The Father's Right Hand

a short historical narrative written in 1996

 

Circles of dust swirled around the ’79 Cutlass as Dad pulled onto the dirt road that would soon lead to childhood memories and anguish for the loss of a Man we all idolized and aspired to be, the Man who saw visions and spoke with tongues of angels, the Man we affectionately called “Grandpa,” for He was dying and not even God Almighty could stop Him save for the prayers of a despondent daughter clinging hopelessly to the Man she knew as Daddy.  The road seemed to close off behind us, and dark trees which ominously hung over us, even in the daytime, carved a path to the new dimension of life we were now entering, each acre leading us deeper in the stark reality of a different world.  I had heard that people die, but I had never seen one die.  And certainly Grandpa would never die.  He was sick; that was all.  Death could not touch Him, nor would it dare to try. 

            Gravel shuffled under the tires as we approached the half hung wooden gate leading to the property where He always met us, but today, He would not.  He was sick; that was all.  Dad would open the gate today.  Someday, I, too would open the gate and close it again as the car pulls through sealing off the world behind us.  Up ahead near the house sat my aunt’s car, for she was there again.  She was always there, always praying that God would pause in His infinite wisdom for one more day and allow her to see her Daddy alive for a brief second longer.

            Our car pulled behind hers, and we exited in orderly fashion as would any family of five seeing their grandfather for possibly the last time.  Gathering up toys, blankets, pillows, or any other necessary item needed for a 150 mile trip to keep a five, seven, and nine year old at bay, we entered through the chicken wire fence supported by concrete posts with sparkling marbles cemented on top that I had always thought were the jewels strewn about Heaven’s gates.  Passing by the towering crepe myrtles painted white on bottom to keep out disease and pestilence in this otherwise perfect world, we approached the house, the house that He built.  The wooden porch.  The lemon yellow porch swing.  The creaking screen door slapping against the wood of the old frame house.  And we were standing in His room.

            Hey there, squirt.

            You’re sure getting big.

            Why, there’s old cotton top.

            I had heard it all before.  Just the weekend before.  It was all routine, but it could be the last.  He was sick; that was all.  I would for certain hear it again.  After a hug and a kiss to the seventy-three year old woman who was strong enough to bring life to some eight children, six men and two women, yet based her entire existence solely upon the Man who lay in that room, the women reverted to the kitchen, the men to the living room, and the children went outside to play.

            It was the game that I remember. 

Every weekend was the same. 

Every face the same. 

The same game. 

The same accidents. 

The same teams.

The same winner.

Nothing ever changes.

No one ever dies.

The game was sure to go on forever.

I’m not for certain what went on inside the house.  I’m sure women talked and men laughed.  I’m sure they walked around their childhood home, and in every corner, in silent whispers, wondered what would happen if He did die.  What would happen to the clock, the gun, the dog, the fields, the mother, in that order.  Men gossip just as much as women.

In out little world of Fox, Oklahoma, a small community outside of Healdton, a town that rests a little ways from Ardmore, which lies some forty miles away from the Red River border of Texas, the game began.  Our older cousin Tina was always the quarterback of choice if Dad chose not to play.  He was the youngest son and often broke the family ties to play with his children, his nieces, his nephews.  Greg was there, too, another older cousin, who would cry when He died and have dreams that he saw Him in his room, who would run frightened to his mother and father afraid at the loss of his Grandpa. 

The same game.

The same dog-chewed football.

Nothing ever changes.

No one ever dies. 

The game was sure to go on forever.

Then, I would fall.  Then, I would get hurt.  Then, I would cry.  Until the next game.  Football, baseball, crawling through the pastures in search for Bigfoot.  It did not matter.  Like a perfectly conducted symphony, the day went.  The sounds of children laughing, screaming, and playing entertained the countryside.  We would climb tree when He wasn’t looking.  We would traipse around the yard in search of any sign of anything.  Outside, we were living, breathing, while inside a Man was dying, fighting.  God had touched the earth again.  Eden was recreated here without our knowledge, and the Fall was nigh.  So another Man must die to take away our sins.  His only link to life was the rusted green oxygen tank that rested against His outside wall.  I never knew what it meant; I never knew what it was.  To me, it might have been a mysterious rocket that would take me anywhere I wanted to go, but to Him, it was His prayer in the garden, His blood-stained brow as He prayed that His children would not be lost, that this cup might pass. 

Nothing ever changes.

No one ever dies.

The game was sure to go on forever.

The day was over, and we drove away after pulling off the stickers, as we called the prickly thistles that would cling to an innocent child’s tennis shoes unaware, casting them back into the field leaving no trace that we ever played there.  However, we would return the next weekend, and the next, and the next, and still another, until on June 4, 1981, He died and He did not rise.  He quickly ascended to the Father’s right hand accompanied by His visions and His angels. 

For me, though, He was always there as He was for Greg.  He was there every time I sinned or failed, watching.  Every move I made, I am sure He saw it.  Some men fear God, and some men fear nothing.  I feared Him.  I love Him, but I feared Him.  I know though, that both He and Jesus stand before the Omnipotent pleading my case in all my failures.  Little boys don’t understand why Grandpas die, so throughout our lives, our eyes are watching God.

Each summer after that, when we returned to Oklahoma, we always stopped by the cemetery to see Him, always careful never to call it His grave.  Dad would always criticize the upkeep while picking out dead pine leaves from the place where He lay.  Mom would always comment on the last time someone had brought the faded flowers laid near the headstone, and we all would try and guess who it was that had brought them.  Other than a large dead tree watching over His place and the bent iron gate surrounded the cemetery, the place was not fearful.  I was never afraid.  What scared me most was the adjoining tombstone with my grandmother’s name printed upon it and an empty spot where her death date would one day reside.  Then, we got back in the car and carefully pulled off the stickers and cast them back at the graveyard.

I returned to the house last summer to play the game.  Grandma has outlived Him for over two decades and moved into a house in town.  The gate is gone, and I’m sure that marbles have faded from their original splendor.  The fields are plowed over, and the lemon yellow porch swing has found another resting place.  Yet, in some faint breeze over the field, the sound of children laughing, screaming, and playing still entertains the countryside.  Greg got married and Tina ran away.  But the game is still being played.  He was sick; that was all.  I was seven.  He was eighty-three.