We spent Sunday evening at the beach park for P’s send-off with plenty of delicious food and treats, new traditions. We made cornbread, a new recipe out of a magazine stoking shared nostalgia of New Mexico, which wasn’t the sweetest option at the potluck, that was the slices of carrot cake, but a welcome accompaniment to many beef and chicken dishes.
After eating, we took a group photo, a few played music and sang for the angel walk, which was a new presentation of many hands. A friend spoke the many hands makes for light work adage recently, so it is refreshed in my awareness. Seeing a few pictures of the angel walk, I note how there were many hands, more than 40 hands of the 20-plus of us, our collective extension of hands passing one brother along on his journey, from one to the next such that we could each whisper sweet somethings — memories, wishes, respect, vignettes of loving appreciation — as he walked slowly through us. His slow walk rippled a wake of us. That we were the back straps of muscle on both sides of a center line, a spinal column of life and light.
With his eyes closed and arms reaching out, we met one of P’s hands, gathered him close to share a sentence or a few. Our many hands guiding, caring, accompanying him for just one step along a long journey. Sometimes he was upright, other times squatting low as a few children shared, too. He sometimes expressed a hearty laughter, sometimes a sweet mm affirming what he’d taken in before being guided on his next, handheld step. When P arrived at the end, he turned back to us and expressed that words could not adequately convey all that he felt, how he was loved and resourced and replenished from the memories we recalled as we were both mirrors reflecting life and prisms bending light.
washing dishes: a father’s glimpses 