The Most Significant Loss

With watered down eyes I wandered again onto our deck to find the periodic call of an owl that plagued my lonely midnight rituals. I didn’t care, I wasn’t sleeping, I was drinking, and the random hollering-screech of the unseen bird gave me a task second to drowning myself into unconsciousness. Every night I’d forget about the calls then just before the blackness overtook my mind a loud but subtle, “eeeeek” would pull me back to life. I’d sit up. Once so quickly I kicked red wine all over the couch having again to flip the cushion. I’d mentioned the night caller to my husband, my daughter, my mom, but I was the only one ever awake to witness the actual sounds. In my state, I could never identify an area where it was coming from, just a general direction. I heard it best off my deck but in the pure black of the mountain evergreen’s my jostled mind could not get a grasp on the cries that seemed to toy with me as fast as falling stars.

There’s a time after someone loses a parent that they are permitted a certain amount of insanity and I took full advantage of my grief with liquid indulgence and isolation. My father had only been sick one year. He was healthy. He ran marathons. He was the ever-present grandpa that picked up my daughter up for ice cream. He hand-made my birthday cards. He counselled me to the point I’d never even considered others for advice and now my logical brain did not comprehend where he was. Cancer overtook him. I’d nursed him during his decline. After we buried him, I returned home and felt like I’d lost an arm, a leg or both. My mind replayed only one question, “Where did he go? Where did he go? Where did he go?”

The first night home from my father’s house I went to the liquor store and filled a box with red wine, white wine, and vodka. I’d never been a great sleeper but now my brain would not turn off at all. After dinner I had one drink then robotically gave my daughter a bath, read to her, put her to bed by 8:30 so I had plenty of time alone. My husband worked early and went to bed early. He had never lost someone close so he asked what he could do but I had no answers. This was my first significant loss. The most significant loss.

Raised in church I am spiritual, but realistic. As a child, I’d questioned Sunday School teacher’s. I’d quizzed my grandparents about bible stories demanding details and explanations. Way past one bottle of wine one night, I poured another and stared at the mountain horizon when the quick wings of a large bird glided past the kitchen window and landed on the post of our deck facing the door. It landed comfortably and remained motionless as I sipped slowly and studied the intricate details of this unique creature. The talons were strong and gripped the post with a confidence that made me jealous. I had never been so sure of my place in life that my feet were firm, my back straight or my chest puffed out. I had never seen an owl so close, so quiet, so intimate.

It was the color of the wings that dropped my heart into my gut. I’d seen a white owl at the zoo, but this was not white, he was a reddish orange I recognized instantly. In the midnight light it was red hot like the burner of a stove, and I was stunned by the color I recognized so fondly. It matched my father’s hair.

As a boy people had called my father Opie or Archie, like the famous character’s due to the rust red hair common to his family. As a boy he often replied his hair was orange, not understanding the red label everybody claimed. It identified him and his brothers Jack and Rusty as they matched head-to-head walking tallest to shortest behind my grandma. Eventually he was known as Johnnie Red. Then, as he aged, it thinned. By the time I was born it was barely strawberry blonde. I never knew my dad as Johnnie Red but saw the pictures and the full heads of hair as evidence still on my uncles and cousins. It is piercing and rare and the last place I ever expected to see it up close was an owl perched after midnight just outside my door.

I stumbled and it was gone. I tried to move closer, kicked the metal trash and startled it with sound through the open window. I let myself slide to the floor, drunk and overwhelmed with the ease at which life slips away. I drank there the rest of the night then passed out between the door and the sink. My husband walked me to bed. I zombied through the next few days with an orange owl flying through my thoughts. I kept it to myself, not sure if it’d been real. And then the dreams began.

In the park of my hometown where my father took my daughter, I would watch them play where I played as a child. In my dreams my dad was young, the full head of orange hair, slim and lanky, full of energy as he chased my three-year-old from slide to swings. I sat on the park bench silent, happy, complete. He’d push her on the swings, they’d stop to pick a dandelion and I sat filled with a contentment that seemed as real as the pillow beneath me. Then I’d wake up, devastated. I could have touched him, I could have said something, I could have stayed there longer.

Heaven doesn’t comfort everyone on earth, even the believers. I believe in an afterlife, but I can’t understand it. I believe in something greater, but I can’t grasp where it would be. In his own words my father had told me he wasn’t scared to die. He’d actually said he was honored to lead his family into the future and go boldly where we would soon join him. It was a conversation we’d had while sitting on his living room floor. I cried silently from fear and he sat still, the left side of his face drooping from radiation and his blue eyes focused on my face. I didn’t understand his bravery, his strength when facing death but I felt that he meant every word.

Nearly a week later – halfway through a second bottle, the owl returned. It sat on the same post. Held the same confidence. Boasted the rust-colored wings, highlighted by the mountain moon. I almost woke my husband. Again, I just stared. I was still having dreams. My dad at the park. My dad at the store. My dad at my wedding. Sleep now overwhelmed me. I didn’t know when I hurt most – the day or the night, but tonight I was relieved by the return of the owl. Unphased by the darkness, the loneliness, the vast sky of questions about life, again it sat boldly looking around. And again, I fell apart.

My friend Jill told me she had heard owls at night on our mountain but seen very few. The few she’d seen she described as carpet brown and ugly. She said they didn’t sound as expected but made a screech that made her jump when she walked the dogs. My owl was silent. It was calm. It was stunning.

I Googled owls and Jill was right. Some owl calls are what I’d expect but others make freaky sounds and very few are actually attractive. The ones I saw online reminded me of campfire stories or cheap Halloween décor.

The next night as I poured my wine, I said something spontaneous, “I need some sort of sign!” Immediately I cried. I’d held so much in while caring for my father. I wanted our time to be light, fun, free of the stress of looming death. We’d played cards, watched Wife Swap and laughed for months at ridiculous new routines such as blending his dinner. In an apron with a napkin over my arm, I’d present an Ensure to my father at lunch saying, “Our best on the menu, sir.”

Now it all came up and out as wine went down. “I just need to know,” I mumbled. Snot slid down my lips, tears down my chin, “I just need to know he’s here – he’s there – he’s somewhere…I don’t care what it’s called!” I yelled, “an afterlife, Heaven, whatever!” I cried. I sat on the couch so stained from wine it looked like the pattern. I’d never been so empty. I’d never felt so raw, so angry, or so unsure about the true existence of life and living.

I didn’t stop. I said it a thousand times. I need to know. I need to know. I need to know. I can’t live if he’s gone forever. I can’t live if I’ll never see him again. I can’t live with a life that quits. I can’t go on not knowing – I want to believe I’ll see him again.

I cried into the couch. I heaved up sounds of death and grief that were stuck just beneath my ribs. I begged a higher power, a greater being, God, anyone, to hear me and show me that life was more than just a measly sixty years. I was drunk and relentless. I dared the earth; I begged for anything to calm my mind and settle the ache in my chest. I passed out mouthing the words: Send me something real…

My husband’s hand gently pressed my back early the next morning.

“You have to see this,” he said, “The sun is up but there’s an owl – just chilling on our deck.”

I sat up. My dreams were fresh. My dad was on my deck this time. We were swinging on the porch swing drinking coffee as we used to on his porch. Rocking, talking, laughing. It hurt to wake up again, to reality. I wanted to be back on that swing beside him.

My daughter ran in and begged me to come see. They were both amazed that a nocturnal animal was so relaxed at home in the daytime. I waited for coffee. I knew it was the same owl. I figured we had some sort of food source, mice, or something close by it liked to hunt. I drank the coffee and tried to shake the dream. I wiped my eeys and walked to the door where the owl usually perched at night, but the post was empty. I looked down the deck, still nothing. I shot a look to my husband across the kitchen and he whispered, “No, go out there – slowly.”

I went onto the deck and felt the mountain sun my father had loved. The side of our deck was empty, so I stepped barefoot slowly around the corner and stopped. The wild orange owl was perched on top of our porch swing rocking back and forth with the wind. His strong talons kept him steady. His chest was out. He lifted his warm orange head towards the sun and kept still even when my steps moved the boards. I leaned back on the post and relaxed.

I watched the owl and felt a calmness I hadn’t felt all year. I felt stronger than my pain. I drank my coffee with a sense of peace as I watched the owl defy its natural instincts, bravely it sat in one spot forgetting the world. I heard my daughter laugh inside and remembered - she was the one that needed me and she would need to know I’d be with her, even after I’d gone.

I knew then, my father would always be with me, but my daughter would keep me alive.