A winter of discontent, a spring of hope and new life

When my wife, children, aunts and uncles and cousins gather Friday in Spokane, Washington to remember and bury my father, lilacs and other spring flowers should be in early bloom under a partly cloudy sky pierced by the rays of a freshening sun.

Saying goodbye to Robert Mims Sr., who died January 17 at age 96, while holding the hand of his wife, 91-year-old Katherine, will seem so much more appropriate as springtime unfolds rather than in the depths of winter, when his sojourn here ended.

It has been a tough year. Lost a job I loved, at the Salt Lake Tribune, after a mass layoff ended 20 years at the newspaper last May. Depression, a frantic search for meaning and purpose, followed. But gradually, buoyed by faith, family and friends, I once more began to move forward.

Then, Dad died. Not unexpectedly, but . . . still. 

This farewell comes after 40 days of the Akathist to Jesus Christ for the Departed prayer, as is the practice of my new Orthodox Christian faith. Dozens of candles have been lit for him, joining other remembrances of beeswax, wick and flame in the narthex shrine of Sts. Peter and Paul Church, adding their light to those lit for other beloved and mourned. . . their light flickering off the shiny surfaces of that "great cloud of witnesses" Paul wrote about, the saints, or at least their icons adorning the walls and ceilings of the temple.

Mom won't be at the memorial. In a wheelchair, on oxygen, unable attend to the most basic physical functions, her memories, ability to speak or understand have long since been robbed as late-stage Alzheimer's disease ushers her toward an end in increasing unconsciousness.

Neither will my "big sister," barely able to walk due to her age, cerebral palsy, and unable to comprehend Daddy's death so directly, given cognitive abilities of a 3-4 year old child. Dad is "with Jesus," my sister Carolyn knows, and that is enough.

I will see them both, my mother and sister, before I fly back to Utah. Likely it will be a final goodbye to the shell of what my once-vibrant, sharp-witted and quick-to-laugh mother was, yearning for a second of recognition. Regardless, she will get my love, a caress, a kiss and a prayer.

In college, I briefly wrote poetry. A professor liked it enough to give me an "A." A collection of those poems, scribbled on white lined paper and stuffed into a three-hole punch binder, have long since been lost, likely tossed during one of many moves over the past decades.

And while I have no delusions about reprising any abilities in that form, here, however flawed, is an attempt, for Dad's sake:

We live, we die
We give, we fly
Leaving in winter
Returning in spring
Flowers and resurrection
We bring

Grief in short
Mourning long
Death comes in ice and snow
Life rides equinoctial song
Memories precious, bitter, sweet
gathered in time short, and long

Father has passed
Buried in soil
Dad is immortal
In dreams nocturnal
A being of love and light
Memories eternal

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It's Spring. Live. Just breathe.

Introspection, and the all-too-human arrogance of thinking our "plans" have any real meaning or permanence as they float around like neurons winking out in the mind of God, blinds you (me, all of us) to the pure joy of living.

 I realized this, an epiphany repeated for the millioneth time it seems, as I looked up from my work station monitor and out the window at the Salt Lake Valley. 

There it is: Spring, quiet, bright and airy, and thunderous in its silent witness to things ever so larger than my own petty concerns.

Just breathe.

 Work to live, to eat, provide shelter, clothe yourself and loved ones. Don't live to work.

St. Paul put it this way:

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." 1st Timothy 6-10 (NIV)