You don't hear from people who are in heaven

Thinking about my father

My cousin sent me this recently.

It’s been interesting.

Life.

Life has been interesting.

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Interesting is a can of worms.

Hardly ever are we actually interested.

The word itself is more of a filler, a formality, an attempt to close the door before it’s too late.

Before we no longer have a choice.

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I’ve started to notice, just as my fellow Substacker

iL.

detailed on our recent podcast, that the true path is always a detour—a loop out into the wilderness that eventually and inevitably circles back before shooting off once more into some magical landscape.

Because there’s always some sort of obstruction on the straight path.

I don’t know why. That’s just how it goes.

Would life really be interesting, though, if we only ever continued on the same monotonous, hand-picked trajectory?

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I’ve not written about my father in at least a month.

I’ve been thinking about him. Praying to him. Hoping he hears me.

But I’ve not written about him. Because it’s a painful can of worms.

My father comes to mind today because I noted in my memos recently, after being reminded of the fact for some reason, that I wasn’t there on August 30th to bear witness.

I was halfway across the country in Charleston.

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I hadn’t seen my dad in about three weeks, having returned to the Lowcountry after my family’s summer trip to Traverse City. And I hadn’t spoken to him in a day or two.

Funny enough, one of the last things we talked about was how he wanted to take out a life insurance policy . . .

They do say—I recall reading in Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking”—that people somehow know their time is coming.

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I think intermittently about our last hug. It was just outside the laundry room. Or maybe in the garage.

He was wearing a white shirt.

I remember him asking one of the days before I left, “Why are you going to Charleston?”

Why are you leaving?

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I’ve been told a whole bunch of people showed up at my house, standing there on my driveway to be with my brother.

My mother had just landed in Georgia and was not home.

I wish I could have seen it. All those people we love, right there on our driveway.

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My brother said he went into the house when he returned from work, while the paramedics were still there. He said he took a look. He said he saw Dad lying there in the laundry room after they pulled him from where he had first fallen in the kitchen.

I think that’s what he said. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he didn’t take a look. But I’m not gonna ask right now.

Would I have gone in there and taken a look myself?