2012 The Year Before Dad Died January opens a sliver of warmth as my husband and I traipse through fresh mud, past wadded-leaf squirrel nests, and over discarded acorn tops. My boots collect clumps of soil in their ridges. When the trail widens I slide my grimy soles over loose gravel, and beg it to remove the soil. What I really want is to cover my father with more than a thin, white institutional blanket as he lies a few miles away in his narrow nursing home bed, even though I know in minutes he will thrash about, the blanket tossed aside, as if it were tissue paper that could be blown across this lake with a single breath, his thin arms and legs exposed. They didn’t take off my stockings last night, he told me. And yet his nurse claimed he’d been confused. I responded that he may not recall detail, but he recognizes pain. I wanted to add, Can’t you see beyond the stroke, the tremors, the uncertainty, and age? Can’t you see the man? The words blew away, more quickly than bitter winds scatter October’s leaves. I speak now to the stark brown outline of trees until I discover the blue above them, the same brightness that celebrated August with strips of white spanning the sky before the goldfinch dulled his feathers, when the hummingbird’s wings rarely paused, and tomorrow was only a word. I allow the spirit of the Preserve to open the way to beauty present even now in winter chill, in touching pain, in healing life.
The Year Before Dad Died, a Poem
September 27, 2021 by terrypetersen
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