This one's for my dad.
Not because of anything he has done.
But because he is a son of God and maybe needs to know how loved he is.
It was middlemarch in Kittery Point Maine, but it may well have deep dark December for all the snow, sleet and sheer cold they were experiencing on Gerrish Island. As he made his way, wending and winding down Tower Road (far too fast for anyone's taste, but thankfully none of "them" were there to nag him), he caught a glimpse of a young man. Young only in his estimation, healthy and middle aged was a more correct description.
Healthy was a big deal to him now, addled by cancer that started in the lymph cells and had metastasized and mutated ripping throughout his once formidable (or perhaps he was giving himself too much credit, but there is a bit of romance one is allowed in their own self narrative as they near the end) form, leaving him a weak, shell of a man.
Through the early morning cloak of fog, he saw himself walking out on the marshes-once some strange source of dispute between himself and those environmentalist libs who just wanted their hands on more of his stuff, more recently a monet-esque backdrop to his bit of exercise and reflection. Tall and strong, but not in the nouveau thick muscled way of the modern gym rat, just good irish genes strong, the man looked like a fisherman - salty and victorious from the day's catch. He wore a classic ivory cableknit sweater (which if he were close enough would have smelled of oil and rancid saline from frequent wear and quite less frequent washing) atop high waters wide wale corduroys of some shade or another of mustard or rust or dishwater gray, no socks and bass boat mocs. Yeah, for you teens who think you found something new (or even retro-cool) with your sperry topsiders, he was cool before you were born; Bass shoes are the boss.
But something about the way the sweater didn't hang loosely, and the way the cords stood a good two and a half inches above the boat mocs told him this was a wishful hallucination, created from his own memories of himself from only years prior-maybe even a decade. Before his own private invaders had taken 40 pounds from him (honestly closer 60 if you count his winter husky).
He blinked his eyes and wiped the fog from the full length mirror in his bedroom. Darn meds, they might not be doing anything to the cancer but they are certainly playing a number on his mind. It had been like that for him for a few weeks. There were chunks of time in which he would take a mini mental vacation, somewhere in the recesses of his brain mixing memory with fantasy. He wasn't really sure what the point of these little jaunts was, he'd much rather vacation in Cabo or Cannes, but there he was in some parallel universe time loop with his own self, watching snippets of his mundane life (this wasn't even the good stuff) like they were a scene from a 007 flick.
Looking at his actual image, the one before his eyes presently, he thought to himself, "well I guess it beats this." Gaunt and ghost-like, and about to return to bed after a long bath in which he had the fleeting thought to let his head slip under the water while he went on one of his mind journeys. If he had the strength to put on the outfit of the 50 year old in the hallucination the pants would have required a belt three sizes smaller than any he had possessed since his twenties and they certainly wouldn't have been high waters. He laughed at this. For some reason other people didn't understand the jovial manliness of a good pair of pants that couldn't quite reach your ankles. Their loss, he supposed. Instead he left the navy and green terry cloth robe on and slipped beneath the covers.
He hated himself like this. Hours bled into weeks and then months and all the while he couldn't imagine why he was consigned to this present purgatory. A whisper, and this not from his own thought space, began to speak to him of someone who saw him differently. It was so dim, and his ears, which hadn't been good since the days on the old Connie when he hadn't seen fit to always wear the proper protection in the prescribed manner, had suffered from both age and side effects from the cocktail of chemicals that he was sure were pulsing through his body in a greater concentration than his own blood. At first all he heard was hissing. Spspspspssssppssss. But he had a feeling he ought to respond like Samuel, "speak Lord, for your servant hears."
The voice became clear.
And as the voice spoke, it wove an image for him...not a chemically induced hallucination...but one that was full, and bright, pixel by pixel building into a memory on steroids, or a prophetic vision of something glorious waiting just around a corner.
He sees you. The One who made you. He sees you, not as the worn, weary, weak, tired man you feel like. He sees you as a young boy running down the beach, high waisted navy blue swim shorts soaked in sand and sea water. He sees you as a song he wrote from the beginning of time, with every breath, step, thought, adding to the melody and deepening the harmony. He sees his own endless love, which has always been and always will be for you. He sees the perfection of his own Son, the strength and splendor of His own glory, in which He has wrapped you by His own choice and grace. He sees you as light and life that have obliterated sin, sadness and disease that you feel so weighed down by in your current state. This cancer, each cell, each thieving invading life sapping lie were all nailed to a cross 2000 years ago along with every misstep and calculated act of overt disobedience. They don't exist anymore. They were dragged by Him, down to death, as he became those very things and in His dying blotted it all from eternal existence. And then He, Alone, awoke and walked out of that grave, forever. That is where he views you from-the longview of eternity He is walking down that beach to that little boy with the shock of white hair atop a sunburned, freckled, gangly frame. Arms and legs like spider appendages flailing with joyous abandon, not a care in the world. He is calling you. He is reminiscing with you. Splashing in the water with you. All the moments you've had together. The first moment you heard Him calling and agreed that yes, it is finished. The losses and wins He walked with you through. He loves you, all of you.
As he laid in his bed, he was overwhelmed by a song that he could somehow see and feel like a wave crashing him and tumbling him and playing a symphony all around him. He was alive like he had never been before, aware to the truth of the universe and his own place in eternity and how wildly more than he could have ever asked or imagine that LIFE really was. That love was too much, and just exactly enough all at the same time. It pressed in from all sides, insisting on having him, it filled him so that it was as in him as it was all around him. What a rest. It will bear him through the remainder of his difficult life in a way that defies logic. But he is sure of it.
