Past Heaven

Peering out the window

I see the cars go by.

How much of all the chaos,

Really matters why?

Folks hurry along worried,

Racing to feed the maw,

Losing all their reason,

Sprinting for a fall.

It will not fail to trip them,

Even as they try.

Laughter only fools them.

Pain just makes them cry.

On the other side of heaven

Is a world where we can go,

If only we could travel,

Without the need to know

A map or way confusing,

A road to travel by.

Dissolve and lose the losing

Cast off the human lie.

Deeper I must fathom,

For narrow path beyond.

Light beckons from ether,

Word belongs to song.

There’s money, trial and worry.

There’s birth and death and pain.

But in the end what matters

Is a poet’s lone refrain.

If peace could flow like river,

We’d flow away to grace.

The sound would only sooth us,

 soften  the angry face.

So listen while you’re gazing

 and maybe you will hear,

The sound of lonely heartbeats,

The splash of falling tears.

Hold fast dear beloved,

This place will wash away

And then you’ll know past heaven

Where we might rest and stay.

Acecela of Fiji

  That first day when you came and sat on the window ledge by the breakfast table, I was a bit taken aback. I mean, a guy is sitting with his family looking out over the Pacific, still a little dazed from 16 hours of flight when a 6 and a half foot male weighing in towards 300 lbs plops down at eye level with you.

  You grinned that big grin with several teeth missing that said, “Hi, I’m friendly.” Your gold polo with the resort emblem clearly stated you were an employee.

  “Everybody calls me Ace. I’m here every morning. No worries. Where you folks from?” We bantered a bit and you moved on. Later you came out with your battered guitar and sang children’s songs to the little ones that were everywhere. They came and sat at your feet or you knelt down at their table.

  Even the most petulant would soften. One child reached over to touch your arm as if to insure that you were real. For the next six days you were always there; village tours, fire ceremonies, games and every morning with your battered guitar, singing to the children.

  You dressed as a Fijian warrior and did the war dance. You took us to a wedding of your niece and treated us like family. You took my teenage sons into town to shop for shirts that would signify we were of the same clan as you. More importantly we comfortably let you. You showed us your life. Most of all you showed us your heart and in so doing you showed us the heart of your people.

  I knew from the first moment that you harbored a story of trial and tribulation behind the dark pool of your eyes. We recognized the wounds in one another. Both of us sought to heal and pay back through our love of the children.  Everyone knew you. They respected you.

  The day before we left a father from Australia told us that he had come there to the resort yearly since childhood. He had a photo of you as a fifteen-year-old “cheetah of youth” lighting a torch, wearing native dress.

  Before the scars was this lithe, exuberant boy. Even in a still photo you could sense the need to run toward the next flame … the next person … the next experience. Even in that photo of a youth,

one could sense the joy and grace of a people such as I have never known.   I believe that you, my friend, more than anyone we encountered, are Fiji … from the laughing children to the scarred warriors.

  Thank you Ace. Thank you for putting your arm around my sons in friendship. On the last day you came to the breakfast table to say goodbye. You sang a plaintive refrain that I had not heard while my wife cried openly.

  I listened to the yearning hope of a powerful man with a child’s heart and saw in my mind’s eye a youth lighting a torch that reveals the soul of a people bound to land and sea.

 In that moment, on a balmy Pacific morning, you and all of Fiji became a part of my family forever. I suspect there are many you have caused to feel the same.

  

"Make a Wish"

                                                             Fiji

 In a few short days my family and I will board a plane for ten days on a south pacific island called Fiji.  This was the wish granted by the “Make a Wish “foundation of N.C. to my son Corson.

  Two ladies came to our home about eight months into a year of intense chemotherapy he was going through. He weighed 128 lbs of what was 170 lbs when it started. He was bald, had no eyebrows, dark all around his eyes and an angry, maroon scar a foot long or more down the front of his now pole thin leg.

  They asked him what his wish was. He had told us it would be Fiji but I figured the idea would wan. It had not. They were the type of folks that kindness shown in their eyes and voices. I was uncomfortable. I suffer from pride. I knew that this was not about me though. It was about Corson.

  My wife knew that I would try to dissuade him. It was too expensive to wish for. Before I had the chance she admonished me, "They said don’t try to change his mind.”  I understood that his fragile state was not to trifle with so left it alone. It rested heavily on my heart.

  He had to write an essay. His usually sharp brain was muddled by the chemo. When I asked him, “Why Fiji?” he would shrug his shoulders, as he was prone to do. Time moved on and he never did really say.

  I think he has at times felt that I was disappointed that he was sick … somehow disappointed in him. He has always been our warrior, the stalwart self sufficient one. It hurts to consider yet as a father I can sense it. So we quietly marched through the year of suffering … together.

  It was a foggy world of chemo pumps and IV bags. We watched him waste away until finally, one day, it was over. It has been a year now. He has gained back most of the weight but there is much that he can no longer do.

  One of the ladies is coming to the office today to give me the itinerary and all the necessary documents.  We leave next Saturday. They gave us the news a couple of months ago. I was shocked. I had thought they would not be able to do such a thing. After I had to ask just one more time … “Why Fiji, Corson?”

  “Well Dad, I’m still not really sure. When they asked at the hospital that day what I would wish all I could think of was that I wanted to get as far away from this hospital as I possibly can.”

  When your child suffers there is an ever-present sense of heartbreak that you don’t think you’re going to be able to withstand … and then it breaks some more.

  So we will go to Fiji and I’ll watch the waves of that vast ocean ebb and flow as I remember all the faces.

  The knee-high girl with the remaining wisps of blonde hair and cowboy boots looking up at me as if to ask “Will you be my friend?”

  I will pray to the scudding clouds for Justin who died after his year of chemo for the same disease my son has.

 I will remember the mother sobbing on the elevator and all I could do was to hold her and mutter, “It gets a little easier, somehow. Just hold on. It gets a little easier …”

  And I will watch my tall, lanky son stride loosely through the surf with his twin brother and I will thank God for each breath that remains. You see it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s Fiji or Charlotte or Bangladesh as long as he still walks with me, free from that hospital … as far away as he can possibly get.

  Thank you; “Make a Wish” because, you see, I know that it does matter to a youth who is becoming a man. One thing is for sure no matter what happens,

he has this. For the rest of his life … however long that is … you have given him this. We will be forever grateful.

scott hicks

Corson Hick’s father.

Art

 We had taken our teenage twin boys and four of their friends to the beach for their sixteenth birthday. It was early (for teenagers anyway) so my wife Kimberly and I had taken a bike ride on a couple of cruisers that were under the house.

 

 It was sunny on a balmy May day when we spotted a  wooden footbridge down at the end of a street. It crossed the inland waterway and was about as long as half a football field. It arched from the wild of marsh and beach into a middle class neighborhood.  Fascinated we parked the rusty bikes and went for a stroll.

  An older couple, gray and a little unsteady were crabbing down below on a small square of dock.  A white egret fed in the distance. Modest piers were home to modest boats of various configurations.

  It was quiet. After crossing and walking a block we realized we’d been gone a while and the kids are probably wondering where we are. We turned to cross back over at a faster pace.  I remember thinking how I love the sound when your tennis shoes hit the two by fours of a wooden bridge when I spotted an older white haired gentleman we had greeted in passing on the way over the bridge.

  He seemed small sitting there on a bench in the midst of the flora and fauna of a quiet marsh His hands were clasped between his legs, shoulders drooping forward. Then I realized that he was weeping. I didn't hesitate but stepped over to him with out raised arms and held him about the shoulders in the best hug I could with me standing. He tensed for a millisecond then rested his head in the nape of my neck. I could feel the tears and his day old bristle. I let him weep.

  I knew my wife had stopped because I could no longer feel her footfalls. I sensed her returning and dropped to a knee. The old man muttered “ thank you … thank you.” Finally, when it felt right I stood, as there was not room to sit.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “My wife has died and I’m having a bad day. We were married for fifty-six years. Some days I’m ok. Then there are days like this when I miss her so. My son lives down the way. I’m here visiting with the grandchildren.”

 “There’s nothing to be sorry for my friend. We know all about grief. I’m just glad that we happened by.” I said.

  We stayed and talked to Art for a while. He told us about Margaret. Then he told us about his wonderful church and all the friends that looked after him. He showed us pictures of his grandchildren.

  We told Art that our son was battling cancer so he would know that we were brothers and sisters in grief and that we are never alone. We told Art we loved him until a tall man with a graying short beard came earnestly walking onto the bridge. I knew by his energy of haste and concern that he was Art’s son.

  We all exchanged pleasantries until it was time to go.

“The children will be missing us so we should go.”

Son and father thanked us. We told them we were just glad that we had happened by when we did.

 As we passed back over the bridge I spoke to God.

“Thank you Father, for Art and this time in nature to heal. Thank you Father for all of those who have held us in our tears and let us rest our head in the nape of their neck as our sorrow bled into them. Thank you Father for each breath we breathe and the memory of our loved ones. Thank you most of all for my sons who are waiting. Please let them live so that the day can come when they walk onto a bridge with love and concern looking for their wayward and earthly Father.

Peace to all …

The Fountain Pen 2

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   Long ago, as a child, I sat impatiently waiting on the front steps of my home. Crew cut and inquisitive I had discovered a box top offer on the back of some Sugar Smacks for a fountain pen.

  It had kindled daydreams of the Founding Fathers using quills to pen our beliefs.  I was going to save the world with that pen. There were truths that needed to be told. Grown ups needed to heed the thoughts of fresh and knowing young minds. They were “messin’ things up somethin’ awful.”

 I told my mother one summer morning, “Momma, I’m gonna save up and get this fountain pen.”

 “ Ok Honey. You do that though I can’t for the life of me see why a seven year old would want a fountain pen! Wouldn’t you rather save for something you could play with?”

 “No Momma. I NEED this pen!”

“ Ok Honey. You save the box tops and I’ll help with the mailing.”

 Somehow I felt she thought I wouldn’t follow through. What she doesn’t understand, I thought, is that George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, they all knew the real truth, that  “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

  Look what the Declaration of Independence had accomplished. It had tumbled a world power like a line of dominoes. It had created a country like God created the universe. That pen had brought a king to his knees and by golly I was going to tell the world how it could be done.

   I was going to pen my way into the hearts of America. I would write tomes to truth, tap dance my way into the hearts of mankind, toot the horns of progress, tell the world the answers til they were dancing on the rooftops!

  When I was done they would make me president because I was so smart. I yearned for the love of mankind. I believed that we could mesh our souls to create a utopia of understanding. “Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!” “Hi Ho Silver … AWAY!”

  I spotted the mailman way up the street striding down the Nessman’s driveway. 

  My heart began to palpitate as that blue clad public servant grew in my vision until he was nothing but a giant   “Jungle Jim” hard hat and a pair of high black stocking socks on huge, hairy legs. He was holding out a small box to ME. I was receiving my first piece of mail. I thought I would explode with glee.

   I don’t remember the mailman leaving. All I could see was that box as I worried it open. Then at last there it was, just like they showed it on the box, that beautiful, lacquered epistolary tool of the scribes.

 “Hot diggity dog!” I held it for a moment just feeling it in my little hand. It was smooth, elongated, orb like.

  Finally I had my very own fountain pen, my vehicle into the world! My uncles would sometimes pay me quarters to stop talking for fifteen minutes. I bet they’ll pay attention when I write a book. I just bet you when I’m famous they won’t be grinning that grown up “oh ain’t he funny” grin. I was jolted back to reality as I heard a car door slam.

 I looked up from my reverie and there was my Dad. He was sort of a cross between Johnny Cash and John Wayne. He had a booming voice and always wore starched shirts and pressed pants.  He stomped when he walked. It would cause all Mommas’ knick- knacks in the house to tinkle and shake.

 I loved my Daddy but he could be plain mean sometimes, especially when he was just coming back from a work trip.

 “Hey Beau … how’s my little buddy doin’?’’ he drawled with that lazy grin.

“Great Dad! Look at this fountain pen I got in the mail! I saved box tops and ordered it myself!  “Ain’t it great?”

 “Well Beau, I don’t think it’s such a good idea for a little fella to have this kind of pen. It breaks and you’ve got a mess that’ll never clean up.”

 “But Dad that’s why I wanted it. It’s a grown up pen. I’ll be careful. I promise.”

 “ I can’t believe your Momma would let you have such a thing … nothing but an accident waiting to happen. You let me have it for now. I’ll talk to your mother and we’ll see.”

  He reached out his big ole hand and I couldn’t do a thing but hand over that pen. I want you to know my heart broke right down the middle. He wasn’t just taking a pen, he was punching me in the gut like he had drawn back in meanness and let me have it. He stomped away around the house and out of sight.

   Hot tears streaming down my red, flushed and freckled face my blood rose to fever pitch, pounding in my temples. I hated him like a bull hates red, like a tiger hates fire, like a preacher hates sin. My heart raced and my knees went weak.  I changed in that moment. I never saw that pen again and I never forgot how easily dreams could be taken away. 

  I’ve got boys now. They are truly a gift. I can be grouchy and say things so I wish I had just kept quiet. I try to remember though that a little boy’s dreams are just as intertwined in their hearts as our grown up dreams are. I try to remember to say I’m sorry. I hope I’m doing ok. I hope and pray that I have never taken away their dream.

  My Dad is gone now. He died a couple of years ago. I loved him and sometimes I miss him bad … but he should have never taken away that pen.

Maybe ... Just Maybe

 Hey Dad. It’s been a while. Father’s Day just went by so I’m thinking about you more than usual. You know if you’d asked me 10 – 15 years ago I think I’d of said you were mostly just mean. Seems like the memories of violence and drinking were what stuck the most.

 I've mellowed some. My boys are up big now and I’m flooded with memories of a different kind. Do you remember dragging us all to the Starlite Speedway in Monroe on Friday nights? I’d lean into the chain link fence and watch those old beat up cars bump and bang around the red clay track. When they came around the  fourth turn it’d throw mud in our faces and down the front in little specks till the front was a film of clay.

  Do you remember Uncle Benny driving that race car, biting his tongue underneath his black helmet til one night somebody finally bumped him back and he went over the far rail? I knew it scared you though you hollered and went on like you were mad. He sold the race car after that.

  Do you remember how you’d make me go down to Beaver Creek at night and fish from the boat? You’d put those Coleman lanterns out over the black water and we’d sit there for hours pulling in crappy. The mosquitoes would be so bad I’d have welps in the morning. You hardly noticed them at all.

  Do you remember throwing the baseball out in the front yard? You threw side armed like Don Drysdale cause you broke both your collarbones in a head on collision with a drunk driver. I knew it hurt cause you’d complain a little. To be honest I was glad because you threw it so hard it’d make me dance.

  Do you remember all those times we’d fly down two lane blacktop leaving the ground on the “tickle hills” singing old hymns? You’d be smoking Marlboros like a freight train and you, Momma and me would work out the harmonies.

  Do you remember the time you were working on an electrical problem with a vacuum cleaner at your workbench and little brother Stevie snuck up and banged a hammer on the bench? You jumped back so hard you slipped and had to catch yourself. Man did you cuss. It scared me at first but then we all ended up laughing. It was good to see you laugh, Dad.

  The reason I’m bringing all this up now is because I got to thinking. Maybe he just wanted to spend time with me. Maybe he just thought if he could teach me enough, life might not be so hard like it was for him. Maybe … just maybe you were trying to be a better father than you had.

  Maybe when we were fishing you were showing me how to be quiet and sit with nature in the dark.

  Maybe you threw that baseball hard so when I played with the big kids I’d be used to it and not be scared.

  Maybe singing those hymns was your way of taking me to church … of showing me what you believed and how you loved God.

  Maybe when you started laughing that time Stevie scared you, you were laughing at yourself. It made us all better … I know that much.

  I could go on and on because you see for the most part you were there after I turned twelve or so. It was hard to watch you fall. You were my hero when I was little so it broke my heart to see you destroy yourself.

  Well Dad I suppose I just wanted to wish you Happy Father’s Day and let you know that I see things a little different now. Having the boys grow up has changed me. I love them so much it hurts so it makes me think … Maybe he just loved me and it was the best  job he could do.

 

Born Again

I have written many times about my baptismal experience. The core of the message is that little did I realize in those moments the depth of rebirth I was experiencing. Little did I know that  I would be reborn many times over.

  It saved me in more ways than one. Before my “conversion experience” twenty-four years past I lived by anger and conflict. It was me against a cruel world until I wore out. I changed my life with baby steps. I married. We had fraternal twin boys, joined a church … you know the drill.

  Those twin boys grew until they began to obtain driver’s licenses, have girlfriends and go places without us on a regular basis. Often I've wondered why they showed little interest in “joining the church” or being baptized.  I would ask and teach but each seemed  ambivalent other than a rather liberal take on religion in general. We have encouraged questions and exploration. We seek each day to ingrain in them a sense of inclusivity and a “cosmo-centric” worldview yet I yearned for the passage into commitment … belief … faith.

  Last year in the midst of a grueling protocol of chemotherapy one son told his mother he’d like to be baptized in the lake my wife called “Heaven Lake”. We have traveled there each year for 12 or 13 years to camp with friends and raft white water. Ironically it started on a church trip. We have continued to go even though the church trips have stopped.

  My wife and her teacher had taught my son to meditate to help him with the side effects. They told him to imagine a place of peace where he felt lifted, calmed … healed. He chose “Dream Lake”.

  Last week we went there and the same man that held them up to the church as infants baptized them in that lake. That man is a friend of mine and I’m afraid I don’t claim many. Twenty or so folks stood on the bank and watched. We sang “Amazing Grace” and a few sang a verse of “We Shall Gather At the River”.

  It wasn’t done at the church we attend in front of that community of faith but I got a feeling God’s ok with it. Some were from the church … some weren’t but we were all in that cathedral of nature.  We were all witness to these youth being washed in the spirit. We are all better for it and once more I was "born again."