A Love Story: Attention, Devotion & the Divine

 

As a 13-year-old girl who was constantly irritated with every family member around me, nothing bugged me more than my mother insisting I get my nose out of my library book to join my dad in the woods. 

Tracy, you've been lost to the world for hours. Go get some fresh air with your dad. 

In true teenage fashion, I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore her until she physically grabbed the book out of my hands. Like a true little asshole princess, I put on my boots and coat and threw murderous looks at her as I followed my dad out the door. He backed the three-wheeler out of the garage, I climbed on behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. 

I can still remember the roughness of his flannel jacket. He always smelled like leaves on a rainy day.

I rested my chin on the back of his shoulder. We hurdled down mossy trails, over hills and ruts. Once in the woods, I forgot all about my book. He slowed down and pointed out scrapes on the sides of the trees where bucks had rubbed the velvet from their antlers. We watched for animal tracks on the trail. 

Here's where I picked the blueberries last summer and saw the bear with her cubs. See how the plants grow low to the ground?

There's a cranberry bog over there. That's where the deer feed in the fall. See how the bottom of that tree is chewed on? A deer didn't do that. That's from a porcupine. They have teeth that keep growing. They have to chew.

It's a mast year. See all those acorns? The deer will like those. The squirrels are going to get fat.

Pointy lobes on an oak leaf mean it's a red oak... rounded lobes, and it's a white oak.

 My father taught me how to see the natural world, how to observe it, and how to connect with it. 

My mom was a parochial school teacher. Church was a big presence in her life. It was her pathway to God. She taught me the significance of religious rituals. I grew up listening to arguments between them. They usually began Saturday afternoons or evenings. 

    "Are you going to church with the girls and me in the morning?"

    "I don't know, honey. I never feel at home there."

    "I've laid out your suit."

    "I'll think about it."

Sunday mornings were hurried affairs filled with showers, cornflakes, and church clothes. Mom herded my sister and me into the car while my dad stood in the doorway of the garage, coffee cup in hand. She looked in the rearview mirror as she backed the car out of the driveway, and we could see the resignation and disappointment in her eyes. 

The lessons began the minute we sat in the pew.

See how the altar is draped in purple? That's because it's Lent. 

Turn to hymn 156. See how it says here that the choir is singing the first verse? We start in here. 

Here's the envelope for the offering plate.  See the fellowship form? Fill it out for me. I'm going up to communion.

After the service, she chauffeured us home. This ride was different. The smile was back in her eyes, and her shoulders relaxed.  As we pulled into the driveway, my dad rode up on his ATV, smelling of moss and ferns. Prickers from the "pucker brush" he'd ridden through were stuck to his jeans. The corners of his sky-blue eyes crinkled as he smiled at us. 

    "Was it a good service, honey?" he asked as he stuck one finger in my mom's ear and tucked his other arm around her neck and shoulders. 

    "It was. Pastor preached about our connection with God." she answered.

    "I've got my connection. The woods is my church."

They stood hugging in the center of the driveway, both of them plugged into the divine...and each other.

Photo by Tracy Willis

I find myself looking back a lot. Melancholy and nostalgia. There's a word that wraps up both of these ideas with a neat little bow- Saudade.

 Saudade: An emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for something or someone. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing may never be had again or attained in one's lifetime. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events (often illusive) that once are thought to have somehow brought excitement, pleasure, or well-being, but now trigger the painful sense of separation from the perceived joyous sensations...

Saudade has become a new normal for me as I sink into middle-age. When I go home to visit my father, I take a grand tour of old memories. I drive by my first apartment and remember late bar nights of dancing and karaoke and how my friend Bill would cook his world-famous apple omelets for us. The old 7-11 building that now houses a home design business was once the site of high school lunchtime freedom... bean burritos and Big Gulps... then the race back to campus for fourth hour. Or if we were lucky enough to get our hands on some passes, we'd skip and hang out at Cherie's house until the school day was over. 

I also walk the cemetery trails past my mom's headstone.

We lost my mom in 2016. 

The dreaded Alzheimer's diagnosis finally came. She had feared it for as long as I can remember. She had watched her mom struggle with it. And a grandparent. Now it was her turn. The Saturday church-going arguments were long past.  

Love changes with age. Time peels back the layers of ego and inane sensitivities until all that is left is the quivering core of connection and a whispered, "Don't go." 

In the months leading up to her death, my father couldn't escape to his beloved trails. He fed her. Bathed her. Dressed her. Hugged and kissed her. And watched her disappear. He reassured her at the end of every day, "We had a good day today. Tomorrow will be even better. I love you." And then, he'd tuck her in for the night.

Watching him care for her, while in the depths of his own despair, shattered me. I learned so much about love as I watched the end of their love story. 

The greatest gifts you can give someone is to pay attention, to hold their hand through overwhelming fear and uncertainty, and when they have nothing left to give, to love them anyway. 

So many lessons: Attention, devotion, the Divine. I am so lucky.

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