Maddie was looking pretty uncomfortable one morning at our Zoom meeting. Turns out she was suffering from a boil on her sit-me-down. She was hurting, upset, and knew she had to go to the doctor and deal with this.
The way she was sitting was exactly how I saw my Dad sitting one morning decades ago when I wandered into the kitchen ready for my Rice Krispies cereal breakfast. My Dad died in 1998 but Maddie’s circumstance brought that memory back so clearly. Not just him sitting but also his arms resting, kind of holding him up, on the arms of the dining room chair, by the bay window, morning light coming in-not bright but not cloudy either.
“Snap, crackle, pop, Pop.”
Dad shifted and smiled a little, but had no corny reply.
“Why are you sitting like that?”
“I had a growth removed from my sit-me-down and it still hurts.” He paused. Then he smiled. “But it’s all behind me now. “
Of course being ten, I thought this was hilarious.
Appealing to the kid in Maddie who I know is in residence in her soul, I told her my Dad story. “Yep, it’ll all be behind you.”
She laughed and perked up. “I’m going to the doctor.”
What made the eternal connection was what she texted me later. “Isn’t it fascinating that something your father said to you probably sixty years ago still rings true today? I’m using your Dad’s line. ‘It’s all behind me now.’ I would think he would be smiling down on us.”
What a heavenly thought. Thanks, Dad.
Ethel Lee-Miller blogs regularly about people, the power of words, and the writing life. She’s retired from professional writing gigs after 30 years of teaching, coaching, editing, and gathering writers to publicly share their work. She is the author of Thinking of Miller Place, and Seedlings, Stories of Relationships. In retirement she writes to inspire, to connect with folks, and for the pure enjoyment of it. Ethel enjoys sharing stories at Odyssey Storytelling, Zoom gatherings, and anywhere there’s a Zoom mic.
