May 1, 2010
BEAUTY
A cold snap makes our skating rink freeze in hours. It is smooth, like glass. Our parents woke us to go skating. I glide over the smooth ice, floating; thousands of stars twinkle far away, silent in the sky above. The night is so still my blades barely make a sound over the ice. A dog’s bark miles away carries over the fields. For a moment everything is aligned – beauty, time, space, understanding – then it is gone.
It is a hot August afternoon. The weight of the air presses down, heavy. My brother and I have spent most of the day exploring the cool forest until dark thunderclouds in the distance rumble. We race up our long driveway, the wind pushing on our backs. We climb the tall ash tree that is swaying by the barn. Holding tight we watch storm clouds roll towards us, black over the golden fields. We start singing Born Free at the top of our lungs, the wind catching our voices and taking them away.
EMPTINESS
It’s 7pm and the sun is setting. Long shadows stretch far across the lake. The hospital’s shadow is a square block on the ground below. My father’s breathing is laboured. I notice the seagulls in the sky flying high above the lake. I sit beside the hospital bed, tired. The weeks seem to have meshed together. I hold his hand and he stirs. Opening his eyes he asks the time. I look at the clock on the wall.
“8 o’clock.”
“I made it through the night?” he asks in surprise.
“No, it’s 8pm Dad.” He sighs, exhausted from a long fight.
I wake as the sun comes up, listening to the nurses begin their day outside our room. My father’s breathing is methodical, comforting. I watch the sun on the water. Time slips by. The room is filled with sunlight and something in the room changes, shifting the world slightly, stirring the air. I look at my father and know that he’s leaving with the breath that comes slowly from his open mouth. The room becomes empty. I walk to the nurse’s station and tell them I think my father has died. Code blue is called out over the P.A. system.
LOVE
We wade through the deep snow at the top of the hill, pushing through the green pine branches out into the clearing above the lake. We watch the snowmobiles drive over the ice far away, their noise barely making it up to us. We lie on the blanket of snow staring up at the blue sky and talk about our life and the things we will do together. Will we have two kids or six? Where will we make our home? The future is a path we both want to walk, hand in hand.
It is early in the morning and still dark when Greg wakes me. The rain is loud on the roof of the car and the wipers are going fast; the water streaming off our windshield. “I think I took a wrong turn. I’m not sure if we are still in Georgia.” I think for a moment and then sit up. “Awesome, an adventure.” He looks at me, eyes smiling and takes my hand. We drive through the rain that ends as we reach the mountains of Tennessee. The sun lights up the eastern sky as we wind our way through the mountains. Small clouds form wisps that trail up from the forest in the valleys below us. We both know our path ahead doesn’t matter as long as we take it together.
Our little boys climbed into our bed sometime in the night. The early morning light is melting away the darkness in our room. We can hear a few birds singing in the tree outside our window. Together, as if they had planned it, our little boys begin softly singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
