Ghosts, Thin Smiles, and Lives Well Lived
My father passed away a little more than four years ago. But he’s always with me, pushing me on. He was a bit annoying that way.
He passed away in our home, in the same bedroom where my mother slipped away forever a little more than two years before.
It was a Sunday, and while I don’t know for a fact, I think it was between 3 and 3:30 a.m. That’s because my wife, Colleen, and I both awoke around then, feeling that something was wrong. Only half awake, we both looked at the clock, curled up together, and fell back asleep.
I found Dad at 6 in the morning, when I went to see if he wanted breakfast.
I think it was around 3 a.m. because every day since that day, I have awakened between 3 and 3:30 in the morning, thinking of him. It’s become a familiar routine, something I no longer dread or shed a tear over. (The funny thing is, I only awake at that time while at home. If I’m somewhere else, I sleep through the night.)
Our daughter Mandy, her husband, Jake, and their little family came for a visit a while back and stayed in one of our guest rooms.
We let them have the Pirate Room (because any good household needs a Pirate Room).
That night, Colleen and I closed our bedroom door. We usually leave it open, but our sleeping attire might be shocking to children and grandchildren, so we closed it. Shortly after 3 a.m. I opened my eyes and thought I saw the bedroom door closing, but I ignored it and went back to sleep.
Later that day, Mandy asked if I had opened their bedroom door during the night. I said no and asked her what time it was.
She said “around 3:15.” I said, “it was just Grandpa.”
I think it was.
When Colleen and I got married, I warned her fairly early in our marriage that if she liked to walk around naked after a shower, it might be a good idea to lock the doors, because my dad would just walk in. He always did, and was welcome.
Before he passed, my father loved when family came to visit. He would sit on the couch and bend their ear, asking them how they were doing, how their lives were going.
When they told him of their successes and challenges, he would smile a thin smile (which was pretty much his only smile).
One night, after my adult children headed for their homes, I asked him why he was smiling. He said he enjoyed hearing how well his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were doing. It made everything worthwhile.
I find myself in complete agreement, and often smiling his same thin smile.
A year or so before the last day I ever hugged my father, he looked at me and said he wanted ducks. My response was, “please, no, not ducks,” because I am a rational and sane individual. He convinced Colleen because she is not nearly as rational as I am, and we ended up with ducks.
The only satisfaction came a year later, when he said “we need to find a home for these ducks.”
Then I smiled a thin smile. After my parents passed away (first my mother to Alzheimer’s, then my father to heart disease), in the same room, separated only by a couple of feet and a couple of years, I changed, for both good and ill, and I accept it for what it is.
For a few months we weren’t sure what to do with their bedroom. We just closed the door and avoided it altogether. I finally decided to turn it into my office, but I wasn’t sure I could ever work there.
But I found that I could. I feel their presence with me when I stare at a blank screen, trying to find my words. “Chase after them.”
I almost hear their whisper. I can work in the room where my parents died not because they died there, but because they lived there.
My house isn’t haunted. It’s blessed.
And for that, I have reason to smile a thin smile.