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

Make it Beautiful

 The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing

 Isaiah 51:3

The dream felt real to me. The garden grew up around us, scarlet rhododendrons and sunshine yellow daffodils pushing their way through the cracks in the pavement beneath our feet. I breathed in the flowery fragrances of the blooms, marveling at the spring-like abundance so late in the autumn. 

I felt a light touch on my arm and smiled at my husband. His image was wavy, translucent. "You did this," he said and waved his hand at the abundance around us. His silver wedding ring--nestled in my jewelry box for the last 15 months--gleamed in the sun.

"I'm no gardener," I said and shook my head. "Everyone knows I make plants die."

Ron smiled gently. "Yes, you are. You've made beauty for me, for the kids, for your students, for your readers. You've taken what was hard and painful and made something beautiful from it." He stamped a strong foot onto the pavement. "You've done what very few people could do."

I took a deep breath. "I did what I had to do."

Ron took my hand. His hair, fully gray the last time I saw him in his casket, was the blue-black of his twenties. "That's just it. You didn't have to." His voice became a gentle whisper. "I know how awful it was, how exhausting."

"For both of us," I said. I noticed that his form was beginning to fade, the lovely blossoms of my garden clearly visible through his frame. "Stay," I said softly.

"I can't," he said. "If I was here," and he turned his head, taking in the abundance around us, "none of this would have happened. I just wanted to tell you, well, I knew you'd be okay. When I had to leave, I knew you'd make a new and wonderful life for yourself. I knew you'd help the kids to move on." He plucked a single pink rose from a bush thar had sprung up next to him. No thorn pricked his hand. He held it beneath his nose for a moment, his clear lungs breathing in the fragrance. "It's your turn now," he said and handed the rose to me.

I took it and touched its velvety petals. "It's lovely," I said.

"Just as your life will be," Ron said. "Your long life. You have lots to do." He blew a kiss towards me. "I'm so proud of you." He melted into the garden.

And I held onto the rose, breathing in the heady fragrance of my husband's love. 

Story of a Chair

 There are hot tears running down my cheeks when I wake up a full hour before my alarm is set to go off. I lay quietly for a moment, assessing my feelings: I am unsettled and sorrowful. The last few days have brought many reasons for unrest into my soul; there have been shootings, racial unrest, and lootings near the city high school where I teach. But this feels more private, a personal grief. I fling my arm across to my husband's side of the bed and grab his pillow, bringing it close.

The pillow no longer has Ron's scent. I burrow my face into it, will my heart to continue beating, and the reason for my early morning sadness becomes clear.

The chair.

Last night, my son and I heaved and shoved and pushed my husband's heavy lift chair out to the porch, down the steps, and onto the front lawn where our town's heavy trash truck will pick it up in the morning. Weighing 168 pounds, it was not an easy feat. I clutch Ron's pillow to my chest and remind myself it was equally hard to bring it in.

I'd been looking for a lift chair for my disabled husband for months, but the price tag always made me shudder. The week before Ron's 68th birthday, I saw an ad on Facebook Marketplace: "Lift chair, maroon, good condition, $200." I called the number and arranged to drive down to Kennet Square on Saturday to look at it. My son and I left the house early, telling Ron's hospice nurse we'd be back by noon.

The chair was ugly, but serviceable. We lashed it onto the back of my Nissan with bungee cords and I eased back up Route 1 with my flashers on while Allen kept an eagle eye on the chair. Once home, my strong son managed to push the chair up the hill in front of our house, bully it up the steps, and squeeze it through the doorway. We put it by the fireplace, in perfect line with the television, and made a sign for the seat: Happy Birthday!

I'd wanted the chair to soothe the physical problems of Ron's hurt body; I still had hope that he'd improve. I envisioned the possibility of a future for us, the trip to Hawaii we wanted to take, golden years spent together. 

The first week we had the chair,  Ron pulled on the remote too hard and snapped the wires; I ordered a new one on Amazon. The second week, Ron pushed his weight against the arm and it pulled away from the frame of the chair; Allen turned the chair on its side and hammered the arm in place. The third week, Ron fell against the foot rest and bent the frame; Allen used a hammer to straighten it out. The fourth week, Ron ripped the pocket on the side; I took a tapestry needle and carpet thread and sewed it back. The fifth week, the electrical cord shorted out: Allen went to the hardware store and bought a new one.

By the sixth week, we had no need of a lift chair.

As faint morning light begins to lighten my bedroom, I wrap my arms around Ron's pillow and hug it. There is a light tap at my door. "Mom?" says Allen. "Are you awake?"

"Yes," I say, sitting up in bed. "Come in."

Allen's 6 foot 6 inch frame fills the doorway. 

"Couldn't sleep?" I ask.

"Thinking."

"Me, too." I pat the space on the bed next to me and he sits down, leaning his head against my shoulder. Allen's life on the autism spectrum made accepting his father's death particularly difficult. 

"I know it was time to get rid of Dad's chair," he says. "No one but the cat sat in it now. And I know it made you sad to see it everyday. But it feels like there's a...hole, you know?" He puts his hand on his heart. "Like an empty space." 

I nod. "But it won't always be empty. We'll fill it with new memories and put Dad into them."

He sighs. We sit there, our heads bowed together, and we hear the rumble of the trash truck as it pulls up to our house and squeals to a stop. Allen makes a move to rise; I put a hand on his knee and he slumps back onto the bed.

        "We need to let it go," I whisper and he nods. There are voices, faint and low, drifting across the front         lawn.  Truck doors slam. We hear the rev of the engine as the truck moves away from the  house.

        Allen rises and looks out my bedroom window. "It's gone," he says. "Dad's chair is gone." I join him         at the window, and for a few more moments we gaze out at the empty front yard. Our arms around             each other, we cry.