Author: freest8r

I get up and shuffle down the hallway toward the garage to work out at 5:30 in the morning. First, my left big toe pops. Then my right knee. Then I feel a little tightness in my ankles, so I twist them one at a time and am rewarded with a satisfying pop from both. This reminds me of Dad.

Growing up we had a wood burning, cast iron, fireplace insert that we used to heat the living room. Dad was usually the first one up, and he’d get the fire started in the winter. Sometimes, however, I managed to get downstairs before him. I’d put some kindling on the embers from the night before and gently blow on them to get the fire going. It wouldn’t take long for Dad to wake up, and I always knew when he was heading down the stairs because I could hear him coming.

Continue reading Creaking Joints

I’ve got Dad’s truck now. It’s a 2WD Toyota with a medium cab. It’s nothing fancy, but it does come in handy. We’ve picked up big loads of mushroom compost for our garden, and we’ve used it to move beehives back and forth from the property. As an added benefit, once I got the truck I became much more popular. I found out that I had more friends than I realized, and all of them are moving stuff for some reason.

So it was that I found myself helping a friend of a friend move the other day. It was raining. The two apartments were only a few miles apart, and I like helping people move, so it was no problem. In fact, it was fun. It takes a rare combination of strength, agility, and guile to be a mover. Fortunately I have all 3 in good measure. There’s also an aspect of spatial awareness that comes in handy when you’re trying to squeeze an overstuffed couch around a 90 degree turn. I’ve played a lot of Tetris in my day, so like a good supervisor, I stood to the side and told the guys how to rotate and lift the couch so that it fit through the opening perfectly. They couldn’t have done it without me.

We couldn’t have done it without the truck either. I was proud of the way we stacked a large couch, and a queen sized box spring and mattress on the relatively small truck bed. I tied it down with a rope and a luggage strap, but it didn’t look safe at all. The mattress and box spring extended up precariously, well past the top of the truck. As I drove to the new apartment I reminisced about that time the dresser broke free from it’s moorings and slid right out of the back of the truck up on Diamond Springs Road. Then there was that time we took the chicken coop to an Earth Day event. The wind caught up under the shingles and flipped the whole thing out of the back of the truck and it smashed all over the road. We at least had the foresight to take the chickens separately in the van, otherwise we may have been eating chicken stew for dinner.

I looked back at the mattress swaying gently in my rear view mirror, and I slowed down a little.

I also reminisced about Dad. The main reason he bought the truck was so that he could help people move. He didn’t need a truck himself, but he saw a need in his community and he knew that having a truck would help him fill that need. He gladly pitched in when a former law student, who was also a bit of a hoarder, moved boxes and boxes filled with tons of law school books. He carted chairs and picnic tables around for church events. He helped his sons and their families move into their new homes. He loved to help people move, and the truck was an instrument of service.

I was driving his truck. Helping someone move. Carrying on his legacy.

The truck is emblematic of the impact Dad had on many people, and this is felt most strongly by his family. If we look we can see ripples of him every day. I parked the truck facing forward in the driveway recently, to keep rain from pooling in the bed. It was unusual for me to park that way. We had a birthday party for the kids that day, and when Lianne looked out of the window before the party and saw the pickup pulled in and facing forward she thought, “Wow, Rob’s here early.”

It only popped into her consciousness briefly, like a flash of lightning illuminating the memory of Dad and then disappearing quickly. Suddenly, she was back in the present, left with only a dull afterimage of what once was.

Our lives are still filled with those reflections. We have moments when we forget that Dad passed away, and then the inevitable reality crashes in. Dad isn’t here to offer advice about all the practical things that he seemed to have so many answers for. He isn’t here to lend his strong back and laughter to a morning of moving furniture for a friend. He didn’t get to see Clay and Angie’s property, he’s missing all the kids growing up, including Lex, who only got to meet him from the womb, and Lachlan who was born after he died. He missed Jaron’s wedding, Grant and Mary’s new puppy, and Mom’s love of boxing. Not only is he missing them, but we’re missing his reactions and thoughts on all of life’s wonders and all of life’s hardships. Dad’s responses to these things would have been ebullient, wise, and practical.

Maybe Dad is getting to experience some of our lives from the spiritual realm. Maybe these moments when we think he’s here, and the times we spend with him in our dreams, are manifestations of a tenuous connection between our world and his. I don’t know if that’s true. The spiritual realm could be outside of space and time as we understand it, and the concept of our loved ones watching us may simply be a coping mechanism we have to deal with grief and loss. Either way, when I hop into the truck and see his old machete sitting on the floor I’m going to use that poignant moment to remember Dad, and to be grateful for the legacy he left.

I thought these thoughts as I drove his truck and lent a hand to a friend of a friend.