“And we learn even more,” sighed Sandy, “sometimes the hard way, from our personal mistakes.”
Sam nodded. “We give love and receive love. We must be grateful for the hardships as well as the blessings we encounter along the way. Both pull us closer to complete understanding and love. Our hardships pull us closer to God. So be grateful.”
“Am I failing?”
“No. We enjoy small successes and endure small failures along the way.” Sam paused to let her soak it in. “But in the big picture, it’s all a learning process. Above all, know that you are loved.”
A patch of dirt on the floor off to the side caught her eye. She smiled at the little drawing of a fish he had made with his finger. When she turned to face him, he had disappeared. Sandy rushed to the door and looked outside, but he was nowhere in sight.
She turned back and, with a heavy sigh, took stock of the warehouse and all she had accomplished. Somehow, it now looked less complete. The boxes were gone, but the dirt and cobwebs remained. “Okay, Daddy. This is for you,” she whispered. “It … it was … it is, a privilege to serve you. I’m grateful you entrusted this task to me.” She didn’t fully understand the words that came tumbling out of her mouth, nor was she convinced she was sincere.
Sandy reached for the wide broom leaning against a pillar and went to work. The cobwebs came down in tiny white swirls, spooling around the long broom handle as she reached and wiped as high as she could reach. She swept the dirt and debris into a score of small piles before scooping them, one by one, into an empty box. With a new-found energy, she cleaned as if the barn were her new home.
Two hours later, the floor was clean and most of the cobwebs gone, but Sam’s little fish remained intact. Dirty and tired, she walked to the front of the barn by the door and was about to turn off the lights when a memory of the day her father purchased the warehouse filled her mind. She and her dad walked through his building. She remembered being so proud of her daddy. The love she’d felt for him flooded over her, just as it had when Sam had been talking about the importance of love and understanding.
Another tsunami of emotion welled up inside when she recalled how her own little hand had fit snugly—warm and protected—inside his own, calloused and strong.
“Daddy.” The word brought with it a new round of tears, and she slowly dropped to the floor on her knees. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no idea what you were going through, how you were suffering.” She wiped her nose on one sleeve. “I was selfish. I ignored your problems and only focused on mine. I’m sorry, so very sorry. Please forgive me.”
The emptying of her regrets forever changed her heart from anger and frustration to understanding and love.
“I love you, Daddy,” were the last words she remembered saying before her sobs and shudders finally transitioned into sleep.
Thirty minutes later Sandy awoke with a jolt. Her heart raced as she sat up and looked at her watch. Had it all been a dream?
She slowly stood, brushing the dust off her jeans before walking toward the door. Once there, she turned and scanned the empty warehouse. “He was my dad,” she said with firm conviction. “I can do better.”
Five minutes later she was busy in the center of the floor with a mop and a bucket.
“I owe him more.”
Chapter 22
When Sandy didn’t return home for supper, Steve and the girls drove to the old pole barn. The sound of a blaring radio and singing greeted them as they stepped into the freshly cleaned barn. Steve turned toward Emiley and Sarah with his finger pressed against his smiling lips.
For the past few years, and especially the last several months, the love of his life had been angry and depressed. He hadn’t seen her dance with abandon since the early years of their marriage, and if she was cranking music and singing inside the barn, he wanted to savor the moment. He also wanted the kids to see their mother genuinely happy.
All three of them shook as they stifled their laughter at the unexpected, and yet delicious, surprise of seeing their wife and mother gyrating in a crazy mop-dance. When Sandy caught sight of them, she motioned them to join her. A few seconds later, Steve and the girls were on the floor embracing their wife and mother.
“Mom! What are you doing?” shouted a laughing Sarah. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Certainly not!” She shouted back, laughing with the same elation with which she danced.
“What’s gotten into you, Love?”
Sandy reached over and turned off the radio. “I’ve been so wrong, Steve. All these years,” she admitted. “I’ve been selfish. I focused on me and ignored the pain in my dad’s life. He was a good man. A much better man than I ever realized.”
The look of surprise was evident on Steve’s face, where a few tears of joy had found their way onto his cheek. He put both hands on his wife’s shoulders, kissed her on her forehead, and looked deeply into her eyes. “I can’t tell you how happy your change of heart makes me. Makes all of us!”
Sandy nodded. “I know now that during all the important moments of my life, my dad was there for me, Steve.”
Emiley cut in. “What do you mean, mom?”
Sandy reached out and pinched her daughter’s chin lightly. “Your grandfather was a busy man, honey, but not only did he make time to drive me to Vanguard practices, he patiently taught me to drive. He instilled music in me by giving me my first clarinet, and then my first oboe. I had forgotten so much—or I buried it under my contempt for him. Mom said he cried all the way home after he moved me into my college dorm.” She turned back to face her husband. “He cried, Steve. And he was the first one, besides you and me, to hold our children.”
She pulled all three closer to her. “My dad loved me unconditionally,” she continued, “but until today, until just minutes ago, my contempt for what I thought he’d become clouded my love for him. I lived my entire adult life in unfair judgment of a man who made a lot of mistakes, but a man who loved me despite my many failings and unfair treatment of him.”
Steve made a futile attempt to wipe away her happy tears with his fingertips and kissed her softly. Embarrassed as kids tend to be when parents show their affection for one another, Sarah and Emiley took a step back and stared at the floor. But their smiles never left their faces.
“We all can’t cry!” Sandy stammered through her laughter. Steve and the girls joined her and together they all shared a long laugh. Sandy sighed. “This was the most important summer of my life. I performed a final service for my dad. I cleaned up a mess that I know he was probably embarrassed to have left. He was simply too frail, too … confused … to do it himself.” She stepped back as if surveying her family. “It was my privilege to do this for him. Someday, somewhere, you may be called upon to perform a final service for someone you love.” She paused, placing both hands together on her chest. “It might even be for me. I hope you’ll do whatever that may be with a grateful heart. Learn from me and from my mistakes. Let me save you years of pain and frustration. I almost blew it. And if I had, I would have passed this privilege by, not understanding the importance of the opportunity.”
“What … happened, Sandy?” asked Steve.
“I think a miracle happened,” she replied in a softer, more serious tone. “I understand my dad now. My heart has opened to the truth about him. I learned no one did this to me. Rather, I was allowed this sacred opportunity to honor my dad and do for him what he couldn’t do for himself. God allowed this to happen so He could do a great work within me. Sam helped me understand all this.”
Steve bit his bottom lip as a small furrow crossed his brow. “Go on.”
“Sam helped me realize we’re all on this earth to serve one another,” she continued. “We receive personal blessings so we can be a blessing to others.”
Steve exhaled deeply. “So you think Sam brought about this change in you? That God allowed this?”
“Yes. I know it.”
“Love, I don’t think Sam, or God for that matter, had anything to do with this. They were never really here.”
She shook her head, refusing to allow Steve’s denial to make her argumentative. “God is here now, and always has been. As for Sam, you saw him, Steve.”
“I know you believe all this, but I think you’re just tired and overworked.” He pulled her close again. “Besides, it really doesn’t matter. You’ve finished the job, you see your dad in an entirely new light. It’s all over.”
“You’re wrong, Steve. It’s never over—but that’s beside the point,” she added. “Weeks ago when you rushed in from court, Sam was here.” She turned and pointed to the north wall a dozen feet to the right of the front door. “Right there. And when you and Tracey came to try to talk to me, he was here in the barn sitting in that same chair.”
He stared at the spot his wife indicated before returning his eyes to hers. “I’m sorry. I never saw him. Tracey says she didn’t either.”
Sandy raised her voice. “I didn’t imagine him. He was right there!”
Steve scratched the side of his face, stared back at the spot against the wall and went over to the empty chair. “Sandy … Love.” He looked at the line in the dust his finger had left weeks before but said nothing as he walked back to his family.
“I can’t remember the last time I was this happy. Steve.”
With one arm, he pulled her close again. “Come here, Love,” and with his other, he brought his girls close in a family hug.
After a few seconds Sandy pulled away. “Come on! Everyone grab a mop and let’s finish this together as a family. Emiley, there are two mop buckets over there.” With a wave of her right hand, Sandy indicated two empty metal pails against the east wall. “Steve, help her fill them.” Turning to her other daughter, she handed a mop to Sarah. “Let’s do this for my dad … for your grandfather!”
With that, Sandy turned up the radio and together, the Richards family, out of a newfound love and respect for their dad and grandfather, finished cleaning up the superficial debris of his life.
Chapter 23
Sandy’s eyes snapped open in her dark bedroom. The clock on the nightstand read 3:16 a.m. She tried to go back to sleep, but thoughts of her father kept her tossing and turning. Finally, at 4:40 a.m., she slipped quietly out of bed, collected the jeans and Vanguard t-shirt she had shed the night before, dressed in the living room, grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter, and headed into the garage.
Thirty minutes later she turned into the driveway leading to the Oakwood National Cemetery. Were the gates locked? She glanced nervously at her watch as second thoughts began creeping into her head. What time did they open? She sighed as she pulled her minivan up, nose to nose with the black wrought iron gate. Desperate times call for desperate measures. She turned off the engine, took a deep gulp of air, opened the door, and stepped outside. She walked slowly along the fence looking for the easiest place to climb. Within a few minutes she was back where she started.
“May I help you?” boomed a male voice from the other side of the gate. A split second later a bright beam of a flashlight exploded in her eyes, temporarily blinding her.
Sandy covered her face with her right hand. “I need to talk to my father.”
“Your father?” he replied with more than a bit of skepticism. “It’s five-fifteen. The gates don’t open until seven.”
“Don’t you have the key?” she asked.
“Of course I have the key.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that the cemetery opens at …”
“I know,” she interrupted. “You told me.” She motioned with her hand toward the rows of white headstones standing at attention in long straight rows. “I promise I won’t wake anyone.”
“Yeah, that’s funny lady,” shot back the guard. “I could get fired. And that’s no joke.”
She grinned. “Not unless someone tells. And I would be trespassing. So who would say anything?”
“Mrs. Richards, is that you?” The man’s voice changed from authoritative to curious.
“You have me at a disadvantage. I can’t see,” she replied. “Do I know you?”
“Sure. It’s John Craft.” The guard turned the flashlight on himself and shined the light under his fleshy chin toward his face. “My son Robbie was your student. His band Arminius is on tour in Europe. You were always his favorite teacher.” Lifting a large key from the silver ring attached to his belt, he inserted it into the cemetery lock and the big gate swung open with a metallic groan. “Come in,” he whispered. “But hurry and be quiet.”
“Thank you, John.” Sandy entered quickly and smiled at the man in the security uniform. “This means a lot to me.”
“Aww, Mrs. Richards, if it wasn’t for you, my son might be a cemetery guard like his old man,” replied Craft. “You inspired Robbie to believe in himself, and that he could be and do anything he set his mind to and worked for. That was a great gift to my wife and me.”
“How is he? Robbie is very special,” she replied. “He’s a talented young man who has earned his success through hard work. I’m proud of him. Please tell him hello from me.”
“He sure has. A lot a work, I’ll tell ya. I can’t wait to tell him you asked about him.”
“Can I walk down and talk to my dad?” she asked.
“Sure. But let me guide you so you don’t trip. It is black as pitch out here.”
They found the grave within a few minutes. Once Sandy assured him she was fine, the guard bid her goodbye and left her alone with her thoughts. The rising sun’s rays had just begun to reflect off the bright white stones in a luminescent glow. “What a perfect final resting place to honor the men and women who had served our country,” she thought.
When she looked down and saw her father’s name chiseled on the headstone, Sandy slowly sank to her knees. “Daddy,” she whispered, tracing her fingertips along each engraved letter. “It’s me … your shadow. I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you. I’ve been busy sorting things out,” she began. Oddly, she didn’t feel like crying. “I think I’ve made a mess of my life. I’ve been angry and judgmental, mostly toward you,” she continued. “And in the process, I know I missed out on so much, so many years we should have shared. I think I understand that I made many of the problems you and I had.” She smiled, finally feeling the tears beginning to well up inside her. “Okay. You have to admit,” she said, smiling through her tears, “you weren’t much help, but I should have been more patient, more understanding.”
She stopped for a few moments, used her shirt sleeve to dab at her eyes, and soaked in the early dawn’s rays. This needed saying. She swallowed hard before continuing. “I’ve also discovered I’m more like you than I ever thought, Daddy. Since I’m telling you everything, I might as well confess. I’m not going to drink anymore. Last night might have been the first night in years I didn’t have at least one glass of wine. I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic. Maybe I am. But if not, I’m certain I’m on my way, so I’ll stop. I think I can go it alone but if I can’t, I’ll get help. I promise.”
She paused a long while to give her heart time to hear her daddy’s reply. A wave of unconditional acceptance swept over her. “I also finished cleaning out your old pole barn, just as I promised,” she said, continuing her grave side father-daughter chat. “Thank you for collecting the leaves. I think I may have the world’s largest leaf collection.” She lowered her eyes until she was looking directly at her daddy’s headstone. “I wish you had told me. We could’ve enjoyed them together. And another thing, I’ve been talking to a guy named Sam who claims he knew you. It’s kind of crazy. I can’t imagine how you and he would have known each other. He actually said you were his best friend … but I guess it doesn’t really matter. The thing is, Sam opened my eyes to so many things, you know? Maybe best of all, he helped me understand that you’re not really here. Well, your body is, but you’re in a better place, a place that, for
a long while, I doubted even existed. It makes me happy and gives me a sense of peace to believe that you hear me. I don’t know if you do, but I choose to believe so. If not, I’ll repeat it all and more when I see you … and for the first time in years, I believe I will see you again. Knowing that fills me with indescribable joy.” She wiped at the corners of her eyes as she laughed softly. “Steve says I’m like a new woman. And maybe I am, Daddy. Maybe I am.”
Sandy stopped a long while, giving her heart time to catch up to her daddy’s reply. Her tears had stopped, and when she continued, her voice was lighthearted and full of joy and contentment. “I’m going to go home now, daddy. I want to make mouse-cakes for your granddaughters. Remember the Mickey Mouse waffle-maker you bought the girls when they were little? I’m going to dig it out today. I pray that idea makes you smile.” Raising both her hands, she looked skyward. “Can you believe I just said ‘pray’?” She smiled broadly and shook her head. “I’ll be back. I promise. Something has changed inside me. I can’t explain it, but cleaning your barn somehow cleaned my heart, too. And you know what?” Unexpected tears choked her words and her laughter. “My heart was more cluttered than the barn.”
Sandy stood and rubbed away the morning dew from her knees. “I’ll be back, and next time I’ll bring Steve and the girls.” She reached down to touch her father’s headstone once more. “I’m so sorry it’s been so long since I told you that I love you. Please know that I never stopped loving you … I just didn’t know it.”
Chapter 24
“Get out of bed!” Sandy yelled as she burst into the bedroom.
“What’s wrong?” Steve leaped to the floor and stumbled as he grabbed his robe and pulled it on over his cotton pajamas. He followed her into the kitchen where she was already grabbing eggs from the fridge.
The Final Service Page 13
