Heavy Like A Cloud

We woke up to sunny skies this morning.  The Autumn sunrise hung deep on the horizon as I drove my boy to school and I, too short to be helped by the visor, squinted my way around corners and curves, nearly cursing the light but stopping just short of it because something inside me honors it far too reverently to fling expletives carelessly at it.  Even in its harshest glare we treasure it, for darkness cannot exist where it is near and in its illumination, all of life somehow takes on a lightness that defies gravity itself.  It is the lightness of a new day, with the renewed hope and grace--of morning,  that takes the heaviness out of our step.  The same big, clumsy, burdened feet that just last night carried us to our bed of slumber, in the brightness of morning somehow bear the weight of merely our own souls by the time we trudge our way from the bedroom to the front door.  There is nothing lighter than a soul, although we sometimes swear the loads we carry inside us are like anvils, tied to our backs; or better yet, like a  dark ominous thunder cloud, deep inside of us, full to the point of wringing itself out, threatening to drench us with its oppressive  torrential downpour.

I have spent the last few days at the bedside of my father.  He who was the second to greet me into this world, who was there for all the most memorable days of my life, who graced me with his unconditional love and acceptance has lain in peacefully resting while we, the family he created, lingered close by.  We took turns about him, holding his hand, speaking our own peace to him, our lips to his ear, waiting anxiously for his labored responses, for even in his last breaths we want him to remind us of his love for us.  

My dad has lived an amazing life.  He spent many a long hot day bobbing around the lake on his boat, the hot summer sun scorching his ears and neck, making his nose peel from the burn.  In his old age, he suffered the effects of it.  His ears are now deformed from so many surgeries to remove skin cancers.  Part of the nose I used to know is no longer there, and the lips that kissed my infant forehead have also lost substance to the relentless scorching of the sun.  Still, I look at him and see my father, weathered and worn, he remains the defining figure in the epoch of my childhood.  Outwardly so much has changed about both he and I; our bodies in their own ways, have already lost some battles.  But even in these final days when I sit by his side, I long to lay my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat, just as when I was a small girl marveling at the greatness that lived inside him.  I long to hear that voice coming from deep in his belly, to feel the comfort of his arms around me--to have his assurance, just one more time, that everything in the whole world will be okay.  

Troubles multiply, just like droplets inside a cloud.  They all cluster together inside my mind and overwhelm my thoughts with "what if" and "maybe".  I find myself trying to predict what will happen next so I can be prepared, but life isn't like a weather report, and there are some things for which umbrellas are not made.  You can never expect the grief that falls upon you when you look the very source of your own being in the eye and know that soon, he will be removed from the place he's always occupied in your life.  

Cars break down and children struggle with school work.  Babies are busy forming fingers and toes and little noses, while mommies work too hard and daddies lose track of priorities.  Some kid a few towns over figures life isn't worth the trouble--at least, other people's live aren't, and decides to end them before anyone else gets a say in his plan.  A father lingers close to death, while a Mommy and Daddy follow a tiny casket down the aisle of a church; their little hero ripped from their lives far too soon.  A hurricane teases at the coastline chasing people from their homes, its darkness consuming the day around it.  People stand to lose all they own in this world.  None of it seems fair.

This evening as I was driving home from visiting my father there was a noticeable lack of sunlight. The sun should have been there, hanging low and Westerly, just above the hills peeking through the treetops.  Instead, a singularly dark cloud hung heavy over its light.  It spared me from my squinting and swearing, but it reminded me too, that trouble often awaits over the next hilltop.  Its heaviness made my feet drag as I made my way inside the house.  

I came inside, found my way to this spot on my couch that always welcomes me home, and sank into it with all the weight of grief and uncertainty resting deep in my own belly.  My head, heavy from all the thinking, looked for a soft place to land.  

And then, before my hand could reach for the remote, a tiny sliver of sunlight shot its beam from low in the sky, right through a tiny void where the curtain should meet the wall.  With it shining thus, I could see the color of my own lashes, mascara long washed away from the tears of that cloud inside my head.  Red lashes, just like my dad's.  

I sat without moving, letting the sun slide lower through the crack until finally, it was gone.  Nothing but the orange glow of sunset remains now, giving ambience to my living room.  We all sometimes need a comforting place to land, where the light can find us and where it can linger just long enough to make our hearts glow with hope again.

Even though the darkest cloud you've ever seen might be hanging heavy over your head; I hope you too can find your safe, comfortable place.  I pray the light will reach you, remind you that even what you have lost will never completely be gone as long as you are here to carry on.  Every life that we have cherished perseveres, in the blink of eyelashes or in the lilt of a laugh, that soul you loved lives on in you.  Let that eternal flame of love and remembrance become the light that lifts the darkness from your soul.  Let it make your feet lighter.  Let it glow through you like the sinking evening sunset through a West-facing window.  

Heavy clouds will come and go.  The Light will always remain.