Live Like You Were Dying

by Michael Morris

  Snowcapped mountains stretched over the range, and I wished that Heather and Malley had followed us back home. There was no end to the sanctuaries. They were as plentiful as the denominations that lined the roads back in Choctaw. Since writing the letter to Jay Beckett, the thought of work had slipped away somewhere in the back of my mind. Now I once again found myself thinking back to work goals I’d made for the coming year. I’d planned to take some of the plant engineers on a rock-climbing trip to the Rocky Mountains. It was to coincide with the signing of our new contract with the mill. I’d even joined a gym and began toning up. Now all those details seemed attached to the life of another person I’d met but never really known. We went higher into the mountains, and as we approached a bend in the road, I pictured myself borrowing my father’s John Deere cap and throwing my old goals inside. Rolling down the window, I’d inhale the clean air and then dump the hat’s contents down into the valley far below, where buzzards and other scavengers take care of what’s no longer alive.

  We made our way back to Choctaw without realizing that Father’s Day was two days away. Grand Vestal’s house was dark when the truck lights hit the front porch. As if timed, one bedroom light came on, and then another. Standing on the porch with Heather and Malley, Grand Vestal’s white robe and loose gray hair made her look like a ghost with outstretched arms. “Sorry to wake everybody,” I said.

  Malley wrapped her arms around me while Heather offered a sleepy kiss. We all moved like robots, and for a second I wondered if the entire journey had only been a dream.

  After my father left for home, I started to unpack. I found a crumpled envelope, stained and folded in quarters, on the nightstand next to the bed. “What’s this?” I asked while unbuttoning my shirt.

  Heather walked into the bedroom, rubbing lotion on her hands. She hugged me from behind, and her breath was hot against my ear. “Malley found it when we got back home. It was under the bottom panel of your mama’s hope chest. There were all sorts of things. We think she even kept a lock of your hair in it too.”

  Weariness burned my eyes, but there was no way I would sleep without first finding out what was inside the envelope.

  Walking through the house, I ventured to the back porch. Wind rattled the edge of the paper as drops of rain began to land on the porch steps. There was no guessing who had written the tiny words. My heart raced as my eyes soaked up the words like they might evaporate from the page.

  Dear Barbara,

  What a week we’ve had. I’m sitting out here thinking what a blessed man I am to be able to welcome my first grandchild to the world. Malley. That’s some name, and she’s going to be some girl. My heart filled up with the pride of a rich man when you held her and cupped her head the same way you used to hold Nathan. We’ve shared a lot of good times together, but I got a feeling this little girl will be one of the best yet. We’ll watch her grow up into a young woman, and she’ll call us Grandma and Grandpa. But I got to tell you, I don’t know any grandmas that look as beautiful as you.

  When we were driving back from Atlanta, I got to studying about Nathan. I’m proud of our son. He is a self-made man who loves his wife, and he’s going to be a good daddy. I’m proud, not because of what I’ve done, but because of what you’ve done to help Nathan grow into a man of character. Part of me never knew how to treat him, not wanting him to be babied and turn out soft. The other part of me didn’t want to be harsh on him the way my own daddy was on me. I was always worried I’d do him harm in some way and he’d end up feeling the same about me as I did about my own daddy. So not knowing what to do, I made the mistake of doing nothing. I’m man enough to admit it, I love my son. I can only thank the good Lord that you were here to show him your love, and I’m glad that you’re here to love me now. You’re the center of our family and the keeper of our hearts.

  We can’t go back in time. You’ve told me that over and over again. So let’s just move forward, sharing our lives with this baby girl. Teach me how to be a good grandpa. Teach me how to show her love.

  I love you,

  Ronnie

  Smoothing out the wrinkled paper, I read the words until they were memorized. Lines from the letter filled the gaps of my story the same way they filled the canyons of my soul. Sitting there listening to the rain fall against the tin roof, I couldn’t help but thank God for leading my mama to save that letter, for securing it in a place that the girl it was written about would find it.

  Holding the keys to my father’s heart, a sense of responsibility fell upon me. The knowledge of just how much my parents loved each other called out a need to protect. Some things should be kept between a man and his wife, my father had told me.

  Stepping out into the rain, I held the paper up as water fell across my face and onto my clothes. Washing away the hurts as much as the ink of his words, thoughts meant to be shared only between lovers and life partners smeared until the paper was nothing more than pieces on the ground. The fire of love had first consumed the words my father had written for my mother. Rain now swept the rest of them away. away.

  That Sunday after church, we arrived to find my father sitting on the porch step smoking a cigarette. He put it out just as Grand Vestal climbed out the car, pocketbook and braids swinging with her every move. “I was hoping that going on that trip would cause you to give up those cancer sticks,” she yelled. “I heard them say on TV that some of those states won’t let you smoke anywhere in public.”

  “Yeah,” he said stomping out the cigarette. “That’s why I bypassed those places.”

  Around back, my father had already started the feast. The portable cooker was boiling with hot grease, and the cooler that we packed with dry ice held the modest catch from our attempt at fly-fishing. Lawn chairs were scattered about the backyard as Heather whipped a white tablecloth in the air and smoothed out the wrinkles on the same card table that once held my birthday cakes when I was a boy.

  Grand Vestal slowly walked down the back porch, carrying a tray of potato salad and a plate of sliced tomatoes. “It’s going to rain again tonight.” We didn’t bother asking her how she knew. Her answer was always the same. “I can see it in the shape of the clouds.”

  We’re the same as any family on any given Sunday, having a fish fry and celebrating the gift of fathers. I thought of the towns that we passed along the way and wondered just how many of those townspeople were following our example.

  After we ate the trout and lingered over Grand Vestal’s strawberry pie, we updated them on the trip and the people we’d met along the way.

  “Did you really ride a bull is what I want to know,” Grand Vestal asked. Holding up my hand, I just smiled and didn’t say a word. “I’m of a good mind to get a switch after you,” she said. “Now, you know better.”

  “No, I really don’t. And the thing is, if I would have known, I’d have done it anyway.”

  Malley placed two gift-wrapped boxes on the corner of the table and then looked at us. “Here,” she said. “Go on and open them now.”

  “Malley,” Heather said. “We’ll do that when everybody’s done with lunch.”

  “We don’t have a schedule to follow,” Malley said and stepped away to gauge our reaction.

  Motioning with his chin, my father instructed me to go first. Tearing into the paper, I found an arrowhead tied to a piece of thick leather.

  “It’s a necklace. I made it,” Malley said.

  Grand Vestal moved closer, wiping her hands on a yellow dish towel. “That arrowhead belonged to your great-great granddaddy. And his daddy before him. It was made for survival.”

  Trying it on, the arrowhead felt cold against my skin. “Well, how about that? This is all right. Thank you. I love it.”

  “Now your turn, Grandpa.”

  My father never said a word as he carefully unwrapped the package. His eyes widened in a way that made me think of how he might have reacted to a gift when he was a little boy. Holding up a photo of him and my mother as young newlyweds at the
Colorado base, he shook with the memories of yesterday. Trying to speak, he simply nodded his head. Reaching over, I patted his shoulder and then let go as he moved away toward the side of the house.

  “Just give him a minute,” I whispered to Malley.

  “That’s the picture that was in the hope chest. The one Malley pulled out that day during lunch,” Heather said. “We took it to a studio in Valdosta. They enlarged it and tinted it with color.”

  Evidently the color was too close to the real thing, because I never saw the photo that afternoon. My father kept it tucked safely inside his truck. Then, once again I recalled his words, “Some things just need to stay between a man and his wife.”

  A lifetime of plans can change in a matter of weeks. After the photos from our trip to the Grand Canyon had been tucked into Malley’s photo album, Heather and I made several trips back to Atlanta to visit with doctors and real estate agents interested in listing our house. Whether we would ever admit it or not, Choctaw was drawing us back to a world we thought we’d left far behind.

  During our trips back to Atlanta, Malley stayed at Grand Vestal’s. At first we thought that her desire to stay was on account of her not wanting to make the trip in the car. But the truth was, my father and Grand Vestal were spoiling her rotten, and she loved every minute of it. My mother would have been proud of my father: even without her guidance he had become a good grandpa.

  One Sunday afternoon after we’d gotten back from Atlanta, I leaned back in a chair as my father told our skydiving story again on Grand Vestal’s back porch. I listened while watching Malley move closer to the garden. She ran her hands lightly across a stalk of corn and dug her toes into the edge of the soil. An image crossed my mind of the same scene being played out fifty years ago with my own mother, milling about the garden on a lazy Sunday afternoon. In my mind she is laughing and kicking the dirt high in the air. Suddenly an urge overtook me, and I never stopped to second-guess myself.

  Never looking away or answering my wife’s question as to why I was pulling off my shoes, I took off running like something gone wild. Feeling the weight of the arrowhead against my chest, I reached my hand out to Malley. Her laughter rolled out in front of me as the tips of her fingers brushed against my palm. Hot dirt from the garden molded against my feet, and the edge of the plants tickled my ankles, teasing me to stay. Breathing echoed inside my ears, and the beat of my heart pounded like a drum calling the untamed.

  Open green pastures with a backdrop of thick trees were before me, and the grass was soft against my feet. Running through the earth that was tilled by my past and my future, I looked into the face of the unknown and laughed right out loud. There were no longer any endings, just beginnings.

  Running past the clothesline and deeper into the pasture that lined the edge of the barn, I felt myself becoming lighter, until nothing, not even a white spot, could keep me from soaring on the eagle’s wing. One with the earth and my people, the arrowhead slapped against my skin. Childhood memories lined the length of my journey, and I pictured my mother laughing and clapping with the rest of my family, cheering me on to victory.

  I am home. I am loved, and now I am free.