Even though the days leading up to Dad’s death had some tears along the way, the laughter and the honest moments discussing the fine arts of bodily business got us through what could have been much sadder times. My brother and I found such humor in Dad’s way of putting things. He was a man of words, often high-brow words that no one else in the room knew, but every now and then he’d throw out a zinger of a word that left no question about its meaning yet still raised an eyebrow because it was so unexpected. The Reverend Dr. Wilson Felix Haynes, Jr., our dad, was a man who could talk backwoods Georgia slang and discuss the finer points of art by Michelangelo with layered meanings in scripture in the same 5 minute conversation, in which we also discussed the value of TIME.
Today, I share an acrostic poem inspired by the recorded conversation above.
In Dad’s final days, he shared words about his love of our mother with us. We are grateful to have had parents who loved each other their whole lives. In this conversation and in the audio clips we share today, we find great peace. Dad knew where he was going, and he knew he would be with her when he arrived. We’re confident today that he is there and that they have been reunited. In our grief, this brings us the greatest joy!
In Dad’s final days, we gathered audio clips to preserve his stories, prayers, and words of wisdom. In today’s clip, he shares about one of his favorite topics – The Springs of Elim – and how they worked in his own life.
Today for the second day of the July Open Write, Jennifer Jowett of Michigan and Deborah Wiles of Georgia are our hosts. They inspire us to write I Once Knew poems, using a process they describe at this link. Hop over and read some of the poems that will be eclectic and unexpected. This is one such random poem process that is, what I believe, makes poetry shine and sparkle.
Today’s host for the first day of the July Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Jennifer Jowett of Michigan. You can read her full prompt here, inspiring writers to compose a poem of Memory Threads – – a way to breathe in healing through fabric of story and connection.
This month, I’ve been capturing Dad’s final words and stories in audio clips and poems as he inched closer and closer to Heaven, one foot in this world and one in the next. It’s as if Jennifer’s prompt was written just for me. That’s the thing about poetry ~ it meets you exactly where you are and invites you into the vast realm of each moment, scattering the light and blanketing the dark and swimming fully immersed in the shadows. For me, there is no greater healing than what is found in prayer and verse. I’m convinced it’s why the Bible itself – the Holy Scripture – is written in verse. Because it casts light on all truth and heals souls right where they are, and it invites personal response.
I hope you will visit the link above today and read some of the poems and, perhaps, write your own. Even if you don’t share it with anyone, my wish for you is the peace of writing and the healing of expression. Forget perfection. Forget whether it’s good or not, whether it’s right or wrong. There are no rules.
I don’t have an audio clip for today, but one of the stories I like best that Dad told was about his days in Port Royal, Kentucky when he was the pastor of Port Royal Baptist Church. We moved there a few weeks after I was born in Waycross, Georgia so that Dad could attend Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and we lived in the tiny pastorium right next door to the church, where in the wintertime the icicles hanging from the roof were as tall as a full-grown adult.
I have some vivid memories from about the time I was 3 or 4 and distinctly remember the floor plan of the house. I remember a Sunday School class at the top of the stairs in the church, and it had a pegboard outside the door where I’d hang my tiny pocketbook. It snowed practically to the roof, and we only had a wood burning stove for heat in those days. I would love to go back to visit sometime.
Dad kept urging me to take a road trip with him to see Wendell Berry – THE Wendell Berry – and I never could seem to take the time off from work to go. I regret that now. Dad shared the stories of the simplicity of the life there in Port Royal where Berry lives and writes.
I like to think that somewhere along the way as an infant or toddler, I breathed a little of Wendell Berry’s poetic breath – that maybe somewhere along the way, I picked up a poetic skin cell somewhere and it multiplied straight to my heart and nurtured my lifelong love of poetry. Just one tiny cell could have done a thing like that, in my mind – inspired a love of words that remains with me today.
Oh, how I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall as these two shared in the joy of conversation and their love of writing and life. One thing is for sure: I will pick up the Port William series of books that Dad had always urged me to read, where the place was as strong a character as the eclectic people. The inspiration for the town was, of course, Port Royal. And somewhere in that series, maybe there is a little tiny glimpse of someone I might recognize.
Dad shared stories in his final days – time he spent with Henry Aaron, his father’s time with Shoeless Joe Jackson and the baseballs we must keep….our weird family, and what to do with the Roseville china, sponsoring love life through crawfish, and selling Cottonmouths for twelve bucks…….all these things that express the flavor and quirkiness of our family. I’m glad we captured these stories on audio so that we can revisit them as we go through the process of grieving our loss of Dad. These moments of the most random conversations filled with memories are priceless to me, no matter how scattered they may seem to others. I’ve used the chain Haiku form here in the poem I’m sharing today, using Dad’s exact words in these lines.
In Dad’s final days of life, he shares some life lessons that we all must anticipate. Some we need to rethink. Dad’s bottom line: we are not going to get out of this world alive. I’m glad my brother and I were able to spend those days by Dad’s bedside engaging in conversations with him as the final curtain closed on his life this side of Heaven. We took away some stark realities and a few laughs each day, and we preserved them so that we can relive them long into the future ~ especially as we go through the process of grieving this immense loss. I share Dad’s simple thought for today in a haiku.
Dad shares words of wisdom in his final days of life, and my brother and I captured many of his stories by audio recording so that we could return to the nuggets of wisdom again and again as we work through the grief process. Today’s poem is an acrostic, where each beginning letter of each line spells the word PEACE vertically – – the pursuit of peace is where he was in these final days, and he shares more about this in today’s clip, which you can hear below:
Common Threads 