Missing the Man we lost on Fathers Day.

Some people that come into our lives with a character that is so big their life follows you around long after they are gone. My father in law was one of those people; I shouldn’t say was, because he is still with me. Many of the memories of him are of him lumbering across the front yard at the cabin. The beautiful summer home set back from the waters of Duck Lake in northern Minnesota. I remember the first weekend my husband brought me to the cabin, the one bathroom, sleep where you can find a spot piece of heaven on earth. The place where family gathered, played games, roasted marshmallows and caught fish.  The lake where the kids learned to water ski and how to build a good campfire, the place where the adult beverages could be creative. The place where my father in law found the project of the week. Where he taught my step son to turn a boat house into a guest cabin. Where he taught our nieces and nephews how to fish and my sister in laws and I how put new shingles on the cabin.

When we went to the cabin, we took turns cooking meals, telling stories and sometimes had contests of who could go the longest without showering. We were delightfully isolated. Cell phones didn’t work, we would drive to the top of the hill if we desperately needed to make a call, and typically we didn’t. After a few years my in-laws built on a big addition, we celebrated a cold Christmas there. Friends and extended family visited.  
Memorial Day weekend welcomed the entire family. Our kids would not so patiently await the temp reaching 70 degrees that is when grandma gave them the go-ahead to jump in the freezing lake, sometimes the ice would have been off for a few short weeks. When you go knee deep in a project my father in law would listen intently, wait for other responses, then say, “I am not going to tell you what to do, but if it was me…” We laugh now of his passive aggressive way of giving advice. We learned to wait for it, anticipating his answer. Dave passed away 11 years ago on fathers day. We all miss him. We miss his infectious smile, his playful banter with the grand kids, but mostly we miss him NOT telling us what to do. Happy Fathers day Dave!

The Table No One Wants to Sit At

It is the table no one ever wants to sit at. This table is a large wooden piece, so Iarge one has to wonder how they even got it in this room. There are 6 of us at the table; it could easily accommodate 8, off to the side 5 others sit, there for support but not to interfere. They are our spouses, the four brother-in-law’s and my sister-in-law. One person missing from the big table, his body is on another table in another part of the huge old house, now a mortuary. The missing person is my dad. He passed this morning and we are sitting at the table no one ever wants to sit at, except maybe the undertaker.

It is obvious many tears are shed at this table, the Kleenex boxes are abundant. The conversation is stoic, led by the man at the head of the table. I look at my mother sitting next to this man and see emptiness, she has lost her soul mate and now she must prepare to bury him.

My sister offers to write the obituary, she is a Teacher by trade, she wants it to be perfect, Charlene reports, “This is the last thing I will do for my dad”.

My older sister says, “There has to be music, lots of music!” My younger sister sobs quietly; she is not capable of sharing right now. This morning her hero took his last breath.

The undertaker leaves after we makes suggestions, says he will be back in a few minutes with the ideas we have shared written up. What we don’t know is that he is preparing an invoice of sorts. This is what it will cost to have the service you want to honor your dad, to lay him in his final resting place.

When he returns he hands out the paperwork. I look at it thinking, really, what am I supposed to do with this. Do we have to think about what this will cost? No one thinks about that until they have to prepare for a funeral.

My brother, the only boy in the family carefully folds up the paper, puts it in his breast pocket, pushes away from the large table and says as he stands, “Thank you very much, we are just getting prices today. We will get back to you soon.”

The intense sadness is replaced with raucous laughter, the tension is cut and we are all reminded with what our dad left us, the ability to laugh. We are filled with gratitude at the table no one ever wants to sit at. 

Side note: This writing came from a prompt to write about a table, many things happen around the table in life, eating, laughing, storytelling, memories are made at tables around the world. This large table came to my head as one of the most difficult moments in life. And no, we were not just getting prices that day.