Beauty and Ashes

The little clock in the corner announced midnight with a Christmas carol. Its plucky, staccato notes warmed my sentimental heart.  I looked up  from my book and studied the room for the hundredth time that evening. The tree cast a golden glow that mingled with the light from the fire and made everything warm. Snow fell like feathers all light and silent beyond the window where a single candle made a halo on the glass. I laid my head to the side, resting it on my shoulder and thought about how in just a few short hours Christmas morning would play out before me and then fold over onto itself, swallowing down all of the magic and light and leaving a pale blue pall of winter cold where the hint of something more had been. 

I was desperate to hold on to Christmas. To breathe in the balsam and notice the way the lights reflected on the ornaments.To take in the perfect scene of wrapped gifts, plates of cookies, and stuffed stockings. My children and husband slept upstairs while our dogs laid at my feet. All the world was frozen and quiet. It was tradition to spend the most beloved of all holidays at our family cabin deep in a Pacific forest. Any other time of the year the isolation could feel sinister but, the Christmas season had a way of transforming even the loneliest of places into havens of comfort and safety.

A gentle knock at the front door failed to stir the dogs. I sat up and listened. The log in the fire let out a sharp crack and then the knock came again. I should have been afraid. My heart should have bumped around in my chest while a shot of adrenaline prepared my body for fight or flight. Instead I felt calm and was compelled to answer the door.The floors of the cabin creaked beneath my bare feet as I walked across the room. “Hello?” I asked, resting my hand on the knob. 

No answer. I pressed my ear against the rough wood and felt the knock this time. Three rhythmic raps which seemed to me friendly and somehow good in nature so I turned the lock, twisted the handle and opened the door. I remember how cold the metal felt in my hand and how the opening of the door pulled the winter air and fine flurries of snowflakes into the cabin. I saw his eyes first and knew them instantly. I had forgotten how tall he was and how it felt to stand near him. He wore a long, gray duster coat over jeans and cowboy boots and an acoustic guitar was slung across his back. I did not recognize the clothes but he smelled just as I had remembered,  like soap and cologne and spicy wintergreen. 

I  looked  up at his face  and wondered  how it was possible. The man didn’t speak a word, just stood there in the doorway smiling a smile that  had been buried for over twenty years. “Dad?” He gave a little nod and I wrapped my arms around him. That hug was so many things to me. It was medicine and healing and more than anything else it was home. 

I stepped back and watched as he brushed past me and was captured by the nuances of him. I had never forgotten him but so many details had faded with time and each one was overwhelming to recall. I stared in a stunned silence and waited for an explanation that could not have existed.

Different kinds of tears cut free from my eyes. Some of them sharp and full of every sadness at his loss. Some round, and heavy, shaped by the years of wishing this peculiar moment into existence. The joyful tears splashed like fat raindrops and flowed the freest. I could not stop staring at him, I was afraid that if I turned away, even for a second he might disappear. Soon, all questions of how or why went  from my thoughts and were replaced with the desire to tell him all about my life. 

I can not recall the exact conversation we had or how it began. We spoke of the living and we spoke of the dead. Weddings, and births and the unbelievable way life had unraveled since his passing.  I told him about my children and my husband. We laughed and cried together over stories old and new. Silent night chimed out from the  clock and pulled me back to a place where hands kept time. “I’d better get going.” he said sitting forward on the couch, resting the palms of his hands on his knees. 

“Are you hungry?” I asked, desperate to hang on to whatever anomaly we were caught in. He smiled the crooked, easy smile that was all his. 

“I thought you would never ask.”  I had been cooking for days in preparation for Christmas. I cleared the fridge and layered his plate with brown sugar ham, buttery potatoes, and casseroles. Over the clap of the cupboards shutting and dishes rattling the sound of calloused fingers dragging across acoustic strings stopped me in my tracks. 

He played a new song and I wondered what he had experienced that allowed him to create it. In the years since that night I have tried, without success, to recall even the smallest portion of what I heard. I know I would recognize it instantly if I could only hear it again. The music was rich and disorienting like a deep drink of whisky. The notes were all at once haunting and effervescent and they created unfamiliar feelings all while being somehow nostalgic. It summed up living without any words. I understood the ups and downs and recognised the joy and the sadness of it all. When the song was finished he leaned the guitar against the arm of the couch and came to the table. 

My father ate with the blue collar appetite he’d had in life. I watched with the version of satisfaction that comes from feeding your loved ones great food.  “What of me have you carried with you?” I answered him with a list that required almost no thought. A  stream of consciousness that contained the most beloved parts of my life with him. 

“That joke you told about the parrot with a foul mouth,  your laugh, that time we listened to your music and when I cried you told me that I felt the music the way you did, your sweet tooth, your pain, your strength, your tunnel vision, going to work with you and playing that game we invented where we took turns rhyming words, the  way you held the family together, Pizza and movies on Friday nights, the masterful way you told a story, your determination, the childlike energy you brought to every holiday and birthday, your road rage and that little yellow Celica that backfired when you pulled into the driveway, your talent, bringing you as my show and tell in the third grade, You playing the piano while I sang in the middle school talent show, family trips to the Coast, the way your fingers moved when you played the guitar, you reading out loud before bedtime, the way you used to tease grandma about her joints getting creaky and how she would laugh and pretend to be mad at you,  your immense faith in God and the grace you maintained through cancer and all of the fear you must have faced.”

A thoughtful silence settled over us both. He clenched his jaw and exhaled through his nose and I think I was able to read his mind. Or, maybe, it was the only thing there was left to say. “As for the other stuff. Your shortcomings. The way you hurt me. I’ve lived long enough now to understand that when you become a parent you don’t stop being a human.  I’ve hurt my kids. About the time I  realized I needed their forgiveness I began working on forgiving you.”  I knew he was pleased by my answer but there remained a sadness in his eyes that I recognized and understood. 

My dad put on his coat, pulling the collar tight around his ears, and slid the strap of the guitar across his chest. I forced a smile as he opened the door and turned to me. “Don’t numb yourself when life is hard.” his hand reached for mine.“Every hardship holds a reward and if you take any form of escape, you lose out.” I shook my head to let him know I understood. He squeezed my hand, turned, and walked into a curtain of wind, and snow, and the muted darkness of that winter’s night.