Short: Saying Goodbye, Part 2.
We left four days later, under low snow-packed clouds. And the drive south was quiet, a result of tired bodies and minds. Even my sister was more quiet than her normal extroverted self. The snow turned to rain as we descended the the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia before clearing at the border of North and South Carolina. And dad was home when we pulled into the garage, shadows already long against the brick house. We were tired and somber, none more than our mother.
In the days after the trip, I thought about my grandpa and felt the emotional weight on our family. And having never engaged the practice much before, I prayed, with the preacher’s word in mind. We were good church going folks after all, washed in the blood of Jesus. Ask and you shall receive is what they said. So I asked and begged for a dying man’s life.
The odd part, one I was not trained to understand, was I heard a response to my prayers one afternoon at the kitchen table. “He’ll live another three decades,” an internal voice replied. I smiled as I did the math, my spirit lifted. That’s another 30 years. Grandpa was sick, but he wasn’t going to die, I was certain and went on with life.Three weeks after my encounter with the voice, we made another solemn trip north, and this time dad was with us. And the snow was gone, replaced by the bloom of spring.
In the years after, death and funerals became a common occurrence as grandparents, great grandparents, uncles, and friends began to pass. And I became numb to them, of crying and feeling any sort of sadness for the deceased. Death was part of life and I accepted him as I would a rainy day or flat tire, as an annoyance rather than intruder. In truth, my grandfather’s death didn’t bother me. The real damage happened just before. And years pasted before I recovered from that moment at the table and the promise I heard.
