Most of these last times come and go without us even realizing it, and it's often later that we really even recognize the significance. Yesterday though, I had a last time experience and was so very aware, painfully aware, really. For the last time of many times over the past nine months, I headed out for the two hour drive south down I85.
West Pelzer, South Carolina
I was returning to this small South Cackalacky (as my dad most often called it) town to complete another step in closing out his estate. That sounds so cold, doesn't it? his estate, but I've learned that an estate it is in fact considered - no matter how large or small. Most of my visit was spent in the office of an attorney, who, irrelevantly, was about 700 years old and used an actual TYPEWRITER during my appointment, I couldn't however come to West Pelzer for the last time and not stop by the little white house that has served as the meeting place for my dad and me. Though he had never been there to greet me.
Within the walls of this old house, I got to know the man who gave me my blue eyes and my long forehead and my metabolism and my migraines. Though I never even saw the inside of this house during his lifetime, while inside I unraveled the details of how he lived and what he loved. Yesterday, I did not go inside but just walked around the yard. After all, it's what he cared about the most.
I looked up above the green tin roof to the perfectly sunny, blue sky. I thought of him. I talked to him. I cried for him. And, of course, our song came to mind.
Sunbeams shining through his hair, appearing not to have a care.
I walked up on to the porch and said goodbye to his three vicious guard dogs.
And, just as I have done every time after I've turned right from Burkett Street and headed back out of town, I stopped at this convenience store for a potty break in the dingy bathroom in the backroom. This stop, along with every move I made all day, felt surreal and intentional. I knew, God how I knew, that this was the last time, and it was almost as if I was watching myself from a distance.
I was intermittently emotional all afternoon and evening, and then I found something unexpected. The first time I wrote about him I mentioned that I last heard from him on Mother's Day last year, and I thought that was right. But, I was not; he sent me this card after receiving our birth announcement when Hatch was born which I know I sent in early June, after Mother's Day. I vaguely remember reading it before, but I'm going to chalk my hazy memory up to "newborn/oh crap, I have four kids" brain. What a surprising sprinkle of joy to stumble upon this on the evening of the last time.
Oh my God, the words, these final words (in written form to me at least), could they be any more apropos?
It's that time of year again for fresh new life.
The hummingbirds are doing their part and so are you.
You and Lindsay have made such a beautiful family together.
Michael Thomas Bowman as a precious wee one.
Wright is a chip off the old block of her grandfather.
I love that he observed how much Wright favors him.
When he wrote these positive and encouraging words, he was sick, so very sick, but he didn't know that yet. He was still getting up every morning and putting on his work boots and hard hat and working till the day was done. I am haunted by what I've come to learn of what would be his final months, weeks, and days. Putting those pieces and details together has been mentally excruciating as his daughter.
Back home he'll always run, to sweet Melissa.
[Why didn't he run back home?]
Regardless of our convoluted relationship, I would give ANYTHING for him to have told me that he was sick, for him to have given me the chance to take care of him, to love on him.
I named you from the first song that Gregg Allman wrote, right?
Gregg Allman's death several weeks ago was jarring for me and having a record of this significance makes me happy. In many ways I've reverted back to a child at times over the past months, clinging on to the innocence of my early years of sitting by the record player and listening to the song that I was sure was written just for me.
Days when this was my Daddy
and nothing was more comforting to me than snuggling my Daddy Dog.
As I am writing about my father this evening, I am wondering if these words are the conclusion of a trilogy. I'm curious whether is the last time, or, rather, just another chapter in a book that is still unfolding. I know that he is the only thing I've been able to write about since he passed. It's as if I need to finish telling his story before I can move on with mine...
Yes, I know that he won't stay, without Melissa.