Yesterday the family went up to the river. This is my in-law's place up on the Muskegon river, and it is just a few miles East, Northeast of Grant, MI. I usually like to go up there, and this time was no exception. I usually mange to fit in a nap or two, and I like walking down to the river, and walking along the roads, although yesterday it was quite buggy--too many mosquitoes!
I had a lot on my mind yesterday--I was deeply in thought the whole drive up there; my brain was running in loops, when certain thoughts just can't be shed, and my feelings were very confused. Sometime during my nap, the circle broke, and I was much improved. Yes, I know I'm skirting around the topic of what was on my mind, but it just has to be that way. But for those of you who know me on Facebook, that is the reason for the peculiar and cryptic status updates for which I am becoming well known.
There is an inside part of me that I have a lot of trouble sharing. I am not at all an open book, and as social as I am, I do have pretty robust inner resources that often take the place of friends. Still there are times when it would be so much easier to talk things over with someone other than myself, and loneliness is always a problem. I'm almost always the listener, the giver of advice and almost never the taker. (And part of the reason for that is that I don't let my potentially helpful friends know enough of what is going on inside me for them to even be able to offer any.)
I am mysterious--there's no way around that. I don't always enjoy it, and oftentimes I'm a mystery to myself. Yesterday I realized something about myself I didn't have any prior idea was there. What I realized was less important than the worry about just what the hell else might I discover tomorrow that I don't know is there today?
On another score, my father's birthday was yesterday--his name is Frank and he would have been 85, but he died 20 years ago. He was also a veteran. Shortly after he died his best friend from way back in the WWII years, Rich Piper, brought over a letter he'd received in 1945, shortly after the war was over. See, after the war ended, my dad had a few more months he needed to do in the navy before he could get out. During a leave just before going back for those few months, he met my mom. He told her he was going to marry her on their first date. The letter to my dad's friend came from one of my dad's war buddies. It told a particular tale of an act of heroism my dad did (which he'd never told us--I'm sure he didn't think of it that way) and this war buddy was convinced my dad had saved his life, and maybe that of many of the rest of the crew. The war buddy had noticed how smitten my dad was with my mom, so he took it upon himself to look through my dad's things and find Rich's address. Then he sent him a letter which told the story and he warned Rich and any of the other guys back home to keep away from my mom while Frank was away or they'd all have to answer to him.
I'll never be the man my father was. I wish I'd known that before he died--I would have learned so much more from him. Today I'll take my kids and my mom to the cemetery to visit his grave. I don't have to force them to go (well, Haley gets sick to her stomach in cemeteries so she might back out) --the first thing Joshua asked me this morning was when we're going to go. Dad isn't in a grave underground, but in a tiny mausoleum. That's what my mom wanted and by grace of God, a slot was open at the time my dad died. When I go I kneel down by the door and put my hand on it and talk to him. I wish I was my twin--she has a Gift and sometimes hears back from him about what's going on in heaven. I have to settle for a calming feeling, but that's enough.
If I can dig out that letter I'll post it here--maybe I'll do it in August, the 20th anniversary of my dad's death. He had a heart attack right in front of me and collapsed in the living room as he was walking back from the kitchen. The paramedics did get a week heartbeat going in his body, and his death certificate says he died on the 7th or August, but I know in my heart he left us on the 2nd.
I have a lot of yard work I'd better do today. I hate yard work, but it doesn't much care about my feelings.
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