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writegirl@altavista.com
Hi Dad,
I went up to the cemetery this year, on Memorial Day weekend, carrying on your tradition of honoring those that have gone away. It was difficult. It is raining.
I had forgotten many things, like how wide open the sky is up there, how lush and green everything is, it reminded me of the postcard I received from Rory when he went to Ireland. The cleanliness, everything tidy, and logical. The land of you my father and Frank Lloyd Wright, the celebrated architect, both visionaries in your own way.
I came to see how where a person lives does form/inform them. You so solid, sure, and full of north country honesty.
By the time I was born we lived down at the lake. My heart trembles whenever I first see it again, the lake filled with crystals glittering in the sun, the white sails cutting across the water. Even now, today, my heart gasps at it’s magnificence. I need to thank you for that. You gave me a resort town. The summers feverish, pulsating with energy. Fresh faces arriving each week, everyone happy to be away from their weekday routine. People open, smiling, free, playing on the beaches, meeting in the streets. People from around the world, a playground where I grew up hearing foreign tongues, seeing the nuances of other cultures, relating, experiencing the world. You taught me that everyone was my equal so I treated the movie stars and the derelict drug addicts the same. And I have been safe. You always whispering in my ear, “If it smells, leave.” And I still hear you clearly.
A resort town yes, but one here in the upper Midwest. Three months of summer, intense, until autumn comes and everything falls away, the leaves, the tourists, and the world becomes quiet, a time for introspection. I adore the seasons, brilliant and distinct. Autumns of crunchy leaves, the light fading and low in the sky. Winters, the shortest days, days of ice skating and tobogganing, even those few times when you let me come along ice fishing. How afraid I would get driving across the ice-capped lake, the loud cracking sounds beneath our tires. Oh, it still frightens me just to think of it. But I was brave, wasn't I?
I am trying to be brave now too, searching for you, but, truth, I freaked out Dad. I could not remember the streets, the highways we as a family had traveled every year to the cemetery. I could not find you. My head was aching and I was falling apart. It was raining. How could anyone forget where their parents were buried? I remembered I was suppose to turn on a curve, turn to the right, go over a little bridge. I could not find it. My stomach hurts. I knew when I left my house hours south of here, that I wasn’t exactly clear on the route, but Dad I was too proud to ask my brothers. They are much better than me, they have been here every year since you and Mother left. Me? I haven’t been able to come, you see. Oh Dad my head hurts. I wanted to turn around and step back and see if I could remember. I just drove back and forth on Hwy 14 hoping something from the distant past would come through my brain and help me find you. I was terrified. But Dad I stayed the course and I found you. As soon as I found the little bridge my body relaxed as if I was once again next to you, safe and happy.
Guess what helped me Dad? Remember how you would say the name of each town we went through? Yes those names untranslated from the Native American language. You said each loudly and distinctly unraveling them into English words we knew. I pretended you were with me, you guided me.
The cemetery was as serene as always, like during those times I was here with you and mother as you two held hands and wept for the child born long before me. It is raining Dad. I made love crosses for you and Mother, tore out chunks of grass and hammered them into the dark moist ground. And geraniums, bright red ones, the kind you and Mother so adored on the porch each summer. I planted them at the head of your gravestone.
Mom and Dad I am totally soaked, so it is time for me to go now. I do have enough sense to get in out of the rain.
My love, my heart, my everything, to both of you for always,
Your daughter