Remembering....

On this day several years ago, April, 2, the pope died and one of the greatest men who ever lived also passed through the invisible liminal limit between here and there...wherever and whatever there is.

That man is my grandfather, known as Littlepa, to me. 

I grew up living next door to him.  We would sit on his front porch, walk in his garden, sit on the couch and eat frito bandito corn chips and drink coke from a chilled bottle.

He was tall, muscular, jet black hair with silver intermingles and a face that carried his native american heritage.

He was an ordinary kind of man.  He wore white t-shirts, wrangler blue jeans and slip on blue canvas tennis shoes.  He made me feel as if I hung the moon---and in my eyes, he did the same.

He knew all kinds of nature tricks,

could whistle and birds would land at his feet and wait for him to throw

them a treat of white bread.

He loved his dogs...treated them like little kids.

He kept milky way candy bars hidden for just when I visited.

He could make a flute carved out of a little stick and tried to learn to play the guitar---everything he played sounded like the same chord, but he would sing any number of church hymns in his off key manner.

He wore think black glasses when he read his Bible and had a magnifying glass sitting on his kitchen table for when he wanted to show me some cool, neat thing on some coin that he happened to be collecting.

He tied a tire on an tall old tree behind his house next to the railroad track, where I'd sit and dream and swing and play.  He bought me my first car, loved Westerns especially gun smoke and was always thrifty and was environmentally green before it was cool.  He picked up cans and bottles and whatever else and recycled and often gave me the cash he got for turning them in.

He was an ordinary man.

lived an ordinary kind of life...

but he touched me in ways that I can't really explain.

He taught me about kindness and grace and love.

He loved God, his neighbor and all animals of all kinds.

on the outside looking in, the world

might say...he just lived an ordinary life.....

i say...he showed me how to live

life full filled.

So on this day...

i saw a cardinal sitting on a tree

i thought he looked at me and sang..

and I remembered Littlepa...with both sorrow and thanksgiving all wrapped up squeezing my heart.

I said good morning to him...

later in the day, my husband and i drove to the mountains of Eastern Ky.

I took a hike out into the woods....

I looked at sticks, and rocks, leaves and trees

all budding out

all living together

growing and dying and being...

and i stood in the silence

along side the side of the mountain and I looked

out over the "holler"

glanced at the whites and pinks and reds of all

the trees budding out

and suddenly the sun rose from behind the clouds..

and for just a minute..

I thought I felt him pass behind me...

thought I heard that whistle he used to do..

thought I heard him say...

look how deep those roots grow....

and i knew...

that my love for him would never die...

that the thin invisible space between here and there

was just a space...

 hearts still bound,

 love still strong...

so

for today,

I'll whisper a prayer of

thanksgiving for the beauty of the world,

the warmth of the sun,

the smell of leaves and flowers and rain all mingled together

and

for

a moment of

mystical love

that run

throughout

all eternity.

I miss you Littlepa...

Thanks for the visit! Loved the ferns curled out on the bed of dying leaves....

see you soon...