Can You Hear the Laughter?

I stood at the end of the driveway on Tuesday, with my hands full of sympathy cards that I’d just pulled from my once lonely mailbox. I paused for a long time, reflecting on the events of the weekend. I buried my father. I had lived through the experience that I was sure I would not. I had walked through the pain of that day, and still I woke up in the morning. Life was somehow still going on all around me, but in my heart it felt like things had stopped. My grieving has been a long process, starting the day he was diagnosed with Stage 4 terminal prostate cancer. Coincidentally it was the same week that my precious daughter had her first birthday, an ironic scale and proportion that I always thought to be terribly unfair. I watched her grow, live, change, and of course get older. With every year that passed, and each new milestone that she reached in her spring blossom of life, my father was one step closer to his life falling into winter.

My father was a character! He had an infectious laugh that bubbled over, spilling into the room, starting with the twinkle in his beautiful blue eyes. I can still picture him walking into the kitchen on a cold day with his clunky boots untied. He’d stick his chilly fingers on the back of my neck just to hear me scream, and then of course came the laugh. The warm, loving, gentle embrace of his laugh. Like invisible arms wrapping all around you.

He was a generous soul. He loved the ones he loved. He was a private person, and a proud man. He was a fabulous craftsman and woodworker, and gave away many pieces to those that admired his work. He could never sell something he made; he just didn’t feel right about it for some reason. He was not particularly religious, but he did carry spirituality about him, especially in his later years. He softened. He found joy. He loved to share the fruits of his labor, in the most literal sense of the word! He finally had the land, the time, and the patience to have a strawberry patch. One year he single handedly picked over 55 gallon pails of berries, and gave them away. He said it was his cool drink of water.

I was told many times throughout his passing, he was a man among men. It was beautiful for us, his daughters, to hear all the ways he touched the lives of those around him. Some of the stories we knew, some we didn’t. There are a million stories of my own that I could share about my father, but I do have a favorite.

My father was a foreman at a large national meatpacking plant. I suppose my Dad represented “the man” for a percentage of the employees. One summer, he was dealing with a particularly hostile situation with one person. My Dad walked to work, and this gentleman met him just off company property with a baseball bat at the end of a shift. We were living under the veil of threat, never really knowing if something would happen. Thankfully, nothing ever did.

That summer, one hot evening just before dusk, I was with my Dad as he worked in the front yard. A baby mourning dove came bouncing down from the birch tree landing not more than 2 feet behind him. My Dad was so surprised, he held out his hand and it crawled right up into his palm. His big soft heart melted on the spot. The baby was still covered in down, fresh from the nest, and it looked up into my Dads eyes; they shared a common wonder about one another. It began to sing, and coo, telling my Dad all its secrets, locked deep in sweet conversation. It proceeded to crawl up my Dad’s arm resting sleepily on his shoulder. My Dad tried several times to put him back on the lower branches of the tree, and each time the baby would fly back to him. Insistent and determined not be without its new friend. The sun was going down, and my Dad couldn’t bear the thought of his new playmate being left out in the grass vulnerable to whatever may find it there. So he took off his hat, which was he could rarely be found without, and placed his new baby into the makeshift cradle and brought it inside for the night. The next morning, he put the baby outside and it flew away.

I’ve often wondered if that little bird was his guardian angel. My Dad wondered that too. That experience changed us both, and was something special that we shared. We didn’t talk about the significance of that event in our lives, but we both knew.

I held the cards in my hands, feeling the paper and the weight of the messages within. Something caused me to stop, and turn around. The leaves on the curb behind me started to dance and slide down the pavement. Twirling, tumbling, making music on the concrete as they floated towards me. Wrapping around my feet, greeting me softly, comforting me. It was like they had been pushed into the air by a gust of spontaneous energy. Like the beating of a heart, the flap of a wing, the whisper of a loved one. I could almost hear the warm, sweet laughter.

I miss you Daddy.