Message from daddy. . .

June 16 . 2012 - North Carolina vista

Gorgeous weather here this past Father's Day weekend - especially Saturday.  I struck out for a drive. . .all good southerners love a drive in the country - it's in our genetic make-up, deep in our fiber, a "have to" kind of thing. 

(I've warmly noticed that I've passed this legacy on to my daughter and granddaughter.  When visiting them in Charleston, we almost always take a drive out in the "country."  It's a subtle rite of passage and the three of us ride in companionable silence to soak up the surroundings and crane our necks to "see what we can see.")

 I digress. . .back to the drive.  It was cool enough to have all the windows down - the earthly scents of newly mown hay, corn fields stretching forever, blooming wildflowers and such, was enough to make the heart swell.  Naturally, I reflected on my dad - the last drive we took together was up to our Black Angus farm near the border of Tennessee.  This was a ritual of ours whenever I visited - meet him at the office, lunch out and a drive to the farm - we'd float over the pastures in dad's car looking for the cattle, stopping when nearing a herd. We'd just sit and gaze at them as if they were all about to suddenly disappear!  We'd put the windows down to smell the earth and animals and listen to their sounds.  In the stillness of an afternoon a quiet, simple father/daughter bonding on the beauty and mystery of the natural world - underneath it all, the utter amazement that he was a self-made, hard working (no college educated) man from the lower bowels of Alabama, who now owned this land as far as you could see.  

So you understand, dear readers, the "drive" was paying homage to dad and giving me a chance to remember him, remember the earth.  Now to the message from daddy. . .true confession here. . .keep an open mind!

Years ago, long after dad has passed away, I was suffering from a love affair gone wrong.  Divorced, dating women go through these peaks and valleys and we can do some strange things while trying to figure it all out.  In my misery, a close friend hooked me up with a psychic - a woman who lived somewhere up north - I was given her phone number and told to set up a phone appointment.  Cringe.  I did, and lo and behold she called at the appointed time.  I remember exactly where I was - in my studio out back of my home.  We quickly began to commiserate on the man I was an emotional wreck over, me in tears, looking for healing, and suddenly, about ten minutes into the call, she abruptly said,

 "I'm sorry, but I keep hearing someone saying Sissy. . .does that mean anything to you?"  Mind you, I had never met this woman and she lived multiple states away. . .we were on the PHONE, for heaven's sake.  I was stunned breathless. . .Sissy was my daddy's loving nickname for me.  He used it sparingly and with a sense of specialness - it always thrummed my heartstrings. . .it was ours alone.  No one outside of my immediate family would have known this, nor had I heard it from the lips of anyone for years!  

When I could take a breath and speak, I told her it was my dad's nickname for me. 

She then simply said, "He is saying. . .to just get on with it."    

Oh boy, that was my dad - he suffered no fools.  I had to laugh, and from that moment on, I just got on with it.  The healing began.  You can't even imagine how I felt. . .what's more, how that one spoken missive has propelled me, supported me through these last twenty-odd years. 

Powerful.  Pragmatic.  Important.  Necessary.  To the point. 

A message from daddy. . .

I will leave it to you to ponder upon all the implications.