High up in the tree Gary and I sat. Looking down
through it's canopy of green leaves in the shifting dappled light. Being really,
really quiet.
The look on my face said it all. Like finding a
squashed frog in your pocket.
It wasn't that the workshop was right beneath us
or that my dad was in it. It wasn't the constant sound of his sudden gasping or
all the head holding, it wasn't even our slim hopes he might have forgotten what
we'd done to his mower, had flown out the window joined up with a flying flock
of other great hopes and was now heading for another planet.
No, I was
quiet because I learnt something about my father that I'd never dreamt
possible.
Dad had found religion.
He was so religious in fact, he'd invited God and
his whole family over for a visit.
I'd never
seen him go to church. But then, he did spend a lot of time looking up at the
sky and asking for strength, especially when I was in trouble. Maybe today God
had decided to help dad in person.
It must
have been pretty crowded in there with all of them and someone must have been
really hard at hearing because dad's voice was raised up the whole time. He was
still angry that was for sure. He kept saying things like "God Almighty,
will you look at this?" "Holy Mother of God how will I fix that"
and "Jesus , Mary and Joseph when I get my hands on those two
kids..."
Because dad was walking back and forth and around
and round our view of him through the window was intermittent. Suddenly though,
dad stopped his mower circling and bent over to pick something up off the
workshop floor. I wondered what it was, and then realised it was a little brown
plastic soldier that I had placed on the ground next to all the tangled engine
parts, to keep guard.
I looked over at Gary whose stomach by now was
growling like a pack of hungry lions and when I turned back dad was sitting on
the cold greasy cement rolling the little toy over and over in his fingers and
just looking at it. He sat there staring for a long time.
It must be
pretty funny when God tells a joke because dad started to laugh and laugh. The
kind of laugh you make just as the roller coaster you're on starts to go, there's
no getting off the ride now you might as well enjoy it. He was laughing and talking to himself at the
same time and with a sigh of relief and with grins that could split dark clouds
on a rainy day, Gary and I knew then it was going to be alright. Of course we
faced all kinds of music from our parents,
but for the life of me I cant remember what it was.
No doubt Gary relied on his three tried and true
methods of getting out of trouble...a sudden attack of permanent amnesia, a few
moments of quiet sobbing with some well timed tears thrown in and if all else
failed, the main trusted weapon. His little freckled face which was as cute and
bright as a button.
All our
stories are really pathways, they connect past to present, and the present is
really the future creating itself. It's only the characters that come and go.
We live, we grow old and we pass away, yet the story itself never ends because
new characters are born every day and they add to the everlasting-ness to the
journey we call life, colouring the
tapestry of what it is to be a human.
Many years later the two little boys in this
story grew to became young men. One day, just before he died, Gary and I found
ourselves with dad in that same workshop watching him tighten some bolts on
another engine. Using all his force he tightened the last one. My cousin Gary
said ''Do you think that needs tightening a bit more uncle Chas?'' My dad
turned to him and said "Have a go"
During the time we knew him, my dad's strength
was our high mark. Always a level beyond. Something Gary and I always aspired
to have ourselves, but uncertain to ever be reached.
Gary took the spanner and moved the bolt, not
much, but just a tiny bit more. I looked up at him and he looked at me and in
our eyes we knew it was our time now and sadly nothing would be the same.
My memories are like gentle echoes they remind me
of where I've been, they teach me by looking through the actions and through
the eyes of others. They warm my heart and they keep the ones that mean the
most to me...alive.
And like a
bright happy face the sun moved its way across a cloudless sky.
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