My Father's Eyes

Everyone who can see my face can pretty much tell how I’m feeling. I come by this trait naturally. My father communicated so effectively through facial expressions that spoken words were often just a courtesy.

He could cure a case of the giggles across a crowded sanctuary without so much as clearing his throat. If I was two minutes past my curfew he could put The Fear into my date at 25 feet in the dark.

I often reminded him – and it was true – that he had the most beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen. (I wasn’t stupid. Alas, neither was he!) They were a clear, crisp blue. Very striking, and very, very expressive.

Dad’s ability to communicate complete thoughts with his eyes was especially convenient for us the last two days of his life when his voice stopped working.

One of my greatest gifts in life was to be able to be with him as he died in his own home fourteen years ago. Just before we brought him home from the hospital, he told my sister and me that the doctors told him he didn’t have more than six months to live, but he didn’t want us to tell our mother because it would upset her. Our mother had just told us that Dad didn’t know it, but he didn’t have more than six months to live. They protected each other as best they could and God help anyone who got in their way.

Dad told me a lot of things with his eyes those last two days. He told me that his body hurt. He told me that it was beautiful, peaceful, pain-free where he was going. He said it was a scary thing he was doing. He told me to be good to this family. He said, “See! There they are! Right there!” He told me he loved me. He said, “See you there.”

He explained that as much as he was looking forward to the next life, he didn’t want to leave us. He worried that he wouldn’t be able to do this thing without Mom with him. Their relationship was more than close. It was symbiotic. They were joined at the soul.

I held his hand and I told him things, too. I sang to him, told him I loved him. I thanked him. I said, “It’s O.K. We’ll all be all right,” although I only half believed it. I said, “It’s time.”

I know that a lot of people tend to turn their relatives into saints after they die. I also know that a lot of times the baby of the family tends to attribute undeserved greatness to her father. However, neither of those is true in my case.

It just happens that my Papa really could do anything. He really did know everything. Well, everything except how to dress.

I still miss him fiercely. I still pick up the phone to call and ask him things sometimes. I surely wish he could see my garden. Sometimes I can’t picture his face now. But always, just a blink away, are the most beautiful clear blue eyes, twinkling at me.

Relationships

Please give your attention to your inner flight attendant to review emergency relationship procedures. In the unlikely event of a water landing, be aware that good communication is your only floatation device.

You have chosen many of your relationships and many you were just born or happened into. However you got to them, there you are. If you are older than six, you probably have some relationships behind you that ended miserably. Perhaps they haven't ended, but they remain miserable. You can't get hurt or hurt anyone with whom you don't have a relationship. Your relationships define your life in many respects.

Sometimes you get into a relationship with someone who is just so ding dang perfect you can't believe your luck at finding this absolutely flawless friend/lover/co-worker/therapist/plumber/bartender/whatever. You're both Leos, you both have three older siblings, your mother and his mother are both mothers, you went to different schools together. You know. . . .you were made for each other.

And then, something happens and you realize that your perfect partner/buddy/teammate/roommate/whatever is becoming less and less perfect as time goes by. What do you do? Do you jump and pull the ripcord? Do you open the door and push? Do you sit in silence and reach for your airsick bag? Where is that floatation device?

If you go into a relationship - any relationship - in which the participants have different expectations of how long the flight will last and where it will land, there is going to be turbulence and possibly a crash. Possibly a firey, terrifying, deadly destructive crash. If you are both/all going to be friends when you get there, you'd better share a common flight plan.

The bottom line is we all have assumptions about how life is and we don't always share those assumptions with the people who are travelling this life with us. The only way to share them is to figure out what your assumptions are and communicate them to those with whom you have relationships. You know what happens when we assume, right? (we make and ass out of u and me. )

For example, when two lovers talk about their shared dreams, it's imperative to discover what each means by dream. If one defines dream as a plan for his life and the other defines dream as something that's nice to think about, but not grounded in reality; someone is going to get hurt. Probably two people will be hurt. Yet each assumes that the other's definition matches his own.

You can't win a relay race when one of the runners is heading in a direction different from the others or if one of the runners suddenly stops because she can't decide if she really wants that blue ribbon. That's why organizations need to review and restate their mission statements, goals, and projections. I've seen organizations get all excited about an addition, event, or expansion with so much energy that I thought there was no way it could fail. Yet the new idea failed because it didn't relate to the mission. It was a tangent.

Don't get me wrong, not all tangents are bad. They are the basis of adventure. They are the Road Less Travelled. Wondrous, beautiful, vibrant. But when you take a trek down the road less travelled, know that way leads on to way and you are likely not going to get back to your original route. It's ok if you are aware of what you are doing, but you can't always expect your fellow travellers to feel the same way about that particular road.

We all carry our assumptions like skin cells. We feel comfortable in them. They usually change so slowly that we don't even notice it, though sometimes we have an accident and a bunch of them get painfully torn off at once. We can't avoid all communication accidents, but we can steer clear of a great many of them just by sharing our assumptions. It's always better to check them out than risk a crash.

Some people tend to fly high with no flight plan, working instruments, or even a seatbelt. They tend to die young (in terms of relationships.) Alternately, some people choose never to fly and remain safe, boring, and going no where. And while I'm usually not one for moderation, there is a happy medium. Relationships can be strengthened and sometimes even mended with communication about assumptions.