The Path of Healing

Rayek — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 02:38:49 GMT

This last weekend I accompanied Jerushah - the woman in my life - to a memorial service in Dunsmier (near Shasta) for her father who passed away a week ago. Originally she was going up with a family friend she had dated for 3 years and who was close with her dad. He had to work that weekend and at the last moment on Friday we discussed it and I decided to go in his place. Before the decision I had many reservations about accompanying her: we had been through alot of rough times, had already separated once and our "relationship" was still ambiguous.. nevertheless, sitting in front of my friend Alona's house last Shabbat eve, talking on my cell with Rue (one of Jerushah's many names) helped me realize that I didn't want her to go through what I did when my dad died. There was no close friend to be there with me when I buried my father 14 years ago. So after dinner with Alona and a few minutes at a Shabbat service I went back to Rue's made sure she was packed, then tossed-and-turned for an hour trying to fall asleep while it seemed the rest of San Francisco was partying due to it being 70deg outside. We awoke at 5am, showered, dressed and took a cab to her mother's boyfriend's house in Oakland. We arrived a few minutes early and got a tour of his house.. a field biologist with a passion for nature, Bob is a sweet man who makes you feel at ease the more you open up to him. We drove about 3 hours North, stopped for a mid-morning breakfast at a Crackerbarrel-like restaurant and continued on. Bob is also a birder and immediately heard the members of half-a-dozen flocks of migrating birds on their way to a nearby field. I'd never seen so many formations in the air at once.. it was a beautiful tapestry of swirling black-and-white against the sun-soaked morning blue sky. When we arrived at her dad's house in Dunsmier, it was the most spectacular home I'd ever seen.. he was an architect with a penchant for flare, size and boldness; yet his home still retained a warmth and comfort about it. Friends and family continued to arrive until the house was packed.. I was meeting cousins, neighbours and long-lost relatives who had all come out to celebrate this man's life. Halfway through the day, Rue's older brother gave a speach about his last moments with his father and how he had touched the lives of those around him. Then Rue said a few words thanking everyone who came to celebrate her father. Finally there was Mary, a woman in her 90s who sat at the top of the stairs and .. through tears.. told a touching story of her last visit with Jerry. Now I truly know the meaning of the words "bitter-sweet". Later on after most folks had left... Rue, her 3-yo nephew Huon (pronounced hew-an) and I were snuggling on the couch watching Pink Panther cartoons together. I slipped easily into feeling like a father, imagining how great it would be to do this on a regular basis someday with my own child. Rue and I commented to each other later how violent the Pink Panther cartoons seemed to us now as adults. That night Rue and I went out to dinner with her cousins from the Gills-side of the family. A middle-aged couple who were a hoot to be with and kept us laughing throughout the meal. Bob ordered a dish and asked the restaurant owner to make it "as hot as he could". Needless to say, Bob got through about 1/3 of the dish and was in quite alot of pain for about an hour (I never did understand the idea of torturing oneself with too much spice... ). We finished just in time for tea and dessert next door at the local night club and caught the last half of the last song by a great local jazz group. Rue's cousins drove us back to the hotel we all stayed at, Rue and I watched Iron Chef for a while and went to bed with the sound of the local freight train careening through the night. The next morning was bright and cold, we headed back to her dad's house for a late breakfast and lingering goodbyes to her mom and rest of the family. It was a long ride back, which I made a little more fun by pleasuring Rue while she drove down the 5. We stopped off at a rest stop but there were too many folks around to continue our little adventure, so we waited to finish our fun until we got home. It was good to be back in the city and enjoy some delicious Thai green curry with brown rice before heading off to bed.

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The Path of Healing