Heather Song

by Michael Phillips

  Who can say which one of us had done the most changing?

  I realized that I wanted to stay with him and be with him. I loved him. I was finally ready to be a true daughter. I wanted to make the last weeks, months, or years of his life, however long it was, peaceful and happy. I suppose my decision and the reason for it answered my own question…The greatest change had taken place within me. It was not my father’s attitude toward me that had needed remaking all those years, it was mine toward him.

  That I had waited so long would probably bring tears to my eyes for the rest of my life. I wished I could go back and get it right far sooner in life than now. But life doesn’t go back. It unfolds in only one direction. And to get it right sometime is the main thing. I was so grateful that the change in my heart had come before it was completely too late to be a daughter again.

  “I’ll stay with you, Daddy,” I said, taking his hand in mine. “I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that, Angel, not after all the years I—”

  “Don’t say it, Daddy. Those years have passed. Neither of us did as much as we might have. Whatever distance and misunderstandings may have existed were as much my fault as anyone’s. All that’s behind us now. I have regrets, you have regrets. But we have this time now to be together. I want to spend it with you. It’s the one last thing I can do for you— Make it possible for you to—”

  I paused and swallowed. “Well, you know, to die in your own bed. It would be my privilege to do that for you.”

  Tears rose in his eyes. He was actually crying. I swallowed hard again. I had never seen my father cry in my life.

  And so it was that I moved into my father’s house and nursed him for eight months. I consider it one of the most meaningful times of my life, a privilege that few have, and even fewer take advantage of. My spiritual life probably deepened more in those eight months than in all the previous four years.

  Strangely, it was thus the approach, after losing several people I loved, of yet another death that enabled me to cope with having lost a second husband.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Cultivating Eyes of Devotionand Honor

  Though I dare not call thee mine, bonnie lassie, O,

  As the smile of fortune’s thine, bonnie lassie, O;

  Yet with fortune on my side,

  I could stay thy father’s pride,

  And win thee for my bride, bonnie lassie, O.

  —Thomas Lyle, “Kelvin Grove”

  What accounts for learning to see with eternal eyes?

  Maybe it is the approach of eternity itself.

  Almost immediately after my decision to move in and be my father’s final caregiver, and committing to do all I could to make his last days ones of contentment, new awarenesses came over me of things I had never seen before.

  I began to get glimpses that I realized were tiny windows into my father’s deepest self.

  Little observations snuck into my mind, seemingly insignificant details that few would think twice about. But now they worked on me. For so many years I had been too busy reacting only by considering the effect my father had on me. It was a self-concentric worldview of everything about him. But was that the best way to see him accurately? Obviously not. I hadn’t seen the real him. What I now began to notice had probably been in front of my nose all my life. But I had never seen what those glimpses of reality said about the real Richard Buchan.

  Why did he drive an old Ford when he could have afforded a more expensive car?

  Why did he live in a modest house in a neighborhood that was on the wane instead of somewhere more upscale?

  Why was his furniture so unpretentious?

  Why was half the carpet in his house threadbare?

  The guest room he had fixed up for me was the nicest room in the house. Everything for him was plain and ordinary, his clothes off the rack, whereas his colleagues all wore thousand-dollar suits.

  He had been a lawyer for forty years. Lawyers make big money. Why didn’t he have a five-million-dollar investment portfolio? Where had the money gone? Here he was, at the end of his life, with only enough put away to afford a mediocre care facility that smelled like a public bathroom. How many lawyers in a large city would think of retiring on less than a million dollars?

  I looked around the house. The conclusion was obvious: My dad lived simply. He had simple tastes, he put on no airs. I noticed the tools in his shop in the garage—everything neat, tidy, orderly; every tool sharp, oiled, clean, polished, and well-maintained.

  He loved his tools. Yet he was willing to lend to anyone in an instant without thought for what might be the tool’s condition when returned. His tools were just like money to him—not possessions to be guarded or hoarded, but to be used for the good of whomever they could benefit.

  One of his neighbors came over to borrow his lawn mower, a Mexican man obviously new to the US and relatively poor. But there was my dad in the same neighborhood, not only lending him the lawn mower, but going over to help him with his lawn…when he was dying of cancer! He spent the whole afternoon with the man and returned aglow from the opportunity to help someone. Helping people was his meat and drink. Okay, maybe he hadn’t been the perfect father to me, as I saw it. But was my perspective all that accurate? Had I been a perfect daughter?

  He was kind, caring, and unassuming. What had I expected him to be all those years if not that?

  My dad was a good, selfless, others-focused, humble man. His faith meant something. He had not lived for himself.

  What a legacy for a man to leave behind!

  As this process developed in me, I saw that eyes capable of seeing devotion and honor weren’t automatically handed out—you had to cultivate them. You had to train yourself to see through eyes of love. You had to work at it. You had to learn to see and interpret life differently than you did when you were young and you viewed your parents through the eyes of self. You had to choose a different orientation.

  Wasn’t having a father of character, who was faithful to one woman all his life, who worked hard and invested his life in people—a true role model—wasn’t that more important than anything else? During my years in Calgary I had known lots of harp families with Disneyland dads who did all sorts of fun things with their kids and spent time with them, but who had been married two or three times, who couldn’t hold a job, and whose lives revolved around themselves.

  I had a father of character. Why hadn’t I been able to see it?

  It was with a real sense of grief and pain that I realized I had fallen into the same error with my father that I had briefly with Alasdair before I met him. I had misjudged him and taken the child’s “side,” so to speak, in that case Gwendolyn’s, before knowing the whole story. I had been doing that all my life with my father. I had taken the side of my perspectives, without really knowing my father at all—even though I was his own daughter.

  Over the next several months, my father slowly weakened. He rarely went to his office. Eventually we mutually decided that he should stop driving. It was hard for him, but he accepted it practically and stoically. When he needed to run errands after that, I drove him. He gradually slept more and continued to lose weight. His movements about the house slowed to puttering rather than the kind of work he had so long been accustomed to. He kept trying to rake the leaves on the lawn, and even talked about getting up on a ladder to clean out the gutters. But I was increasingly worried about him falling, and kept a careful watch on that ladder!

  I tried to take him out as often as we could—drives into the country, stopping by the office to see his friends; even going to the market for fried chicken was a highlight.

  Then came the time when he began using a walker, another difficult transition for such a robust man. More and more of his time was spent in front of the television. His life became reduced to moving back and forth between bedroom and bathroom and living room.

  As the months progressed there were occasional stumbles and
periodic falls. It killed me to see him in his weakness. Though it took us both a good deal of getting used to, I had to start helping with bathroom cleanliness, and helping him take showers. It’s part of life. Such was the price of being able to keep him at home. Nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice.

  Hospital visits…chemo…endless blood tests…occasional blood transfusions…the spread of the cancer to his liver…everything moved according to the progression my father’s oncologist had prepared me to expect.

  In his final two months it became necessary for my father to wear adult diapers—“senior shorts,” he jokingly called them—one more indignity he had to get used to. Yet more and more I considered these months one of the great privileges of my life.

  I played my harp for hours at his bedside. Whenever I found myself playing one of Gwendolyn’s songs, he perked up and asked, “What’s that?…It’s so far away—it reminds me of heaven.”

  If he only knew! I thought.

  “I’m afraid of dying, Angel,” he surprised me by saying one day.

  “Let me tell you about a girl I met in Scotland,” I said, “who faced death more bravely than anyone I could imagine. She wasn’t afraid because she wanted to play a harp with the angels.”

  He nodded but said nothing as he listened.

  “She’s the girl I told you about, the duke’s daughter who is the reason I became a duchess.”

  “You said you stood up for her?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” I answered. “She was living with her aunt at the time and her father had not been allowed to see her for years.”

  I briefly told him the story, then recounted my visit with Iain to confront Olivia Urquhart. His eyes filled with light as he listened.

  “That’s my girl!” he exclaimed. “Everyone else was afraid of her, but you took her on! Good for you. You never could sit still for injustice.”

  “Just like you, Daddy.”

  He chuckled. “I suppose you’re right. Anyway, what you did took courage, and look how lives were changed as a result.”

  I was amazed as I listened. Maybe my father had been more proud of me than I had realized.

  “Remember Betsy and Clarissa in high school…and the prom, and how I told Clarissa off?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he answered. “I always kind of regretted that I was a little hard on you at the time.”

  “No you weren’t, Dad.”

  “I said you overreacted.”

  “You were right.”

  “Perhaps. But it wasn’t what you wanted to hear. Do you want me to let you in on a secret? Down inside I was proud of what you did, for standing up for a friend. Your overreaction wasn’t nearly so important as that. I felt I needed to speak a cautionary word—but I knew that it took character and courage to stand up for a friend. Seeing that character inside you warmed my heart. That’s when I said to myself, ‘This girl of mine is going to be all right—she’s got her priorities straight.’”

  I didn’t know what to say. I think if I’d tried to say anything I’d have gotten all choked up. I had no idea my father had such thoughts about me. I was glad for the silence that followed.

  “Will you be afraid to die, Angel?” asked my father after a minute or two.

  “I don’t think so, Daddy,” I said softly. “I hope not. But how can I know until I am facing it. But I want to play my harp with the angels, too, and see little Gwendolyn and play with her again—though she will be older than me then. And I believe God is a good and loving Father—a little like you, Daddy, but even more, I hope you don’t mind me saying. He is so good that he won’t let anything bad happen to any of his children. I trust him.”

  “All those years when I was sold out for Jesus, as we street Christians called it, they seem so far away now.”

  “But God is the same.”

  “I hope you’re right. Death brings doubt, though. You want so badly to see beyond. But you can’t.”

  Gradually he became quieter, more withdrawn, interested less and less in what was going on around him. I could tell he was letting go of the final remnants of this life. The doctor said it was time for hospice to be brought in.

  The failing continued until Dr. Stokes basically said that he was probably in his last two or three weeks.

  I began sleeping on the couch outside his room. Getting him to and from the bathroom became an enormous chore. His legs were so thin and weak he could hardly stand. I became so tired from being up and down and half asleep all night listening for any sound that might require my attention. Sleep deprivation became one of the most difficult aspects of all.

  There were several more falls. Gradually more silence, increasing withdrawal. I wondered if he was aware of my presence at all. Occasional mumbling…He seemed to be talking to people he had known. Once or twice I was sure he was talking to my mother. More and more hours he spent in bed, until a day came when he remained in bed all day, eating and drinking nothing, saying nothing, just staring blankly up at the ceiling. I sat at his side and tried to spoon water between his parched lips. It was obvious he was drifting away. The tide was ebbing out of the harbor.

  Two nights later I heard nothing all night. When morning came I was shocked to find that I’d slept seven hours straight through.

  I went into my dad’s room. His face was ghostly white with a gray pallor. I touched his right hand where it hung out from beneath the covers. It was icy cold.

  My father was gone. He had died in the middle of the night.

  I sat at his bedside and cried awhile. Then I set about making the necessary calls and arrangements.

  The long vigil was over. I felt empty, numb, but clean in a strange way…whole, like I had completed something important, even touched the edges of eternity leaking down into my own life in this temporal world.

  Mr. Jones came to the house midmorning. He told me that a large memorial service was already being arranged by my father’s partners.

  “Do you really think it’s necessary?” I said. “Wouldn’t a small ceremony just with your office people and me be enough?”

  Mr. Jones smiled. “Yes, there definitely has to be a memorial service,” he said.

  “But why?”

  “The community needs it. You will see. You will be amazed.”

  He was right. I had been so sure that the church where the service was to be held was far too big. But it was crowded to overflowing. There must have been a thousand people. I was stunned at the outpouring of love and gratitude for my father. Once he opened the service to testimonials, the minister could not stop what he had begun.

  “Mr. Buchan helped me and my wife qualify to buy our house when no one else believed in us…”

  “Richard cosigned the loan for the first car I ever bought. Now I have a car dealership of my own…”

  “Richard agreed to represent me in court when I had no one else…”

  “Richard helped me remodel my kitchen, never a word, not a thought of payment for all the evenings he came over and worked with me…”

  “Richard was always willing…no, eager to lend a helping hand. There was nothing he loved so much as helping someone in need…”

  “I first met Richard Buchan at a time when I was doing very badly. Within a week he had led me to the Lord, taught me how to pray, and was instrumental in getting me involved in church. Now, believe it or not, I am an assistant pastor…”

  “When my husband was in jail, Mr. Buchan prayed with me. He prayed that I would trust God, then he prayed for himself, that he would be given wisdom to know how best to defend him. His prayers were answered and my husband was released…”

  “Richard lent me a thousand dollars one time when I was really in dire straits. When I finally got together enough to pay him back—and this was after four years, and during all that time he never so much as mentioned the money—and I asked him how much the interest would be, he just laughed and brushed my question away with a wave of the hand. ‘I don’t believe in interest,’ he said�
��”

  And so it went for at least forty-five minutes!

  After a while my mind was unable to absorb the specifics of story after story about my father. I just sat shaking my head in amazement as yet one more person stood with some altogether different tale of how my father’s life had touched him deeply and personally. Afterward, literally dozens of men and women I did not know came up to me. Nearly all said some variation of the same thing—“How fortunate you must feel to have had such a man for a father.” I could only smile and nod, quietly grateful that at last I understood…and I was indeed grateful for him.

  Mr. Jones walked me to my car after the service.

  “Even after all this time with him, I just had no idea,” I said, still amazed at what had taken place.

  “Your father was one of the shrewdest lawyers in Portland,” Mr. Jones said. “He didn’t take on hard-luck cases because he was a patsy, but because he believed in truth, in trying to right wrongs, in justice. He believed in people. He was also one of the most respected lawyers in Portland. He would have made a great judge and probably could easily have been elected. I tried to talk him into running many times. But he wanted to invest work at the grassroots level where people’s needs were. That’s where he felt he could do the most good. His life was devoted to others. When I say he believed in people, I am the living example of it. I wouldn’t be an attorney today if it weren’t for your father. I hope I can be worthy to try to carry on his work with a tenth of his effectiveness.”

  “Did he ever date again, or anything like that?” I asked, surprised by my own question.

  “He was too devoted to your mother for that. He wasn’t interested. He was a one-woman man. He never stopped loving her. And you. He talked about you all the time. I am so glad we have had the chance to get to know one another, and I hope that you will keep in touch. If there is anything you ever need, please contact me. Your father was my best friend. I owe him everything.”