A RAY OF SIGH

My Beloved Daughter,

While I was searching for some papers I need to bring to the lawyers' tomorrow, I found the picture of me holding you up to the sun. It sat on the drafting table where it has been for years, propped up against the light that is clamped to the table itself. The sight of it made me stop my search and look at it as if for the first time.

     You are young, a child of no more than six, and I am embracing you, raising you two feet in the air, your delicate legs dangling above the ground. You are bathed in the summer sun and you shade me from the light. I am wearing a hat, jeans and a  long sleeve shirt to protect me from that same sun. You are smiling, beaming the innocent smile of a child. And you are wearing a summer print dress with daffodils. I remember that day. We were at the Cloisters in New York City and you were amazed at the unicorns on the tapestry and the colors of the flowers that were in the courtyard. Your mother and I, we did our  best to talk to each other, but I had no idea as what to say anymore. But we did not argue because on that day, you were the  center of everything, at least to me.

     From the day I got that picture of you and I, it stayed on the drafting table, staring at me every time I sat down to  create something. I would look at it and realize that, because of the smile you had, there was something in the universe beyond anything my pencil or pen could draw. It was a very dark time for me and you were the only person that gave me hope, that gave me life. I was never sure if you knew that, especially after your mother and I stopped talking.

     In the past few weeks, I have been staying up very late reading and re-reading the stories of Raymond Carver. It is one  of his last essays, before he died of lung cancer, that has been on my mind. It is called "Meditation on a Line from Saint  Teresa". In it he quotes a line from the writings of Saint Teresa of Lisieux. She says, "Words lead to deeds.. . . They  prepare the soul, make it ready, and move it to tenderness." Carver concludes by stating, "Pay attention to the spirit of your  words, your deeds. That's preparation enough. No more words."

      He wrote this at the end of his life, after his cancer was diagnosed as terminal. It was no accident that I saw your picture while searching for the documents I needed for tomorrow's appointment. My late uncle, whom I believe to be both a genius and a saint, said that, "There is no such thing as an accident." I see now, with utmost clarity, what he meant.

      The last time I called your mother she said that you were doing well. She said that you had found a new girlfriend who  made you laugh. I did not press the issue with more questions. I could hear that her husband was in the room and we kept the conversation short. Both those words made me happy...happy because you have grown into a woman who is daring to embrace love, to open her heart with all the joys and risks that it entails. It is when we get older that doubt and fear remind us of experience and convince us not to take such chances. But you, you are young and beautiful and your bones are still soft and love is not something you are so afraid of that you will not attempt to find it. I find solace in that, that I was there to see you in those days , that I was able to experience an embrace that was true. I see that now. I believe that, for one small  moment in the garden that day, I was grateful. One thinks of such things at a time like this and I can confront the memory with no regrets. Your smile that I now hold in my hand is all the absolution I could ever hope to have.

     I make no excuses for any of the things I have done to upset you, especially the silence that I cannot explain, not even  now. I gave you the best I had in my moments of clarity and I hope that they stay with you in the days and years ahead. I  assure you that they shall stay with me on the journey I am about to take. 

     I will ask that I have a bed next to a window so that I may stare out of it, not to see the landscape of the city below, but simply to see the sun. You and your mother will be called if anything goes wrong, but the days ahead will be without you, without you in present tense, that is. But I shall look out at the sun, the same sun that was shining upon us that day at the Cloisters and be grateful that there was another witness to that moment of beauty and clarity.

     I realize now that the sun is not the same as it was then, that it has burnt a part of itself and is,infinitesimally, less than what it was on that day. Still it shines. But you, you have not gotten any less bright, only brighter. I can see that now, with this picture in my hand under the drafting table light and the sun about to rise soon.

     You, in my arms for that one moment in the garden, shone brighter than the sun.

All My Love,
Dad