The man sat down in his chair on his second-story porch overlooking the jungle as dawn’s sunlight softly filtered through the trees in his yard, dappling his skin, shorts and tee-shirt with patches of warm light. The sunbeams hung in the air in front of him like a fine mist, ever so slightly dancing, or so it seemed, with an unseen breeze. He paused and tilted his head, wondering how many species of birds he was being serenaded by, one by one separating their distinct tunes in his mind until he realized that all he could really focus on was the harmony of it all. Melancholic music floated outward from within his rustic home through the window by which he sat, a most forlornly beautiful blend of cello and then piano rising above the background instruments.
His mind did what it did more and more frequently these days, letting go of all of the distractions that used to run his world, and somehow merging into the natural beauty of it all, allowing the sunshine, the breeze, the toucans, the trees, the flowers, the cello, the piano - every last bit of it - to sink into his heart and take him wherever it wanted to go.
He sensed that he was simply one small stroke of a masterpiece set before him, and perhaps within him, complete with sounds and smells and feelings and vibrations and energy. And peace.
He could not explain it, but he felt deep within that the one particular leaf that he found himself staring at was an integral aspect of his very essence. He looked more closely as he slowly fingered his long silver beard, the sunshine silhouetting some figure on the backside of the leaf, and thought of his daughter once more. The cello tugged at his heart, pulling him ever deeper into the mystery of creation. Of the cycle of life and death.
The cello seemed to draw his soul from its den of solace, and he drifted with the cello’s resonance among the morning clouds.
He thought of her and how she had been coming more often to him in his dreams and wondered if there was a deeper meaning to her visits. Was she trying to tell him something, or was it just the happenstance of the dreamworld breaking through?
A little over a year earlier, when he had first experienced the symptoms of a physical issue that was now far more apparent, she had come to him as dawn broke over that same jungle and assured him that she would be with him on his ”journey home.” He knew that the dream was more than just that, as he had asked the night before for guidance in certain decisions that he was to make, and he felt certain that her visitation was part of the answer.
“Don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll be with you.”
He almost died later that day, the physical issue manifesting like a category F5 tornado and almost slinging him into the feared abyss. But he had lived that day, and more than a year more of those days since, the issue showing up in small and large ways from time to time. And sometimes appearing to go into hibernation.
A family emergency that lasted for a couple of weeks awakened the issue from its slumber and initiated an exasperation of its symptoms. He hence discovered that he might truly be dying, the news sandwiched between two more visits from his daughter who had passed on into spirit over five years earlier. Before the news she had come to him with tears and afterwards had signaled him to sit with her ‘up here’, a venue where she seemed to exist with her ‘tribe’.
What did the dreams mean? Anything? The first dream hinting that she was sad for her father, or with him, that perhaps he was to receive unwelcome news, and the second calling him to take his place with her, in a higher plane, even? She had patted her hand for him to sit next to her. He did not know, but he contemplated them as such.
The cello eked out its hauntingly beautiful message as he sank further into the moment as if sitting with his daughter, their fingers interlaced as they had been so often in real life when she was ‘here’, a peace engulfing him that few would understand. He closed his eyes.
And then, as if on cue, the piano keys fell so sweetly in the background, replacing the pull of the bow across the cello’s taut strings, and he could see his other daughter in his mind, the one who still graced the earth with her presence. Her piano playing had always touched him. Her ethereal presence now swept him away, and he ‘felt’ her fingers slip into his other hand, still with eyes closed.
He took a deep breath, cognizant that breathing itself was not quite as simple as he had always known it to be.
He felt that he was in Heaven, the lushness of the tropical jungle and the calls and tweets and songs of its inhabitants, amidst the glory of the sun, and the passionate duet of the cello and the piano - all comprising the masterpiece that life had painted for him.
He smiled inside, and also out, seeing each daughter on either side of him on his porch, equally loved, equally cherished. He could not think of anything better.
As he sat within Love’s embrace, he wondered how much longer he might live in the world of flesh and bone. It somehow didn’t matter anymore. He knew that no matter what the outcome of the issue that had come into his life brought forth, he would be fine—more than fine.
The man opened his eyes and looked out once more upon the mystical world that he had somehow not noticed before.
He arose from his chair and took his daughters with him in his heart as he departed.
