Sunday at Forest Lawn

Today would have been my father’s 90th birthday.  To celebrate and remember him, my sisters and our children freed my mother (also 90) from the assisted nursing facility where she now resides for an afternoon outing to Forest Lawn.

I’d passed this road many times before when my Dad sat behind the wheel. We’d be driving home from a Lakers or Dodgers game and suddenly he’d detour down Forest Lawn Drive to point out an empty plot he called “our retirement home”.  Perched on a hill under a sprawling oak, it featured a view of a little white church not unlike the rural Iowa parish of his youth.  Usually, there was a cool breeze.

He talked about it like other people talk about vacation resorts. He’d heard good things and looked forward to seeing for himself.  No fears, no regrets. An eternal optimist, he expected even this final destination to exceed his expectations. He smiled like a young boy driving toward Disneyland, not a man in the winter of his life contemplating a field of tombstones.

At the time, my sisters and I were a little creeped out by these macabre drives past his future grave. At the time, the concept of a world without him was simply unthinkable.  Intellectually I knew all things come to an end but aren’t there exceptions to every rule? To me, he was so much larger than life that surely he could beat death too.

I was wrong. He did not.

Eleven months after we tossed dirt and flowers into open earth on that knoll, I still can’t accept that he’s gone. I wait for signs and look for portents, tangible proof he hasn’t really left us.

My sister had a dream last week.  Shaky writing appeared on a blank piece of paper. It spelled out:

I LOVE YOU. I  AM IN GOD’S CARE

I choose to believe.