A FINE FATHER'S DAY

Today (yesterday) was Father's Day.

It started with sex. Not our best, but it is never a bad thing. Usually sex cheers her up and empowers her, but this day it did not.

I promise Daisy May that we'd go out to my place and get some gardening done. It was partly hectic because she was not feeling well. She had spent all day Saturday on the couch and that is quite unlike her. When she is not feeling well, I am not feeling well. So I humored her and we put our stuff together to go.

When I went outside to put some stuff in her car, she said, "We seem to have a distressed bird in the garage," and pointed. A hummingbird was banging against the two windows in the blocked off left-hand space of the garage. The right hand space was open and did even have a door.

"I tried to chase it out, but she insists on going out those windows."

I knew just what to do.

I went over to the little tired bird and put out my right fore-finger. She, I assume, landed on my finger immediately. She seemed relieved.

I turned and started toward the open door, but she flew back to her window.

I tried it a second time with the same results.

Then I tried my left fore-finger. She landed on it again. This time she pecked gently on my finger and then sat quietly. But once again, as I approached the open garage door, she flew back off to the glassed windows.

The next time she landed on my left middle finger -- and this is important to me -- she pecked twice upon my wedding ring.

It is important because I had started a poem, "We have lilac trees for love; apple trees for sustenance. Hummingbirds for family..."

And a few days after that line, I dreamed that Robbie Anderson (it wasn't him) was working to break my current marriage apart. He tried to touch rings with me. I do not think he actually succeeded.

Robert Lutzenheizer made the rings, and I am hoping that they are the power rings he always talked about making.

So having a hummingbird, symbol of family, actually touch the wedding ring is a very good sign ... especially on Father's Day.

I then very slowly and carefully made a cage of fingers around the little bird. I left spaces between my fingers but closed them enough that she could not fly out. I slowly and smoothly moved to the open door and went outside.

When I opened my hands she flew straight up, did a little dip -- I thought "Saying thank you" and "she's a bit confused" -- then she flew at the balcony of the house like she was going somewhere there.

I lost her from view.

That was miracle one.

Nancy was still feeling blue, saying we should have left earlier so we could garden during the cool part of the day. I had been lazy, once again, playing StarCraft or Facebook or working on the plan for the cover of the spring box. Lazy.

We got home. Peaceful and beautiful. I fed Harlequin as Nancy went toward the garden to start her work there. I fed the cat, then made the repair to the hose connection that passed under the driveway. I made the repair and tried it out. It worked wonderfully!

Then I went to the garden. Nancy was working away and I like to weed. Somehow the weeding is exactly what the carrots, those oh-so-slow showers-up, need. They are so small for so long the weeds will choke them out completely. If a guy could build a sterilizing fire where they are to go, then they could get a good start. But weeding is the Tao.

Nancy weeded too.

There were mosquitoes, but not so many. They seemed to be bothering Nancy, though; perhaps because she was wearing no shirt.

I was not happy about the on-going destruction of our broccoli ... something strong is eating them. There was nothing in my rat traps. I think it must be a vigorous insect.

As we weeded, it started to rain. Nancy was wearing only a sports bra and I had removed my trousers to avoid soiling them as I crawled down the row.

"It's raining," I said.

"It feels good," she said.

We continued and the rain increased. She had me dig three zucchini holes, but the rain was getting pretty hard.

"Well, have fun. I'm running in."

"Here," she said, "take this box of seeds with you."

I grabbed them and ran.

About halfway to the house I got to thinking that if she were really ill, getting chilled might harm her. So I started to yell as I turned around. I bellowed, "Nancy, don't stay out ..." and by this time I was looking back at the garden.

She was right behind me, running on her tiptoes and laughing with her back and neck and shoulders bare and her hair flying. A wild mare playing mischievously. She was laughing and looked positively beautiful.

We got into the house and started a game of cribbage.

The rain increased.

I was wearing dark glasses, and she removed hers. She put hers back on, saying, "Now we are equally handicapped. Wearing dark glasses in a dark house on a dark day.

Suddenly I realized I could not put off a trip to the outhouse. As I went out, she took our dark glasses to the two cars and traded them for our regular glasses.

I watched the rain as I sat and shat. It increased until it was fairly pouring ... a somewhat unusual rain for Montana. It has been a wet spring and early summer. Beautiful.

I sauntered back to the house, protected by a good straw cowboy hat. This is the genuine life.
When I got back to the house she skunked me in cribbage.

Secretly, losing pleased me ... it set her happiness. The rest of the day she was light-hearted and feeling better.

We watched Slumdog Millionaire. I thought it was a great movie ... if one removed the plot and the actors, it stood as an excellent documentary on life in the Mumbai, Maharashtra, Indian slums. Very touching. It starts a bit chaotically, but steadily focuses down to the ending.

Nancy was not so thrilled with the movie, but did enjoy it finally.

Looking back, I thought it an excellent Father's Day.

Touched by the Spirit.

Thank You.

FORGIVING LOYD

I sit on my father's bed in the hospital room, forlorn. Alone. Rain from the ceiling.

My brother, with his beaming face — so much face — and easy words, in a chair. There were others too. I can't remember.

I should love the sonofabitch. And I did. I hated the sonofabitch.

God, the long, aching pain he had caused me. When I was a tad, how young I cannot recall, he was the man in my life. My mother said that he would come to my day-care and play with me. She said he loved me. Maybe I was just a path for him to get into my mother's pants; I cannot remember his deceit. Mom said he adopted me joyfully. That's why I am a Young.

I remember him giving me a snowball in Brooklyn, the first I had ever seen. Kid in awe. It had soot on it. He washed it with hot water and it disappeared. I did not hide my disappointment and sorrow, so he made another and we put it in the freezer.

I remember chasing him in the circle inside our house. He was so clever. I was so in awe of the way he could hide, his new trick every round or so, his funniness, and how quick he was. Was was was...

I loved him. A child cannot help but love. An adult cannot, should not, forget that child nor withhold love from that child.

He should have been my elder, looking over me, preparing me to meet my peers, to deal with women, teaching me to change tires and build a strong box and to pay my way, but instead he was gone, always fucking gone. I didn't learn how to fight. I didn't learn how to respect a women while gently maintaining my integrity.

When he would come home after too long a time, he would boss me around, as though he had the right! Never there, trying to act like a fucking parent when he was there, three or four days every other year or so. Tyrant! So easy to bend to my mother's poisoning when they divorced. She called him “the Prince of Lies” or “Red”.

Now he laid on that bed, weak and dieing. Repentant. Too late. Never asking me to forgive him.

When he came home, after too long a time, he would help around the place for an afternoon, then he would go and get drunk. And come home drunk, a happy drunk. But my mother would rise up against him. A fight would ensue. He would have to defend himself. There would be blood along with the screaming.

I hated that sonofabitch. And for good reason.

Because I love him so much, but he was never fucking there. Because he was a drunk.

Because I loved my mother. She was always there. She loved me, she loved my brother and sisters. She worked so hard to keep us well and to entertain us and to let us know we were wanted and loved. Slightly mad, but she loved us.

I am alone in this gray room. There is a nasty, misty rain falling from the ceiling. I am cold. I am alone here.

People are talking all around me and I am that little boy.

There is my chance for a dad dieing on the bed.

And no choice but to forgive him.