Believe

Ted Lasso and Dad

The day my dad died, they gathered down the hallway of the hospice and out the heavy doors to the front entry, where the sun was shining on a wintery New Year’s Day.

As the bells rang the sound of another soul passing, this would be his final and only procession into an unlabeled car.

Like slow motion, care givers who got to know my now shrunken 6’2” father, with the increasingly shocking blue eyes and beautiful white mustache to match the still thick hair on his head, would bow their heads in a moment of silence.

We would follow the stretcher in our rag-tag early mourning morning clothes, each of us in various stages of dry to wet tears.

Dad’s final trip through the backroads of Marion County, with a lone stranger, was as surreal as Isao Tomita’s version of “Clair de Lune.”

Floating the desolate spacewalk of grief, I wouldn’t hear this song until season two of melancholy as if to say “yes, this is exactly what life, death, birth, mourning, creation and heaven, feel like.” Peace, hope, love, disquiet, consolation, the delivery through the canal, screaming joy, anguish, every moment captured in the flickering filmstrip of life and up, up, up into heaven.

Another realm.

Following somewhere in the distance, disheveled in our pain, we, me, John, one grown grandson, my brother and mom, drove the same backroad, in dad’s most prized used van.

Quietly rounding the 99E exit, off the 5 freeway, my brother plugged in the usb dad had loaded with a million songs. As if dad had planned it himself, Blood, Sweat and Tears, “And When I Die” began to play, to which we all burst into tears that raged with joy and outbursts of remembered lyrics. I can’t explain…

---

“I'm not scared of dying
And I don't really care
If it's peace you find in dying
Well, then let the time be near

If it's peace you find in dying
And if dying time is near
Just bundle up my coffin cause
It's cold way down there
I hear that's it's cold way down there
Yeah, crazy cold way down there.”

---

..and I’d arrive home, after months away, to the crazy cold. His arms holding me up.

Barely.

But then a child was born. And she would be named after dad’s mom. And my mom. And we didn’t know that was to be. God is good like that. Carry on.

---

And when I die and when I'm gone
There'll be one child born
In this world, carry on, to carry on

---

Marcus Mumford, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” We’re walking. Not really. We’re sitting. Staring at Dad’s enormous television. Reflecting us.

---

…and Molly Drake’s “I Remember”

The autumn leaves are tumbling down and winter's almost here
But through the spring and summertime we laughed away the year
And now we can be grateful for the gift of memory
For I remember having fun
Two happy hearts that beat as one
When I had thought that we were "we"
But we were "you and me"

- yeah, that one’s for mom, the black and white dating years framed in the corner of the room. 1950’s England.

---

Michael Kiwanuka’s, “Piano Joint” is eulogizing a healing love that can deliver him from a life of "sadness and fury." I broke down. That love, for me, on the couch, was my five people with me. It turned to ultimate Love. God’s. Please stay with me.

“Walking down the avenue
Looking out for something new
It's the right time to give in
The right time to lose
To begin again
Maybe win again”

“All I know is
My oh my, this kind of love
It's taken me from my enemies"

---

Looking around the room upstairs where dad had found joy at the end of creative days, gardening days, suffering days, not a wall-space or shelf untouched by his talent, my brother dared to speak softly the words we awkwardly needed to hear.

“There’s this new show on Apple T.V., called Ted Lasso? Dad would have loved it.”

Should we do this? went blank the room.

I lifted my phone to search.

I had “reality t.v.” down to a science as I disappeared into Hallmark and The Waltons to the patience of my husband in the lockdown of my soul.

Someone speak.

“I watched the first season and it’s really good. I’ll watch it again. Dad would have roared with laughter.” And cried. He would have cried. In his last months tears found their way to dad. I think the last time was during a Frank Sinatra song.

But what about mom? “Do whatever you like” she said. “I don’t mind,” as if grabbing for something herself. Dad.

Soft Landing, by Jody Wisternoff and James Grant

Music, music, music, music

Children laughing.

Living vicariously through dad’s laughter (and tears) we came up for air.

< Ted Lasso is real world emotions. Dad would say “that’s a bloody lot of f-bombs!” This IS the grief struggle. The reality every one of us faces - and in it, we hope to “believe and be found.” >

We watched during the days to follow, in the airport, from our own couches, which turned to years, unified five, Christmas in Sublimity London, the need to sit with you, watching, laughing, living through the season of grief and Ted Lasso.

“Cause heaven knows you tried”

We made it.

You made it.

E.E. Cummings

We carry your heart with us.

Professed in the collective socials of grief.

I walk with many dad.

Are you having a beer with their dads?

Christmas and New Years are our favorite holidays.

We’re here putting all the pieces back together.

Dad’s favorite place. Mount Angel, Oregon, two days after.

I believe..

I found you
in Ted's "belief" of marriage, family
in Rebecca's intimidating disillusionment
in your twin, Roy's grrr and softy heart
in Jamie's imperfect left-behind childhood 
in your appreciation of Dani, Sam and Keely's infectiousness
in your annoyance of Coach Beard's whimsical, bothered deep world
in the search for truth with Trent Crimm

I found you in me.

In perfectly imperfect people.

In the music

of them

and us.

We found you Dad.

We find you Dad.

Happy Heavenly Father’s Day.