Squadron Leader: “Attack Group 1 – “Red alert! I repeat, red alert! Form up on my tail, we’re making a frontal assault”
Purple Wing One: “Roger Squadron Leader. Purple Wing One forming on the right.”
Purple Wing Two: “Purple Wing Two forming on your left wing, over.”
Squadron Leader: “Attack Group 2 – form up on Purple Leader and attack from the rear. Come in low, then swoop high at ear level. Use caution around the grass discharge – it can wash you out.”
Purple Leader: “Ready for the rear attack Squadron Leader.”
Squadron Leader: “On my mark… Attack!”
This little scene has been playing out in my yard every time I mow grass this summer.
I’ve been mowing the lawn here for nearly three decades now, and I never saw a purple martin before last year.
Last summer they would come out and attack me as I mowed down the hill in back of our house.
This year they’re everywhere. They still patrol out along the backyard, but they now also show up around the garden and out in the front by the old garage.
They do aerial maneuvers around me, often as many as 10 zipping past, in front and over me as I ride the lawn mower. They put on quite a show.
Sometimes there will be two or three flying in tight formation across my path, like the air show for Thunder Over Louisville. Or they might come right at me, pulling up at the last second, flashing that yellow underbelly in my face. They do crisscross flights all around me. One came right past my left ear the other day.
I have no idea where they came from – there are no martin houses anywhere close. They just showed up last summer.
I’m sure many would see this as a sign. Richard using these birds to say hi.
It could be. I don’t know. I’m not too good with this sign business. I think you need to have a strong connection to your right brain, the half that does all the artsy and emotional processing, to really grasp signs from the spirit world.
I sort of pushed that side of my brain into the back closet when I decided I was going to be an engineer. I only need that logical left side to do that stuff.
So I have no way of knowing if the purple martins are Richard saying “Hi dad.”
My aunt Sally died last weekend. Her funeral was today.
The funeral home people provided my uncle and cousins with a nice memorial page that included a slide show of pictures of Sally.
I remember going through pictures of Richard on that night when we found out he was gone. The next day, Sarah, the cousins, and Richard’s girl friend Ivy went through boxes of pictures to pick out the ones to be used on the big montage. There were a lot of funny stories from the girls, and the day after we found out our son was dead, we found ourselves laughing.
I have several pictures of my aunt Sally. I also have a very funny video of her.
We have a family reunion every year at “the farm,” my dad’s home. It’s a big event. Everyone brings food. There’s enough fried chicken for an army, and all manner of side dishes.
One year Sally was carrying a container of biscuits into the kitchen. Several biscuits fell out and landed on the floor. She made a quick look around, and seeing no one, she picked them up and put them back in the container. Unfortunately for Sally, I was in the next room with a video camera and caught the whole thing on tape.
It was a big hit with the family when we played Sally sneaking the spilled biscuits back into the box. She got teased about it for several reunions afterward.
I’m sure her family would like to have that video.
But that would require me to go into that dangerous box. The one with the family videos.
And I’d have to watch those movies to find the one with Sally and her biscuits.
I’m just not that brave yet.
There are so many wonderful memories on those VHS tapes. Archives of happy times. And Richard’s smiling face.
I loved that face, and those smiles. I see them in my mind everyday.
But I can’t watch them on the TV screen.
Those memories are a treasure. They’re also a reminder of the great loss we feel. And that brings such pain.
So I’m not brave enough to open that dangerous box.
When I got home from work the other night there was a big ol’ full moon in the midnight sky. Like I do most times the moon lights the sky, I stood there beside my car for several minutes just staring up at it.
Richard always liked the moon.
As I gazed up into the heavens I was thinking, “Richard are you up there?” In fact I even said it out loud.
Is heaven “out there”, out in space with the moon and the stars? Is Richard floating around out there somewhere?
Or is he still here on earth, but in some invisible dimension we mortals can’t see?
I passed many return trips from work listening to Leonard Susskind’s The Black Hole War on the car stereo. It made my head hurt. He talked about all manner of physics. Things like string theory. He claims there are a whole bunch of dimensions. He can’t really prove this in any concrete way, sort of how we can’t prove the existence of heaven. Yet all the data and calculations seem to say all these dimensions exist.
And another principal of physics he mentioned many times, because it is one of the core beliefs of physics… energy is never destroyed. It may change from one form to another, but energy is always conserved. It never goes away.
We are energy.
So it seems the belief that our souls live on is very possible. Physics doesn’t disprove it. We just convert to another form of energy. Move to another dimension.
That dimension could be right here on earth with us. Our kids could still be right here in the house with us, just living on another dimensional plane, out of our sight.
Today is Sarah’s birthday. And yes, as the title says, she’s daddy’s little girl. My little princess. Always has been, always will be.
She was born the day after our first wedding anniversary. In fact, we spent our first anniversary at the hospital. Debbie’s water broke early that morning, so we spent the entire day at the hospital waiting… and waiting… and waiting.
Sarah refused to share her future birthday celebrations with our anniversary. So she didn’t come out until she could have a day of her own.
On her first day Sarah was giving the world the raspberries.
She’s been in command since day one.
Can She Really Be Relate To Me?
Sarah has always seemed to have a purpose. She’s known what she wanted to do and she planned her life to get to that goal.
On her very first day of life in the outside world she was telling us all about it. Her English left a bit to be desired, but she was just jabbering up a storm.
And giving the world the raspberries.
I’ve always had this feeling that someone with a much higher pay grade than me, had plans for my little girl.
Her focus and attention to details has always amazed me.
I’ve often wondered how someone with such mastery of the details could really be related to me. That’s just the complete opposite to my chaotic, helter-skelter approach to life. My grade school teachers told my parents I was the absent-minded professor. I’m guessing she must have gotten it from her momma.
Sarah’s Systems
When she was moving away from home for the first time, to start school at Belmont University in Nashville, her grab-the-details-by-the-horns, get it done personality was on full display.
Sarah had all her stuff neatly packed in identical boxes. Each was numbered. To round out this system, she had nice Excel spreadsheets to let her know just which numbered box to open to find what she was after at unpacking time.
During her recent move from Texas to South Carolina, she refined this system to include color coding of the boxes.
Our kids had to help with the household chores as they grew up with us. Sarah did the supper dishes. She’d get frustrated with Debbie and me when we’d take the dirty dishes from the table and just place them in any open spot on the countertop. She’d tell us we were, “Messing up my system!” Those dirty dishes had to be placed in just a certain spot on the counter, in the proper order.
Sharing Her Special Day
I’ve always been proud of “my favorite daughter.”
But I also worry about her.
All those years ago, when Debbie’s birthing parts were trying to squirt Sarah out into the world, she held on to Debbie’s insides with all her might, and refused to be ejected until she could have her own day. One she didn’t have to share with other family events.
I’m not sure which one did the makeup work here.
But that’s changed now.
On this day two years ago we had to call her with the news of her baby brother’s death.
That was one hell of a birthday present there Richard.
So now she’s always going to have that reminder on her birthday, that Richard is dead, and he won’t be eating anymore of her ice cream and cake.
A Natural Born Big Sister
Sarah took on the big sister role with total relish.
She was intent on showing her little brother the ways of life and leading him along the proper path.
At one point she tried to give him piano lessons. That turned out to be a frustrating experience for her. Richard wasn’t much of a sit still and practice kind of kid. I don’t remember him ever showing much interest in music.
We live “in the country.” There aren’t a lot of houses close by. As a result, Richard and Sarah were playmates.
They got along. Mostly.
Certainly Sarah’s more serious nature, and her often bossy big sister approach, clashed with Richard’s laid back, goof off and have fun attitude (I’ve never doubted that Richard was my kid).
It was pretty obvious that they loved one another.
They were also classmates. Both Richard and Sarah were homeschooled until they got to high school.
After Sarah reached driving age and got her license, she got to pick up the chore of taking her little brother to school and picking him up after classes every day.
Typical Siblings
In their teen years they were typical siblings. They loved one another, but also fought like cats and dogs at times.
Richard was a guy.
Can you tell they’re brother and sister?
He went to an all male high school. He played sports. Guys like to tease their friends. Make fun of them, and try to have a good laugh at their expense. The trick is to not let it bother you. Just turn it around and tease back. It’s a give and take, back and forth way to have some fun and, while it often sounds mean spirited to many – mostly females – it’s how guys bond.
And Richard liked to tease his big sister.
Sarah would always try to play the game. She’d tease back at Richard. But Richard was a pro. He always had a comeback. And as the back and forth pokes progressed Sarah would end up getting her feelings hurt. And she’d get mad.
This would usually end with Sarah stomping up the stairs, the slamming of her bedroom door providing the final exclamation point on the argument.
Yet they loved one another.
I know Richard looked up to his big sis. I think he admired her. She was a tough act to follow. But he didn’t want to let her know this.
That would have changed with time. It was beginning to change already. But time ran out.
Does she now feel bad about these teenage sibling battles with her little brother? I don’t know. We don’t talk about it. I don’t really know how to bring up the subject of her brother’s death, and how she’s dealing with it. Some of the books I’ve read have had accounts from siblings of a lost child. Many of them felt guilty about the arguments they’d had.
I hope Sarah doesn’t feel that way. That’s just typical sibling behavior. She loved him and he loved her. Besides, Richard started most of it. He did like to aggravate.
Celebration or Sadness?
This has been an important day in our family for many years now.
Sarah’s birth brought great changes for me. There was now another person, in another generation, that shared my genetic code. Wow.
I got to experience that complete and total acceptance and love that a child has for their parents.
My little girl took care of her daddy. Always available to put a band-aid on my cuts and scrapes, or to rub lotion on my feet when they were cracked and sore. She also provided a nicely itemized bill of services when my treatment was complete – very professional.
She’s made me a better person. She’s a gift from God. Her birthday is a big deal for me. It’s a day for celebration.
Now this date is also connected to the toughest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. This date is blasted into the granite marker at Richard’s grave.
So I have a choice to make. Will this day be a time to celebrate my wonderful daughter, or will it be a time to mourn an unbearable loss?
We didn’t ask for this situation. It was just thrust on us. How we deal with it is a choice.
I’m intending to celebrate this day every year. We still have a life to live. I’m still grateful for the gift Sarah has been and continues to be. Letting sadness cloud that would be another tragedy. Yep, it will be a challenge at times. But Richard’s death doesn’t change my love for Sarah. I owe it to her to honor her importance in my life.
I’ll never forget what’s been lost, but I still have a lot.
I’ve now been married for half my life. No question, the married half has been better than the single half.
I remember standing up there at the front of church, waiting for Debbie to make the trip down the aisle. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I was wrong. My knees were shaking. It may have been the most nervous I’ve been in my life… either half.
I also remember those words, “For Better or for worse.” And that’s how it’s been.
Mostly it’s been for better.
But there have been the “for worse” times too. Richard’s death tops that list by a wide margin. I think having one another is how we’ve made it through this so far.
This is also another anniversary of sorts. On this day two years ago, we had the last truly, completely happy day of our lives. The next day we found out Richard was dead.
That’s how it is now, I mark time by “before Richard died” and “after Richard died.”
And I hate that.
This day is one of the best of my life. Conning Debbie into marrying me was the best thing I’ve ever done. She’s been a blessing every day since.
So I don’t want this day associated with pain. This is a day I’ll always be grateful for and I’m going to keep that way.
And for all you single parents that are dealing with child loss, all I can say is, “Wow, I’m so sorry.” That has to be so very tough to do. I can’t imagine not having Debbie to face this with. Having someone to lean on helps, but it still takes my breath away at times. Having to go this path on my own, alone, would just be unbearable.
There’s been a lot in the news lately about high profile guys screwing up their marriage. Very sad.
Author Michael Hyatt has a blog post about protecting your marriage. It’s a good idea. You never know when your marriage may become your only ancor in a world gone out of control. He also explains how to become your spouse’s best friend.
