The Counting-Downers (5 page)

A FEW MINUTES after our saltwater confessions, I carry Oscar and our clothes back to the car we came in. Always prepared for everything except the death of her soulmate, my mom has packed a bag full of things to pacify, entertain, and redress Oscar should he become entangled in mischief. Unlike with me, she knows him well.

Opening the trunk of my mother’s silver hybrid SUV to retrieve the bag, my lips twitch in happiness at the fact my dad received his wish.

He’d made it clear he didn’t want a hearse or an over-the-top spectacle for his funeral. Just a small, casual gathering of friends and family who came to say goodbye and watch his ashes be scattered across the wind.

As in life, so in death.

Despite being a hugely successful and respected environmental lawyer, my dad inhaled and exhaled the essence of California. He was laid-back, carefree, and calm. He moved with the times, the winds, and the sea. My father believed with fervency in working to live, rather than living to work. And best of all, he practiced what he preached.

Looking back with an almost-adult appreciation for hard work, I don’t know how he did it. I’m sure there were days when he was stressed or busy and needed to bring work home with him, but if he did, I never saw it. He always had or made time for us.

That’s a funny expression, to make time. Like we can somehow manufacture the infinitely finite.

Just one of the many ways humans attempt to construct an illusion of control over their lives.

I forget who said, maybe H. Jackson Brown Jr.,
“Don’t say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

We all have the same amount of time to spend every day, unless it’s your last. Final days are a bit unpredictable.

But aside from that, we each have twenty-four hours.

1,440 minutes. 86,400 seconds. Every day for the rest of your days.

You can’t make more, or give any away. But you can prioritize them for the right people or waste them on the wrong ones.

You can’t speed time up, or slow it down. But you can enjoy yourself so much it gives the illusion of flying past you, or spend your life doing something you hate, which leaves you so unfulfilled that the minutes seem to drag by.

The amount of time is not what makes us all different, it’s what we each choose to do with what we’re given that counts and is the true measure of a life.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they choose to spend their time. My father chose to spend the majority of his daily allotment of time with his family. Now that family has to work out how to spend time together without him.

Stubborn Oscar, who insisted he could dress himself, is now in the backseat trying to wriggle himself into his more comfortable backup outfit of a black, long-sleeved t-shirt and black corduroys with his baby black Converses.

I’m not so lucky to have someone pack me a spare change of clothes, so I have to zip up my leather jacket to hide the sudden transparency of my dress.

It’s a cloudy day, and rain threatens, but at least it’s warm, so my dress should become opaque again soon. No need to anger my mother or grandmother any further by adding indecency to inappropriateness. I’m not looking forward to
that
conversation later.

As I predicted, my little brother has managed to put his head through the arm of the t-shirt, so hiding my smile, I lean in to help him out and tie up his laces. Another thing I’ll have to teach him instead of my dad.

I’ve been debating what we should do next, whether it’s best just to take him home or go back to what’s left of the funeral.

Although I know my father’s spirit was present and believe he wanted us to have fun in the sea, he’s now the voice inside my head, the reluctant conscience telling me in that soft way of his that I need to go back, otherwise I’ll regret it. I’m already regretting it, and I haven’t even done it yet.

Even though it’s low-key, and pointless in that it won’t bring my dad back, I somehow believe it’s important for me and Oscar in a way I can’t quite grasp right now.

He may not understand everything that’s going on today, but I don’t want him to grow up and resent me when he realizes I kept him away from his dad’s funeral.

Helping him out of the car, I crouch down to his level on the ground and explain, “Osky, we’re going to head back to Daddy’s funeral now. I know you were a bit bored earlier, but it’s important we go, okay?”

His tiny forehead valleys in confusion, before he asked the word loathed by parents, teachers, and older siblings the world over, “Why?”

What I want to say is, ‘it just is,’ but I know I can’t do that. So I try to explain as best I can. “Because when someone dies, you have a funeral for them so that you can say goodbye to them properly.”

“But why I say ‘bye to daddy? You and mommy say he always wiv me.”

Oh dear. Why isn’t there a philosophy book for four-year-olds? It’s ironic that my dad would have been great at handling this situation.

“He
is
always with you in your heart,” I tell him, patting the area above his chest just as my father had done to me once upon a time, “but today is when he becomes an angel. Funerals are when you say goodbye to the body, not the spirit. The spirit will always be with you. And once Daddy becomes an angel, you can talk to him whenever you want. You won’t be able to see him, and he won’t reply, but he’ll be listening, okay?”

He thinks this haphazard explanation over for a minute before nodding his acquiescence. “Okay. We go fun-reel so Daddy ‘comes an angel?”

Giving my own ‘speaking sigh’ that tells of pure relief, I answer in the affirmative, before taking his hand and leading him back to watch my father’s final act.

In pure and perfect irony, the very thing that conspired against us to take him away, is back on our side, if only for a while, as we arrive back just in time for the ashes to be scattered.

My mother and grandmother are radiating hostility of nuclear proportions, and don’t even bother to look at me as I lift Oscar into my arms and take my spot beside them.

My father had always wanted to be cremated. I guess that’s the one good thing about living under the constant specter of death; it makes you prepare for it. Well, as best as you can. Get a will in order and keep it updated, make sure your loved ones know how you feel about them, lay out your funeral plans, et cetera.

Still, you’d be surprised at the number of people who still die unprepared. They couldn’t be more aware of their own mortality, watching the clocks ticking down above the heads of their nearest and dearest, and yet they leave behind a mess for those same people to deal with.

Those are the kind of people who say,
“If I die…”
If, not when. In the hypothetical, with an ellipsis.

But it’s when not if. In the definite, with a full stop.

…when
they die.

…when
you die.

…when I
die.

As humans, we need to think in
whens.
And stop thinking in
ifs
.

As the minister speaks of ashes to ashes and dust to dust, my grandmother begins to cry, and my own tears threaten.

Then a strange thing happens.

Someone once told me at a funeral that it was a good sign if it rained as it meant the angels were crying and welcoming the departed home. I don’t know if I believe that, but I take some comfort in the sudden onset of drizzle.

Instead of crying, I
smile
.

I welcome the light rain. The splashes on my skin are almost a sign from my dad, reminding me I’m still alive. And because of that, I need to
live
. He’d be furious if I died along with him, if any of us did.

Before handing the now blessed urn to my mother, the minister says a few words about how this was my father’s favorite place on earth. My father’s actual favorite place on earth was at home with us, but this quiet corner of Ocean Beach came a close second.

I suggested that my mother buy a contemplation bench to be placed here in my father’s honor. So he can be the silent force supporting all those who come to look outside themselves for moments of introspection. To my surprise, she agreed and thought it was a great idea.

The bench will be installed in a few days with the italic inscription, ‘For Erik Evans,’ and then right below it his favorite lyric from
Imagine
by John Lennon, the one about him not being the only dreamer out there in the world.

Mom surprised me again that day by suggesting the inscription, and it’s perfect. It means so much to me, to all of us I think, that even though he elected not to have a gravesite and
‘be trapped for eternity in a claustrophobic box,’
I’ll still have a place to visit and talk to him when I need to.

And I will need to. But that’s in the future, this is now. And now, as it always does, the time has come. To say goodbye. Forever, or For Now, depending on what you believe.

As graceful tears slide past her oversized sunglasses, my mother takes a deep breath and whispers something I can’t quite catch, before reaching inside for a handful of ashes and releasing them to the wind.

I watch, mesmerized as they dance and weave, soaring and spreading out across the horizon and into the invisible unknown.

My mother thought it might be a nice idea if everyone in our immediate family released a handful of ashes.

I agreed, but now I’m not sure I’m ready. I’ll never be ready for this.

Without looking in my direction, Mom holds out the silver urn for me to take.

Putting Oscar down, I grasp it, before crouching down to his level and explaining in his ear what he has to do and why.

In a rare moment, he looks back at me with eyes filled with maturity and understanding far above his years.

Giving a solemn nod, he reaches his tiny hand into the urn I’m holding, clasping the most of my dad his tiny palm can hold. “I’ll mist you, Daddy,” he says looking down at his clenched palm where some ashes are already escaping.

“You always played wiv me, and made me laugh, and made me pamcakes, and said me stories. But I know your spear-wit will be in my heart.” He glances up at me for confirmation, which I give through my unshed tears, recalling our conversation earlier. “I know you’ll be a weally good angel; say hi to Santa for me,” he says, bringing watery smiles to everyone’s faces, before he carelessly throws what’s left of my dad away with the breeze and wipes the remainder of the remains on his trouser leg.

Ashes scattered and spread. It couldn’t have been a more appropriate goodbye.

“That was beautiful,” I whisper in his ear, wrapping my free arm around his middle and giving him a light squeeze. “I’m so proud of you.”

“You think he hearded me?” His bottom lip pouts and quivers with insecurity.

Kissing his cheek, which he permits for the second time today, “I know he did,” I tell him. “He heard it, and he loved it.”

This makes him smile and grab my mom’s hand, beaming up at her. Her face wet, she looks down at him smiling and, choking back tears, echoes my praise before casting a brief glance at me to let me know it’s my turn.

Oh, my God, it’s my turn.

To say goodbye. Not that there’s any
good
in it.

I have to think of the last words I’ll say to the person who was my first word.

Rising to my full height, I clutch my father’s ashes to my chest.

Closing my eyes for a second, I conjure up an image of my father’s face, set to the backdrop of a memory of us playing together on this very spot. One day, his image will blur, but today, I still see him with perfect clarity. Crinkled eyes, smile-stretched lips, and sun-kissed skin; signs of a life filled with love, laughter, and living.

The time has come for my tears to finally fall.

I don’t speak them aloud, but my soul speaks all the words I won’t say.

From behind darkened eyelids, I look at his face for the final time and he looks back.

And he
knows
. And he
listens
. And he
smiles
. And he
waves
.

And then…

He walks away
.

And I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

Opening my eyes and taking my own handful of the man who made me whole, it seems fitting to feel some of him sift through my fingers.

Like sowing seeds of serenity, I breathe deep, and let him go.