Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat ??“ Patricia Stallings

Feb 22, 2006

Another new writer for Storytime Tapestry; Patricia Stallings becomes writer # 295.?  Please email her and let her know just how much you enjoy her wonderful work.

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My Father??™s Last Gift

Patricia Stallings

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I returned to Alabama when I was 29 years old.?  As a matter of fact I
was driving the U-Haul on the weekend of my birthday.?  When I left
Florida it was sunny, by Birmingham, Alabama it was cold, gray and
rainy.?  Definitely matching on the outside what storms were brewing
within.?  When I reached Huntsville the rain was slowing to a blow of
snow and the temperatures had dropped by twenty degrees.?  I pulled
into the parking area of the duplex.?  What a ride.?  I had never
driven a truck like this much less pull small trailer behind it.? 
What an experience.?  I got out the large black maglite and went to
turn on the lights in the apartment.?  My body and mind were numb from
fatigue, and as heavy as the weight in my heart.

I flipped the switch and light flooded the echo chamber of the empty
apartment. I felt like it felt, a meat locker...frosty and empty.?  I
returned to the bitterness of the weather and that hulking creature
that helped my haul all I owned and retrieved the mattress of my
bed.?  A set of sheets, pillow and blankets in a bag just for this
occasion had been put conveniently in the front and I got that
too.?  All I wanted to do was sleep for a year.?  I had come home to
help take care of my father.?  He was in the hospital waiting surgery
for tumor removal.?  Sounded like a project for an archeological
dig..."tumor removal".?  Ever since my grandmother had told me the
painful truth my blood had tuned into quick-silver jelly and my
nerves felt like I was on maximum output.? 

I had called to talk to him.?  He was supposed to be at home, but
wasn't.?  Curious.?  After calls to the woman who would soon become my
step-mother and no answer, I called my grandmother.?  She hesitated
and finally said...???He didn't want to worry you after all the two of
you had been through.?  He didn't want to scare you."?  He was already
in the hospital and they were trying to build up his system so they
could operate...colon cancer.?  My mind spun off the reference point
of reality.?  When I hung up the phone I couldn't even cry.?  I was so
devoid of feelings of any kind that I was not even visible.?  I had
ceased to exist for that time.?  The old familiar feeling of DREAD
crept around every corner of my being and pounced.?  GOTCHA!

Skip time and move to April 11, 1981.?  It has been such a journey.? 
Today my step-mother called at work from the hospital.?  "Are you
coming straight here?"?  Something in the way she formed that question
sent a chill of apprehension up my spine.?  I went icicle,
frozen.?  "Patti?"?  "Well, I haven't eaten all day and I was going to
stop and get something.?  I haven't been buying groceries lately and
there's nothing at home.?  Why?"?  I was filling the air with words
because I was afraid of what she was going to say.?  "OK. Just come as
soon as you can."?  "Alright.?  I'll go to Burger King and then come
straight on."?  Like I could really eat anything.?  A stalling
maneuver.?  She hung up without another sound.?  I held the receiver
like it was something from another planet.?  I was getting that fuzzy
lightheaded feeling all throughout my body like when you hold your
breath too long and you might pass out.

She was standing up against the wall by the elevator.?  Life had been
slowly sucked out of all her features and she was color-devoid.?  We
got in and rode up to the third floor.?  When we got out of the
elevator I felt like the mother leading the child down the corridor
to the doctor's office.?  I could feel her energy pulling back,
resisting.?  I walked faster.?  There that beautiful man laid, sunken
withering and delicate.?  White hair and gray skin.?  His face, the
face I had always known flashed in my mind's eye and I moved
tentively toward the bed.?  "He's slipped into a coma.?  He's been like
this since this afternoon.?  He doesn't have much time.?  We have given
him something for pain and rest."?  My head nodded, I wasn't sure of
what I was doing.?  My body sat down beside him and reached for his
hand.

We sat this way for another two hours.?  I leaned in close to his ear
and spoke with my hearts voice, tears slipping across skin, "It's ok
daddy.?  You can go now.?  It's been a long fight and you can sleep.? 
We will be ok.?  You can go now.?  I love you."?  It was like watching a
clock unwind its mainspring.?  Breathing slowed little by little and
life tip-toed out the door.?  Silence.?  The large male nurse that had
so lovingly attended him for the last eight weeks picked up his other
hand and cried.?  "oh big Mac, goodbye."?  I laid my head in his quiet
hand and wept tears of all the years I had lived and not released. It
felt like a gusher flowing out of a hydrant, pressure contained and
released.

The day we buried my father was absolutely gorgeous..just like him,
just like his spirit.?  Funny, I never shed a tear that day.?  It was
poetry and music.?  Cars lined the cemetery.?  I closed my eyes and I
could see him dancing with my mother and smiling to us all.?  He was
always an exquisite dancer.?  I drove the 90 miles home in
silence..inside and out.?  When I got to my apartment I laid down and
slept.?  When I woke up the first feeling I had was relief.?  The fight
was over, the new day had dawned and my father whispered in my
dream..."you are never alone. You are never alone."

Throughout the experience of the eight year struggle with his illness
my father gave me a beautiful gift, the gift of the courage and
strength that it takes to let go.?  He helped me see death as another
rite of passage and nothing to fear.?  He simply went to the next
dance.?  He helped me feel from depths that had been untapped and
unexplored.?  He gave me the first real taste of who I was to become.? 
The feeling that I released was the dread that had hung over me for
16 years - the dread of living.?  I was reborn the day my father died
and I honor him in his passing.?  He gave me the gift and connection
to life in more ways than I can count, and a doorway to the Divine I
never knew was open.? 

? Patricia Stallings

imago@HIWAAY.net? 

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My name is Patricia Stallings, residing on this earth for 56 years? since February? 11, 1950.? ? Besides styling hair for the last 34 years?  I? have been a commercial artist, and a characturist, a Reiki Master, and an ADL Minister.?  My avenue of expression, besides humor, has been writing.?  At present I live in Alabama.

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