In Dad’s final days, he told us all the stories of his life – – so many stories! He and his friends weren’t orchid guys – – they were white sport coat with pink carnation guys.
Money mattered, and they didn’t have much.
He and his cousin Porky sold crawfish – and a few snakes – to support their love life. back in the days when corsages cost $2.50 to $2.95. That’s what swamp folks did, and Dad grew up in Waycross, Georgia – home of the Okefenokee Swamp.
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:
This month, I’m sharing some of Dad’s conversations in his final days, and in one of them that you can hear at the bottom of this post, he revealed a surprising thought about how we feel about folks from time to time. His revelation reminded me of a poem that I wrote recently for a small group of women in one of my writing circles.
My Stafford Challenge group meets the first Monday of each month by Zoom to chat and write together, and we’re a group of women who enjoy reading as much as writing. I’ve been writing a form each month called Gift Basket writing, where I choose three things I’d give a person in a gift basket for that month. This one is dedicated especially to my Stafford Writing Group sisters – Barb Edler of Iowa, Glenda Funk of Idaho, and Denise Krebs of California. At the time I wrote this, I’d recently stumbled across a book club I’d love to join, even for the name alone, and there is actually a summer camp in Maine for its readers – this is a real thing. My dream summer is going to this book club’s summer camp, and I’ve added it to the bucket list.
Bad Bitch Book Club
if I were giving you
a gift basket
I’d make it a
Bad Bitch gift basket
to welcome the storms
of the world~
you’d receive
a t-shirt that says
BAD BITCH BOOK CLUB
complete with
a membership to
the Bad Bitch Book Club
(yes ~ it’s a real thing
with its own dot com)
and a mirror
so you’ll always
see the
baddest of the kick-ass bad
right in the palm of your hand~
knowing your Bad Bitch sisters
have your back!
It’s okay to have a BB attitude sometimes……even my preacher Dad in his final days confessed that there are times we are all a little bit badass. You can listen here:
This month, I’m sharing conversations that my brother and I had with our father in his final days of life on this side of Heaven. In this conversation, he was yearning to go back home – a place where he never, unfortunately, was able to return. My brother and I spent long weeks at his bedside, and each day we had conversations and learned of things he needed us to do before his time came. We were blessed to be able to help him accomplish some of those things. Like yesterday, I chose a diminishing form and used Dad’s exact words for today’s poem. This is a nonet form, and it creates the sense of urgency to live a day at a time…..and there are only so many.
Never Enough Time Nonet
there are so many variables
in this thing… who knows?….you just have
to go with the flow, one day
at a time ~ that’s the way
you have to live your
life, Dad urges
(we agree ~
to a
point)*
*My brother and I loved our father, but one frustration we shared was that despite our foresight we’d shared on getting some affairs (and his house and collections of books and other things) in order, he waited until the last minute, leaving many tasks undone and relying on us to do things for him in those final days. While I do believe in going with the flow and allowing the good Lord to open doors, I’m not an exclusive member of the serendipitous steering currents of the spirit club – words he used often. I’ve also learned that he who dies with the most toys does not win. I believe in planning ahead. Despite all that we wish he had done differently, we are still learning from our dad – most of it is what to do, yet much is what not to do.
This month, I’m sharing some of Dad’s final conversations with us in the last days of his life. In this one, he urges us to live to the fullest and to make every minute count as he did a lot of hospital waiting. I chose the etheree form for this poem, created with his exact words, since the etheree form (ten lines with each numbered line having that many syllables in it) visually shows the diminishing time and creates the sense of urgency to live.
Dad told the Secret to Happiness story best and referenced it often in his sermons. In the photo below, the fairy fable from Leo Buscaglia’s Loving Each Other is one he took to heart. He was always meeting the needs of others, always illustrating lessons through stories. This month, I’m sharing some of the audio clips I recorded as my brother and I talked with him in his final days. His words live on.
secrets lie within
the pages of obscure books
read widely: you’ll see
Dad gave me this book for Christmas one year – I always got a box of recommended reading, sometimes with exact references – as Loving Each Other by Leo Buscaglia had in the side note.
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life
Common Threads 