In Daddy's Hands
The loose pebbles crunched beneath my tires as I came to a stop. My reflection in the visor mirror watched me as I gripped the steering wheel until my breath plumed in the frigid January air. I was haggard—my hair unkempt, my eyes ringed, my cheeks blotchy and red. The taste of salt was on my tongue; its presence felt like gravel with each press of my lips. I was already shivering and I hadn’t even cracked the door to let the winter in. As the red-orange of the sun reflected in my watery eyes from across the top of the mausoleum, a seventh year began setting in the distance. I slipped on my gloves, pulled my hood over my head, and buttoned my coat up tight against my chin. Winter and incision, be damned! I thought as my feet lighted the path to row six, column ten. Lightning coursed through my abdomen when I sat beneath the granite and read the inscription once again.
When, finally, I spoke, my voice came out as a mewl, “Daddy. . .”
My sobbing gained the upper hand.
“My baby. . .”
A new wave began. I had cried more in the past month than I had since he had been brought here when I was ten. I was sure that the tears would never stop welling from within. And for whatever reason, I had felt that I needed to share those tears with him. Maybe I had hoped he’d be my panacea, like he was before his end. But instead, my pain over his loss just renewed yet again. I held myself through violent tremors, cowered by grief and the essentially arctic wind. The cold molded my marrow into icicles beneath my skin. However much time had actually passed, I don’t know, but the day had darkened upon my despair.
Visiting Hours: Sunrise to Sunset, Every day.
The sign at the front entrance flashed in my head and I knew that my time there was at an end. By headlight, I navigated the winding trail through the lost and often forgotten. Shadows from the barren limbs played a malevolent game of charades—their silhouettes lurking across the arch angels and headstones cast out of marble.
Much to my dismay, cruel Fate jabbed her bony fingers into my side. . . in more ways than one. The first of which was the gate that I found locked before me at the path’s end; apparently closing time had already come. I paced in the headlights, having fumbled beneath my own shadow with the locked chain to no avail. I cried shamelessly, audibly. My mentality was wrought; I became convinced that my wails would wake the dead.
“This is my punishment! Yet again! First, my baby, taken! Now, sentenced to a night trapped here among the dead!”
I don’t know who I spoke those words to; my resentment towards God was unequivocally undead. Through Him, I had developed the Cynic in my head, saying “God can’t exist. What God would pull your Dad from a coma just in time to see you baptized only to have him die the next day?” But for whoever may have been out there, I shouted to the stars over my head. I knew I had wronged Fate’s plan two years before. I had discarded a gift, so Fate was determined to even the score.
Even worse than the Cynic was the Critic that I stored in the recesses of my mind. The Critic berated me, “This is what you deserve! Your life is one big curse. Your Dad died of cancer at the age of thirty-nine, you’re the reason that happened. All who you love will be taken in due time.”
I became convinced that Fate couldn’t be satiated by tit-for-tat; that my punishment wasn’t over; that Fate lingered at my back.
“Fate believes in revenge like God believes in plagues,” said the Critic.
Where are the locusts? Will they rise up from these graves? Or maybe my beloved frogs will be what plagues me? That seems more like Fate’s taste in irony.
My eyes darted, scanning the ground before every headstone, searching the darkness beyond my sight. I was convinced that with the next glance I would be proven right.
“He bore you into this world on Friday the thirteenth to make your misery his game. This is only the beginning, I mean, just consider your name.”
Mar: (verb) impair the quality of; spoil.
Silencing the Critic and the Cynic with the notice of the flash, I saw blue beacons of a police car outside the fence across from the county line liquor store. My pulse raced seeing assistance.
So close, yet so far.
I honked my horn and flashed my headlights, becoming increasingly desperate once I had help within sight. Next came the fear.
FOMO: The fear of missing out.
I chastised myself.
What a stupid thought to have right now.
Fate’s second bony nagging was felt more physically this time. All else unsuccessful, I decided that I’d be forced to climb; even with an incision, I told my stomach to hold tight. I backed out of the driveway and pulled my Bronco off to the side. I jotted a note begging the staff not to tow my ride, before returning to the gate to plot my course to the other side.
The wrought iron gate raised in the middle and lowered on each end. At the driveway’s edge, it connected to brick columns. Four feet had never towered so high, or maybe my stature had never hunkered so low. Whatever the case, the task proved more difficult than any childhood tree that I had ever known. My legs wouldn’t lift and my stomach muscles refused to pull. I wedged my shoulder between two bars, flung my leg up with my every ounce of might, caught the column with my foot, and propelled myself upward with my spite. Finally, over the top with a tumble, landing with a stumble, nearly caving with pain, I regained my composure. Well, at least all of the composure that I could attain.
Three hundred yards in the distance, my objective remained. I put one foot in front of the other over the uneven terrain. I approached the officer—hobbling, groveling, telling my name, recounting my story, battling the pain. He cranked up his heater and sat me in back. He kindly called my Mother and reality snapped back. Gone was the surreal episode, or at least, I could feel it ebbing in wane. Though, time and space still blurred a bit with every flash of headlight and with every blue beacon that coated the night. But before I even knew it, my haunting experience was over and I gladly crawled into bed. Fitfully, I dreamed of Dad.
Come morning, these words spouted out of me as I put pencil to tear-spattered pad:
Dad, I saw you last night
You came here
In my home
In my dreams
You brought me memories
And happiness brought me tears
You held my babies
And comforted away my fears
They were so little
In the palm of your hands
Capable of existing
But unable to understand
Thank you, Daddy
For protecting my seeds
Keeping them close
And comforting me
Thank you for holding me
And letting me cry
Seven years longing for your embrace
And it’s no less difficult to say “Goodbye.”
Writing swaddled me in comfort, even if I was drowning in pain. All life is forwarding-moving, but love lingers all the same. As does regret, because memory remains—memory of loved ones taken in vain.
Each day the Cynic becomes less cynical, but the Critic has grown stronger with age. Daily it’s a battle to sound proof his cage. I never could eradicate him from the pathways of my mind. The best attempt that I’ve made is to smother him amid my pathways intertwined. He may not have mass, but to me he is a physical entity. He has a circumference; He possess solidity.
He steadily speaks out, “You are to blame. You are a terrible person. Just consider your name. You aren’t worth a damn, no matter how hard you try. You’ll be just like your Mother—selfish, shameful, and incredulous—every day until you die.”
“Shut up, Critic! Dammit, I’m not listening to you!”
The days that I can say this are the good days, but I’m afraid they are far too few.
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