The Best Part

They say there's a place where dreams have all gone
They never said where, but I think I know
Its miles through the night just over the dawn
On the road that will take me home

 " I talked to Dennis for about an hour last night," my daughter says, "and we both agreed that often, Dad was the voice of reason."

    I smile from the passenger seat of her red Civic. When the various illnesses that plagued my husband rose to the surface, he could be anything BUT reasonable, but this is something I shielded my children from for two decades. I wanted them to see their father for his heart.

"It wasn't so much that he would say anything, " Bonnie continues, "it was just that he was there. Listening to us. Solid. Big. Like he had all the time in the world just to listen." She sighs. "I'd walk  in the house and he'd say, 'There she is! There's my girl and her beautiful smile!' and it was like nothing else mattered. Everything would be okay. You know?"

I know. While I have not missed the various nursing duties or the back breaking labor that fell on my shoulders during Ron's last years, I have everyday missed his solid presence. I miss coming home from school each day and telling him about my high school students and their struggles to learn English, the interesting characters I see on my train ride, or the latest idea I have for a story.

"The boys and I realize," she says as she makes a right turn into the drive, "that he wasn't always that calm. That when we were there it was different than when it was just you. We know there was a lot of..." she searches for a word,"...disquiet."

And when I pass by, don't lead me astray don't try and stop me, don't stand in my way
I'm bound for the hills where the cool waters flow
On the road that will take me home

I nod as we drive up the gentle slope of Lawncroft Cemetery. The bells of the carillon--a sound my husband loved--are playing.  I think back to a conversation I had with my oldest son, Dennis, years ago when Ron was in a crisis center.

"We all know," he said, "that you often throw yourself on the live grenade that is Dad to protect us. You let us still have, well, Dad."

It had been a conscious decision I'd made early on when bipolar disorder and manic episodes ruled our days. I told myself that while I could do little to keep the illness from affecting Ron, I could do my darnest to make sure it did not affect our children or their love for their father.

"Look!" says Bonnie and gestures to a family of deer standing deer a grove of trees. "How pretty!" The doe and three fawns stand motionless on the hillside while the bells of the carillon echo in the air.

I take a deep breath. Sometimes the ache is so deep and raw that I need a few moments to recover. My daughter understands. We watch the deer for a moment and listen to the fading music, then pull around the curve at the top of the hill. She stops her car next to the bent oak tree.

Love waits for me round the bend, leads me endlessly on
Surely sorrows shall find their end
And all our troubles will be gone

I reach into the back and gather up the poinsettias as Bonnie surveys the area. "It's quiet up here," she says. "Even though the highway is right over there. It's a good spot for Daddy. He liked to be near the action!"

Silently we walk towards Ron's final resting place. In the last sixteen months, the grass has grown over the burial mound. Bonnie stoops and brushes dried leaves and grass from her father's marker, tracing his name with her finger. Ronald A. Cobourn. 1951-2019. We remove the fall flowers from the holder and struggle with the poinsettias, arranging and rearranging until she is satisfied. We kneel there for a few moments, our memories thick. She takes my hand as we walk back to the car.

I know in my bones, I've been here before
The ground feels the same, tho the land's been torn
I've a long way to go, the stars tell me so
On this road that will take me home.

"I don't come here often," she says. "He's not really here."

"Just what Allen says," I reply, thinking of my youngest child whose autism made acceptance of his father's death difficult. "Allen says it's just Dad's old broken body that he doesn't need anymore."

"He's right," she says and she pops the locks on the car doors. We slide in. "Daddy's in heaven now. He's not sick anymore." She puts the key in the ignition and turns to me. "Thanks," she says quietly.

"For what?"

"For giving Dennis and Allen and me the best part of Daddy. For letting us have that part." She puts the car in gear and sighs. "We know it wasn't easy." She pulls away from the grave site and slowly drives down the hill.  

I touch my hand to my heart. "But I kept the best part, too," I say. 

Bonnie smiles and we exit the cemetery
as the bells begin to play again.

And I know what I've lost and all that I've won
When the road finally takes me home
I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home

Daddy's Little Girl

She was trying to be okay about it. Fine, she said, if Dad can't come to the rehearsal, it'll be okay. But I really, really hope he can make it on Saturday.

I really hoped so, too, but when you are dealing with regional chronic pain disorder, traumatic brain injury, and the after-effects of a years-ago car accident, the future cannot be predicted. The doctors call it the trifecta of ailments, all of which we have dealt with for fourteen years. It makes life chaotic and messy. In fact, just two days ago, her father was at the doctor's office with symptoms if a urinary tract infection. And just two weeks ago, he was flat on his back at Hahnemann Hospital for ketamine infusion in a last-ditch attempt to give him some relief from the pain disorder.

He'll be here if he can, I assured her. I just called home and he's resting.

She nodded, her mind occupied with other things on this last day before her wedding. At least my  brothers will be here, she said. And you.

And your wonderful fiance, I reminded her. The most important ingredient to any wedding. She smiled at his mention, an action that had happened very naturally over the last two years whenever she heard his name.  He was the one she had waited and prayed for. Now, on the eve of their wedding, I was
determined to let nothing mar her happiness.

Remember what your brothers told him, I reminded her. No take-backs.

Yes, she said, they are anxious to get rid of me. She was joking, of course. Her two brothers--one older, one younger--had thoroughly scrutinized the wonderful fiance and declared him acceptable husband material for their sister. They had each confided to me that they would do all they can to make her wedding day a happy one, even if their father was absent.

It's sweet that the boys will walk you down the aisle, I said. Months ago, she had realized that there was no way her father would be able to walk the length of the church with her on his arm. She had recruited her brothers to "tag team" her to the altar, where her father would--if he as able--be waiting to give her over in marriage.

Our family had somehow adjusted around the catastrophic accident that almost ended their father's life. The boys often played father to their sister, just as she and her older brother filled in as substitute parents for the younger boy when hospitalizations and long, long surgeries kept me away from home and sitting in the plastic chair of a hospital waiting room. It was, we often acknowledged, a different sort of family. And different, she would remind me, don't mean bad.

But it did mean absences sometimes and while her brother played the part at the rehearsal of giving her in marriage, I knew her heart longed for her father, her daddy. Not the one that shuffled and limped and got his words mixed up. Not the one that was in the hospital more often than not. Not the one that was missing that night, but the one that she had grown up with, the one that coached her softball league and taught her to ride a bike and took her to the Father-Daughter middle school dance.

She and I stayed in a hotel over night, counting on the younger brother to get Dad to the church on time. I called home as she showered. Okay? I asked my husband.

I'm coming, he said. I'm getting dressed now. I crossed my fingers and my toes and said a little prayer. I had laid out his wedding clothes the day before, pressed and neat.

She was in the bride room when he arrived, looking better than he had in days. I pinned a boutonniere onto his jacket and kissed his check. There were still faint traces of the man I had married 37 years ago and I squeezed his arm.

Wait until you see her, I said. She looks beautiful.

Just like her mother, he said. I blushed. His sons helped him to the front of the church where he sat in the first pew, waiting. I returned to check on the bride one last time. The prelude started and, on the arm of my oldest son, I made my own way down the aisle, sitting behind my husband and putting a hand on his shoulder. The bridesmaids came next, and I stood when she--the bride--came to the door on the arm of her younger brother. Slowly, carefully, he led her to the middle, where her older brother offered her his arm. With an effort, her father remained standing. I saw him tremble and prayed he would have the strength to do this.

They arrived at the front, my two oldest children, and the boy helped his father to his feet, then slipped into the pew next to his girlfriend. The bride stood with her hand in her father's left hand. In his right hand, he held onto the bridegroom, the man who would, from this day forward, care for the daughter.

Who gives this woman to be married to  this man? asked the minister and without hesitation--because he knew all along that this young man was the right one for his precious little girl--he said Her mother and I do.
Slowly, my hand guiding him, he joined me in the second pew. My brother, in the pew behind us, helped my husband sit down.

The wedding was, as weddings are supposed to be, perfect. I am certain things went wrong, but none of it mattered. All that mattered were the two at the front, exchanging vows and promising to be with each other through sickness and health. I held my husband's hand. We knew something about that promise. In a matter of minutes, our daughter became a wife. She beamed her brightest smile.

You did great, I said to my husband. Just great.

I'm going to dance with her, he said. I promised her I would.

I tried to dissuade him. How would he ever get up onto the platform with her to dance? But he remained determined. He would give her this gift. I resigned myself to it. I had lived with this stubborn man a long time. Perhaps his damaged brain would forget the promise.

After the wedding party entered the church hall, after the announcements had been made, after the bride and the groom shared their first dance as husband and wife, the bridesmaid whose husband was in charge of the music whispered to my husband. Do you want it played?

Yes, he said and nodded. Slowly, painfully, he rose from his seat and, assisted by a good friend, managed the steps to the platform. And there he took his daughter in his arms and danced in small steps to Butterfly Kisses. She, the happy bride, cried and buried her face into his shoulder.

She was dancing with her Daddy.