The Wind In The Trees

As we left the morgue, Grandmother Moon was shining through the tall pine trees and there was a freshness in the air. It felt like it was the the first breath I had taken or become aware of in days. I could hear the wind coming through the tops of the trees. We say the wind tell stories, U TEN ACH CHIMOO.

It came singing through telling all the winged ones, he is free. The bluebird has gone home and now he flies to the Great Mystery to talk to the angels. He is in the place that allows him to listen clearly and to see clearly, that which we miss here as we walk the Mother Earth. His head is no longer down. He sees the Great One now with eyes that can hold the beauty of all. All things were rejoicing for we are sending you a voice.

Tears flowed for the beauty of it all--for the No Place. I had walked through the No Place.

There was only the details now for the burial of his body. The tears no longer stung, but they ran for the pain of my relations and his son and his wife. A week earlier, we had sat on the banks of the Bonaparte Creek and ate apples that had fallen, "just for us," he had said. With our faces together facing and munching, we made our amends. Mostly mine, for today I walk the Red Road of Recovery.

"Hey boy,"I said.
"Don't call me boy," he laughed.
"OK then, Big Boy," I laughed.
I told him if I had ever hurt him in anyway in this lifetime, I was sorry.
"You never did," he said.
I laughed. He said he probably didn't ever do anything to me, but since we were coming clean, he was sorry if there was the remotest possibly of a little tiny hurt that he had done. I reassured him, there was none. We agreed times were hard when we were little, but we sure did all love each other. Yes, we agreed on most things. It was easy with him.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, his face and my face talking and laughing. Sitting beside the sweatlodge as the creek ran lazily by. The coyote called a lonesome call as the ole Grandmother Moon tipped over the trees. A promise of a light to show us the way home.

This I know to be just a small part of the stairway to heaven and each and everything is connected. Nothing by mischance. As I was strapping myself into my seat on the plane home, I heard the attendant say they had to phone the funeral home. I asked if there was a coffin on board. they looked at me weird.
"I think that is my brother," i said.
"Yes we're stopping to pick up a body soon in Comox."
It was him. It was where they had sent him before he'd fly home.

"Looks like its just you and I Randy," I said as we left.
So we flew over the mountains and I saw the inlet and the highway looked like a silver ribbon winding its way through the mountains. He had driven these roads lots of times. No more for you Randy. No more pounding tires, no more winding roads. You have traveled your last highway.

We weere above the clouds and the sky was bright with the morning light that burnt orange. Floating on the tops of cotton candy clouds, soft droning engines seemed to sing "Randy we are going home where our people wait for us. You will rest on the prairies where our ancestors lay sleeping. You who have gone before us, we will send you home in honor with our drums and our songs to guide you".

When Spirit Calls.

I thought that I might just die from this pain that was slowly crushing the life out of me. He is dead. Oh my god! He is gone from this world. It just can't be.
The sharp loud ringing was disturbing the report I was writing at the addictions centre I was working at.

Waking up that morning, everything was familiar, as was the Bonaparte Creek gurgling its way past my window. The car purred along as I drove the winding highway to work. Oh Creator, thank you for filling me with this beauty everyday. The majesty of the interior of British Columbia is still one of the most beautiful places that I have lived in. Gentle hills rolling into the Thompson River, an eagle swooping down to pull a trout that dangles from mighty talons. Dark green pines with a short shadow, as the morning light sent beams of silver into the water tumbling from mountains high. I loved to see the hills lying like full breasts on the Mother Earth who was now getting ready to wear her winter coat. A view from the hilltops let a glimpse of the valleys below beckon me to enter to the silence within.

That persistent ringing not only interrupted my writing, it changed how I was to understand and live my life. "Who is this?," I asked. "its me, Russell," sobbed my eldest son. "What has happened?" I shouted. "Oh god mom, I don't think I can make it. It's awful. There's been an accident and uncle Randy is dead and Billy is in the Campbell River hospital in intensive care."

Dead? this totally foreign thought brought white shocking pain like someone was crushing my head. "Oh God mom, please come. I can't make it. Please come here. I just can't make it," pleaded Russell.

As I left my body, I could hear the anguish and moaning of us both, that carried me into a grey misty place. Someone's screaming slammed me back into the room that was now void of any warmth. Shaking and numb, I could hear him trying to tell me what had happened. "They were on their way to Vancouver Island; Uncle Randy picked up Billy and took him with him. They were going around a series of S curves and the semi-trailer flipped over the guard rail and down a 70 foot cliff into Buttle Lake. He was carrying 39,000 litres of propane."

Randy, my brother, dead and my youngest son was clinging to life in the hospital on the Island? There was more, but I didn't hear, except the part that he was leaving for the Island and would see me as soon as I got there.

I was in a NO Place. There were muffled sounds of my co-workers making plane arrangements. Someone driving me home on the highway that hours earlier, was magic. The world held no colors, no more magic or beauty--just the wind screaming over the tops of trees that seemed to have suddenly dropped all their leaves. They too felt a life stripped and barren.

Oh my God, Randy is dead, echoed in my being like an endless loop of sad, sad song.
"I'll see you in 3 days," he said. "I'll be back for supper on Wednesday, I won't be long."

The sudden wrenching away of a loved one steals what you know to be normal. How you see the world and how you react to seemingly everyday situations changes in that moment of time. There is no beginning or end, just that loop calling you to leave and go away from the pain.

How can anyone just be gone in the blink of an eye? One moment here talking, laughing, seeing their smile, holding them, hearing them tell you they'll see you soon. I suspected that there are times in this continuum, (that we know as time)that is your portal to go to the great beyond. Like we came with a map and when we get to that portal, something reminds us this is where we leave and we have no control over this. It takes you as you are, finished or not. So was this it? Oh Randy, did the elders who have gone before us, meet you here? No, this was the doing of the Great One and I screamed to him, "I know you who makes all things and knows all things did this. I have walked and always knew you lead the way, but this has got to be a mistake. This can't be right. We had no warning. No time to say good-by. He had every reason to live. Why did you take my brother? Why??? became the endless loop. Another verse of the sad song.