Lifestyle | Short Story | Family | Wildlife | Peace
The Day We Laid My Father To Rest
As I was sitting here today, I starting thinking about my father, who left us in May of 2018.
I was thinking about all the life lessons my father handed down to me; the example he set on how to be a man and how to treat your wife; both the tough and gentle sides on how to be a father; and how to treat others and always show respect.
I look back and see how blessed I was with having him as a father and a best friend.
Every day, I find myself doing things I never knew how to do, then I remember and say, “oh yeah, dad showed me how to do that.”
I’m not writing this because I’m sad or I’m in mourning, I’m writing this because I want others to experience, if even in the slightest way, a brief tingle of what my father meant to me.
The day we were laying him to rest, I wrote of something that happened to my mother and me. It’s never happened before and it’s never happened since.
I wrote it and sent it to my relatives in another country who couldn’t make it to the funeral or burial, because I wanted them to experience what that brief 5 minutes in time felt like.
And now, I’m giving it to you, and hope I captured the moment in words.
My mother and I saw the most amazing thing this morning.
You have to understand, we live on 5 acres of the most beautiful property you’ll ever see, complete with a gorgeous pond spreading across the property.
This morning, when mom and I were pulling out of the garage to bring my father to his final resting place, a deer ran through our backyard right behind the car and stopped in the most unusual place and just looked at us as we looked back at it. It wasn’t frightened, it wasn’t jittery, just stopped and stared at us with the most peaceful look. It then trotted off towards my sister’s house, who lives next door.
We were also on the way to pick up my sister for this sad day. As we pulled into my sister’s back driveway, that same deer was there, at the edge of our property, and again, gave me that peaceful stare. Mom could see the deer from where she was sitting as well.
As I got out of the car, the deer slowly turned and trotted toward the other end of the property and stopped, one more time, turned and looked at me, then turned and went through the woods and disappeared.
I don’t know if it was something Mom and I needed to see, but it was so unusual to see a deer behave that way, in such a calm manner, on the property my parents have worked so hard to make special.
It was as if it were my dad saying to us, “everything is going to be alright”, and gently said his goodbye in his own special way. Goodbye dad, I love you and miss you.
There you go. It wasn’t too mushy of a story, was it? Again, just a brief moment in time, on a truly sad day in my life. Maybe my dad had put that deer in that position so the sadness in our hearts could be replaced by a peacefulness, if only for a brief moment.
