The phone rang at 3 AM on that Monday morning. While jarring, we were expecting a call that would potentially come through the night. “It’s time”, our son said. I gathered a few things then drove to their house to stay with their little guy while they went to the hospital to birth their second child.
In the morning, when the little guy awoke, we headed back to our farm to stay busy while awaiting baby news. Around 9:30 my phone began ringing with a series of calls. The ringing, less jarring at that hour, brought news that was far more jolting. Dad had collapsed – it’s not looking good – he’s gone. Our other son happened into the house about then and gathered his weeping mum into a comforting embrace before going out to tell his dad.
The evening before, my sister and her husband had taken Mom and Dad out on a Sunday evening drive – the first since the start of the pandemic. They came to each of us siblings who live in the area, staying in the vehicle while we stood outside and visited with them. It was cold and windy, so we had them drive into our shop where we could chat out of the wind. Dad inquired again about any baby news. Fred stood at a distance outside of Dad’s window. They chin-wagged local lore and farm facts while Mom and I exchanged amused glances at their chattiness. And then they drove on, making their way to the next sibling’s home.
Later that evening, Mom accidentally video-called the family group on the iPad she was getting accustomed too. Most of us were able to take the call, and we kibitzed together until Mom said, “Well, children, I think it’s bedtime.” She and Dad kissed playfully. At the request of one sister, Dad told a simple story and at the request of another sister, he prayed a German children’s prayer. I left the call and that was that. Little did we know what extraordinary gifts these two rather ordinary events would become.
The next morning, shortly after returning from his usual, brisk, morning walk, he was gone.
He was so alive one moment and so shockingly dead the next.
As we gathered to share our sorrow, surround Mom, and look after the many details of death, Fred and I kept checking our phones for messages of a birth. A few minutes before the noon hour, and less than three hours after Dad’s passing, we got a text with the picture of our fourth grandie – a beautiful, dark-haired baby girl. All was well. Sweet baby Mabel Ruth joined our Stonehouse farm clan. My sister thought she must be sprinkled in angel dust.
One heart really can hold a well of sadness and a bubbling spring of gladness.
Covid 19 restrictions impacted our final good-bye to Dad. The travel ban meant that our stateside sister could not be there; our numbers were limited to a couple handfuls. Not all of us could follow the funeral coach as it travelled slowly, taking Dad, for what my sister noted, was his last drive through his favourite hometown. It was one last time past his favourite place to buy cheese, a last time past the drug store where he had his little snooze while Mom and I shopped, a last time past the little diner where he liked to have his “bowle soup”, and one last time past the thrift store where he liked to check out the books and items of interest in the silent auction before settling into someone’s castoff couch or chair to “catch a few winks”. The procession continued on through the farmland that he always wanted to stay caught up on as to its planting and harvesting. Then we gathered under the pines to tuck Dad’s body away just a few miles due west from the farm where he was born.
Covid 19 restrictions impacted our first hello to Baby Mabel. Following those restrictions meant we couldn’t hold her, but bending those restrictions meant we could at least see her and peer at her from a distance, trying to determine who she looked like. She truly was, as some young family friends had said, “sweet as Mabel syrup”. And then, when she was four weeks old, I got a text from her daddy saying, “Mabel is open for business”. As I nestled her into my arms, we said a proper hello for the first time. Pure delight.
The beginning and the ending of life as we know it is shrouded in mystery. Both spaces are hallowed and sacred. Dad’s body, like a Spring seed devoid of life, was planted into the soil. We, like some hopeful gardeners, picked up handfuls of dirt to cover the seed. Seeds come from a long line of life and grow into something that, in the end, leaves a lasting legacy of even more seeds from its life. Baby Mabel, like all the Spring life bursting forth these days from seed and branch, is like a little sprout – filling out, blossoming, and sweet-smelling. She looks into your eyes, innocent and eager for conversation and ready with a smile – waking up to this wide world she’s been born into. We nurture her with the sun and gentle rains of our cuddles and love and will protect her innocence from the unrelenting winds of reality for a long, long while.
A brand-new life, fresh from the womb, birthed into our world. 88 years of a life snuffed out in a moment. My sister noted the juxtaposition of these two life events so close to each other. One has disembarked from life as we know it here, the other has just embarked. Fred likened it to the passing of the baton. My spiritual director reminded me of what the Celts call “thin spaces”, these spaces where the veil between what we know and see and what we don’t know and don’t see becomes almost (but not quite) transparent. April 20th was a day of thin spaces.
And so, as Spring lilacs and bleeding hearts give way to Summer roses and hollyhocks, I will gather it all – the missing of Dad and the cherishing of a baby girl – without making a whole lot of sense of it all. I will follow the wise words of my small, but mighty mother who says, “this is how it is, you want to accept it”. And I will trust that, as my spiritual director is convinced, Dad does know about the birth of his daughter’s fourth grandie.