URBANNA — Death is the big one. No wonder that most religions promise future life. Mankind must have hope.
I was 59 when Father died in 2001. He was more than a father, he was a soulmate, the light of my life.
After the funeral, I did a lot of staring at the Rappahannock River. Somehow, I didn’t imagine he would ever leave me and when he did, at age 91, I thought my life was over.
I wrote memories of Father and the agony of departure. The emptiness. The darkness. The sound of that closed door in the back room of my brain, desperate cries at the end begging him not to leave me. The last thought every night and the first glimmer of consciousness in the morning … Father is gone …
How cruel is death and how we suffer. Yet, it’s amazing how resilient humans are — we are strong, far stronger than we realize, and capable of surviving the shocks, losses and tragedies.
But somehow, oddly, I never thought I would have to suffer death of a loved one. The same way, I suppose, a child can never imagine his own demise.
Mother had noticed when I was young that I had a hard time recovering from upsets in life. I suppose that was the reason that would one day cause me to seek comfort in pen and paper or the clean sweep of a computer screen.
Mother would say, “We are like a rubber ball, dear, we bounce along through the ups and downs in life.” But I saw myself made not of rubber as Mother imagined, but of lead, and quite incapable of bouncing along. In my mind’s eye I saw me hitting the floor with a thud.
The world turned black for me. I was but a zombie hunched over my computer and writing like a fool. I guess I knew I may have been vulnerable at the time, but perhaps I didn’t realize the extent of vulnerability.
One day there was a knock at my door. I left the comfort of my computer and opened the door to see an elderly man standing there. He was short and round, like a gnome, a leprechaun, or an elf just escaped from the pages of Mother Goose. He wore old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses with thick lens and he peered at me with a pair of determined blazing blue eyes, as blue as the river on a sunny day. It seemed to me I had stepped on the stage of a Shakespearean play and one of his apparitions had entered the scene. His eyes pierced my brain like a laser gun.
He introduced himself as a doctor who was moving to the area. He had been reading my columns and books for years and was aware that my father had died in the past year.
“I am here to replace your father,” he said.
Stunned, I may have blinked or swayed on my feet from the shock or even stared at him in utter disbelief. I can’t remember. But what lunacy! No one could replace my father!
Yet, oddly, he might have been a raving lunatic, yet I let him into my “Pineapple Palace” (the fictional name of my home on Kent Street) and seated him on Aunt Lydie’s velveteen sofa in the front room.
One of the goldens, “Lord,” the big male, jumped up on him placing his two giant paws on his chest and went head on head with the stranger. As if Lord wanted him to know who was boss, their faces inches apart, as Lord did his inspection. The doctor never flinched. Very few people could have calmly withstood such an encounter.
The doctor continued for some time about who he was and the life he led. Was he some sort of crackpot, I wondered. A charlatan? A womanizer? A maniac? Did he mean me harm? Was I insane to have let a perfect stranger into my home?
Yet, I could soon tell by his gentle demeanor, impeccable manner, perfect grammar, refined speech and extensive vocabulary that he was a well-educated, intelligent gentleman. He was, he said, also a writer, artist and historian, as was my father, and as he spoke in the afternoon sun that cast golden rays into the room, I think this was the first moment of my falling under his spell.
Thus began a seven-year friendship with daily email exchange and frequent visits. Indeed, he was a writer and in college he had even won the annual Atlantic magazine writing award although because of his busy medical practice he had never developed his gift.
He began sending me his stories and soon we were writing stories together, reading poetry and sharing ideas. Deeply intellectual, conservative and Catholic, we enjoyed a constant stream of stimulating debate of religious and political issues.
Then the miracle. I remember standing alone one morning at the kitchen sink and suddenly realizing someone in the room was humming. But who could be humming? Then the next shock. Someone had turned on the lights. The silent darkness of the past year was gone.
(To be continued.)
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