I was launched into the fourth dimension this morning and got to spend some time with my father. He has been dead for twenty four years now, but I felt him with me as surely as I feel these keys under my fingers. You can say its hooey but it happened.
The year of my dad’s death was the year of my daughter Jolie’s birth. She was eight months old when he passed away. When I was pregnant with Jolie Dad made her a cradle. He loved to work with wood and I believe he wanted to give Jolie something “of himself”. He built her something peaceful and lovely, a place for rocking and dreaming and feeling the cocoon of love.
One of my sponsees and dearest friends is expecting a baby soon and I will be a God Mother. I’ve offered her the use of the cradle. I dragged it out of storage to clean and oil the wood and polish the hardware. I was approaching it as a chore, "get it done and move on to the next thing on my agenda." I took a rag and started oiling the wood, and as I did I started seeing the cradle with my heart instead of my eyes. I saw every bit of love and detail that my dad poured into that gift in his final days. As I rubbed the wood I let my hand follow the same strokes as the stain he had applied; I let my eyes see what he saw when he built it. I felt him with me. As I was getting lost in all of this I realized that the song playing in the backround was Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill.
The year of my dad’s death was the year of my daughter Jolie’s birth. She was eight months old when he passed away. When I was pregnant with Jolie Dad made her a cradle. He loved to work with wood and I believe he wanted to give Jolie something “of himself”. He built her something peaceful and lovely, a place for rocking and dreaming and feeling the cocoon of love.
One of my sponsees and dearest friends is expecting a baby soon and I will be a God Mother. I’ve offered her the use of the cradle. I dragged it out of storage to clean and oil the wood and polish the hardware. I was approaching it as a chore, "get it done and move on to the next thing on my agenda." I took a rag and started oiling the wood, and as I did I started seeing the cradle with my heart instead of my eyes. I saw every bit of love and detail that my dad poured into that gift in his final days. As I rubbed the wood I let my hand follow the same strokes as the stain he had applied; I let my eyes see what he saw when he built it. I felt him with me. As I was getting lost in all of this I realized that the song playing in the backround was Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill.
I did not believe the information
Just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom, boom
"Son," he said, "Grab your things, I've come to take you home."
Without a doubt my father knew I would be doing this someday…….oiling the wood on this cradle for my grand children or god children. See, the cradle was for Jolie, but THIS was his gift for me……24 years later.
We never know when our gifts will come. It is with great humility that I accept this one. I was not sober when my Dad passed away. I am now, and it is because of sobriety that I even recognize the gift. I wonder how many of life’s gifts might pass us by if we don’t pause and open our hearts and minds to the infinite possibilities that our Higher Powers have in store for us.
I hope my Dad knows that we have “broken the chain”. I am living a life beyond my wildest dreams and a generation of babies of sober parents can rock and dream away the night in the cradle he so lovingly built.
We never know when our gifts will come. It is with great humility that I accept this one. I was not sober when my Dad passed away. I am now, and it is because of sobriety that I even recognize the gift. I wonder how many of life’s gifts might pass us by if we don’t pause and open our hearts and minds to the infinite possibilities that our Higher Powers have in store for us.
I hope my Dad knows that we have “broken the chain”. I am living a life beyond my wildest dreams and a generation of babies of sober parents can rock and dream away the night in the cradle he so lovingly built.
