My Last Waltz with Dad

This was a night of Hell on Earth for everyone involved, and I wanted so much to be able to make it all never to have happened in the first place. But that wasn't the way it was to be. Like Jesus with his beloved friend Lazarus, I had to experience coming on the scene shortly after the death of one, and then feel and see myself and others go through pain I wouldn't wish upon anyone...

All of it just to learn to let go of control and allow the story the freedom to arrange and transform itself to play out for the good for all of us...

This one is still transforming for me, nearly eight years later...

It was the last week in August, 2005. I was home in Minneapolis feeling a bit sad. I’d just remembered a phone conversation I’d had with Dad sometime in the months before he died. After Mom died, he and I usually talked with one another every Sunday.

On this particular Sunday, he told me he’d gone to a wedding dance in Ludlow and had danced with my sister, Laurie, and his granddaughter, Renae. He then said he was sure sad that I wasn’t there, too—that he’d missed the chance to dance with me. Our favorite was the waltz.

I remember feeling a bit choked up at the time, and in an attempt to head off a really painful moment for the two of us that I didn’t want to tarnish the little joy he’d recently had, I chimed in, “Oh, that’s okay, Dad. I’m so glad you got the chance to dance with Laurie and Renae.”

Two years later, here I was remembering that exchange, finally allowing myself to feel the pain of the loss of that last waltz with him.

A few days later I was on the highway alone, headed to Laurie and Terry’s place to spend a little time visiting them and other family, and taking in a football game that my nephews were playing.

On September 3rd, the two-year anniversary of my last night with my dad, I was heading back to Laurie and Terry’s after having spent part of a joy-filled day with my oldest brother and his family and part of it with my brother Steve. As I passed the turn-off where Arlen had been killed, two guys on motorcycles passed me, causing me to think of him and that night, and finding myself grateful that I’d arrive at Laurie’s before it was dark. Deer were in the ditches and I was especially vigilant about not driving after dark.

As I rounded the curve at the North Dakota/South Dakota border, I found myself talking to Dad sharing my joy of the day with him. I glanced at the clock and noted it was nearly eight o’clock. A few moments later I saw a wavery, dark-gray haze moving across the highway a mile or so in front me, on the north face of a hill known as Microwave Tower Hill.

As I drew closer, I noticed a man was standing in the middle of the highway waving his arms to flag me down. I pulled to the shoulder, taking in the glint of a motorcycle off to the side, and realized it was the guys who had passed me earlier. As I stopped the car and got out, he ran up to me and asked if I had a cell phone, which I didn’t.

I started following him and realized they’d hit a deer and that one of the men, his brother, was sprawled across the center of the highway, and motorcycle parts and deer parts were strewn across both lanes. I got about three feet away from the man lying on the highway, didn’t notice any movement from him and found the question, “Is he dead?” choked off somewhere between my heart and my vocal cords. I couldn’t bring myself to voice it.

And then we heard the roar of another vehicle, not visible yet, but approaching from over the top of the south side of the hill. We rushed into the middle of the lane, waving our arms trying to stop the truck. But the engine never slowed, and I remember grabbing the guy’s shoulder to signal him to jump off the road with me, keeping my back turned away and bracing for the sound of the impact as the truck ran over the downed biker. As his brother yelled and screamed his frustration beside me, another vehicle sped by, never stopping.

Shock took over—it would take me days to remember the second vehicle whipping by without stopping. I realized I needed to turn on my emergency flashers on the car, and as I started down the road in that direction, the passenger in the first truck met me. They’d pulled over at the first approach and he’d walked back to help—never realized that their truck had run over a human being. They thought it was a motorcycle part--parts were strewn all over the highway, as I explained earlier, and the man was clothed in black, pretty much invisible. I didn't even know he was there until I'd gotten out of my car. I knew the occupants of the truck, they were friends of the family—and my heart just dropped.

I ran across the highway to turn on the flashers, but even though I had noted gratefully how easy they were to find when we bought the car, I couldn’t see them. In the meantime, a truck pulling a horsetrailer came from the direction I had, and we managed to get them stopped in time. The husband and wife, with a daughter named Hope, helped turn on my lights and stayed near me, and one-by-one, traffic was stopped both directions and emergency vehicles began arriving.

I remember making the conscious choice at the time to walk through this whole accident with compassion for myself instead of the self-criticism of what I “should have done.” I didn’t know I was on the scene of an accident until I’d left the car, and then things just unfurled in a matter of seconds of time.

Once we had someone managing traffic from both directions, his brother went over and sat down next to the man on the highway—and told me the story of why they were out riding that late. He was blaming himself, but I finally knew by that time that it was important to express those thoughts and feelings in order to release them, no matter how painful, or seemingly misdirected. So I kept my mouth shut and my hand on his shoulder, and let him vent his pain.

Human angels came out of the prairie that dark and tragic night. One man came forward and suggested he help move the brother over to the side of the road. Another vehicle drove slowly through offering first aid and use of their phone. A school friend who was a member of the fire department took the time to give me a comforting hug as he went about his duties. And yet another friend came to keep an eye out for me until I’d talked to the sheriff, and then she and her husband delivered me and my car to Laurie and Terry’s that night.

Laurie and Terry’s house reminded me of a lighthouse that night as we drove up. I remember needing to shower right away to rinse the smells and the tastes of that scene off of me. Ever seemingly present at times I needed her the most, Laurie was there to go for a walk with me in order to move and clear some energies in yet another way.

My sister-in-law had given me a pair of cute red flip-flops that day, and after wearing them that night I couldn’t bring myself to go near them. I ended up throwing them in the dump, but what I really wanted to do was to burn them.

I was concerned for the friend who was driving the truck that ran over the biker, so I finally mustered up the courage to call him the next morning. It was then that I found out that his wife was driving—that’s why he’d looked especially heartsick at the scene. They didn't know they'd run over a person (albeit, I'm certain the man had already left his body by then) until the highway patrol came to their door later that night.

When I called, he was grateful, because his wife was understandably horrified by it and having a hell of a time. Plus, like me, I'm sure they were both in a state of shock yet, too.

That Sunday morning after, Terry drove down the highway to have a neighbor familiarize him with the layout of some land and access routes for fighting prairie fires, should the need arise. Terry told me afterwards that he’d driven that highway all those years, never noticing until that morning that there was a blind spot as one descended the hill that kept a driver from seeing all the way to the bottom.

By then, I also realized that both brothers and I had been clothed in black, and that against the fairly new-topped black highway, we would have been invisible in the hours of dusk.

Armed with these few facts, I made myself get in my car a few days later and drive into town to see the driver of the truck. Understandably, she admitted she wasn’t so sure she wanted to talk with me when she saw me walking up to her home. But once we got to talking and sharing our versions with each other, we both found it helped answer mercifully a lot of scary questions.

She was actually a hero. She was the one who’d made the emergency call and gotten help to the scene—using a dead cell phone. She said she almost didn't take it with them that night on their way to town for supper because it was uncharged, but she remembered hearing a story about battered women who were given old cell phones, because 911 calls could still be made on them.

While her husband walked back to where we were, she stayed with the vehicle and proceeded to flash her lights on and off (she couldn’t find her flashers either, but got creative). I’m pretty sure she was instrumental in getting the traffic stopped behind me.

Our conversation took a turn down memory lane and we got on the subject of my parents. She began telling me about attending a wedding dance shortly after the death of her first husband. She said she hadn’t wanted to go, but that the parents of the bride were good friends of hers so she endured the pain of watching couples dancing by in front of her.

A man came by—my Dad—and invited her to dance a waltz with him. She told him she didn’t know how, but he encouraged her that they could still give it a try. She told me, “I don’t know if I could ever do it again, but I think we actually did pretty good. I felt like Cinderella in the middle of the floor, surrounded by all these people…”

When I remember that awful, tragic night—this story, my last waltz with my dad, is at the forefront...

It gives me hope that no story, no matter how dark, is ever complete until it takes a turn for the good…and I hope the story of that night for my beloved friend and her husband, and for those two brothers, is one of those, as well...

My beloved friends, please keep your hearts and minds open to new possibilities--miracles. This didn't happen in order to punish any of us. For me, it was another step towards opening the doors beyond the old story illusion called Death. As well as a chance for me to actually practice the art of SELF-COMPASSION that was then naturally expressed as compassion for all the others.

With love and gratitude, Harry and Edward...

P.S. Less than two years later in May, on our way to my nephew's graduation, my husband and I were driving down the same highway in broad sunny daylight around 1:30 in the afternoon. We passed a caravan of motorcycles and a Jimmy pulling a trailer parked on the side of the road exactly where I'd parked that fateful night. It felt too coincidental for both of us, so we turned around about a mile past to backtrack and ask if they were somehow connected with the motorcyclists that night. Even with knowing they were there, we couldn't actually see them until we were actually upon the site on the other side of that little dip and rise in the highway. And the cyclists knew nothing of the accident. They had stopped to do repairs on one of the bikes.

I've decided that miracles and gifts are all around me--I just have to keep my heart and eyes open.............


Another P.S. In 2008, Kel and I experienced our own personal collision with a deer at night. We were unharmed, but our pick-up warranted a trip to the body shop. We were in the middle of nowhere, couldn't find the deer, but called in and reported the accident. A week later I picked up our truck from the shop and drove it straight home. That night, Kelly was called into work on an emergency. As he backed out of the garage he noticed the clock read 1:11 am, and that the odometer read 111,111.11 miles. In numerology, the number "one" means "new beginnings"...

Click on the following links to read posts related to this one:
Can Death Be Transcended?
In Loving Memory and Honor...Arlen
With Love, Dad...