No Restless Souls

(Spoiler Alert: In keeping with the season, this story is a bit dark and stormy, and yet it is a story about forgiveness, closure, and the flipside of dark—light.)

Shortly before Christmas in 2009, I received word that my stepfather (I could put the word evil before stepfather, but shall refrain.) had passed away of a heart attack in a Las Vegas jail. He had been indigent there and estranged from my siblings, our mother, and me for years. He was an alcoholic, unstable, and very often unkind and untrustworthy—that’s a lot of “uns.” And now, he was dead in Las Vegas, and I lived in California and my siblings in Wisconsin and Michigan.

In 2009, Las Vegas was in a financial crisis. The city had laid off many workers including the person who dealt with bodies of the indigent who died there. You would be surprised how many people go to Las Vegas, a city thriving on luck, to die.

It took a few months to navigate the ensuing red tape, but through the kindness of an understanding Las Vegas police office and a compassionate funeral director, “Dad,” as we called him, was cremated and his remains FedExed to my brother in Wisconsin. It was a brutal winter, the earth icy and hard. A service had to be postponed until the spring thaw.

A service. What? Where? How? When? And who? Who would come? Who would say kind words? Were there any to be shared? Many of my caring friends and family asked, “Why go through all the bother? He was a despicable man.”

But we pressed on and found a pastor (a recovered alcoholic) willing to perform a graveside service. We purchased a plot next to Dad’s parents in our hometown cemetery. We placed an obituary and announcement in the local paper. The service was set for a Friday in May.

That day the clouds hung like steel wool in the sky. My brother, Don, and I drove up to the cemetery with a picture of Dad during his happier, younger days and a few chairs for the handful of people we knew were attending.

We carried our goods to the plot and looked around. Hmmm…no hole in the ground. Where were we going to put Dad? A quick phone call to the local grave digger shed light on the problem. He was sick with the flu and couldn’t do the job. But, he said, “It’s a cremation. You can dig the grave yourself. Just make sure it’s 4 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet.”

My brother and I stared at one another for a bit, a little disbelieving, a little shocked. On autopilot, we climbed back into his truck and at the family home gathered two shovels, a tape measure, and a length of green, artificial turf that had once been part of Grandpa’s indoor putting game.

Back to the gravesite. We measured and we dug, all the while talking about Dad. We complained about him. How horrible he was, how terrible, how it was a blessing that he was gone. We shed light on some of the skeletons in the closet. But then we remembered how he taught my brother to hunt, me to tell time and tie my shoe. We finished our task, covered the mound of rusty iron ore-stained earth with the turf and chuckled with relief.

“How many people in the 21st Century can say they dug their father’s grave?” I asked.

My brother said, “This is what they must mean by closure.”

The service was quick with a steady spit of rain refreshing us. Dad’s ashes were set four feet deep into the earth. My brothers sealed the grave, and I led the few who had gathered, 14 in all, to the local restaurant for an authentic Wisconsin, Friday Fish Fry.

And that was it.

But it wasn’t.

About a week later, back in California, I was tending my garden in the late afternoon. I felt an eerie shift in the quality of light. I shivered and looked up to see the clouds battling the sun. I also sensed a presence—Dad. Technicolor billows of yellow and blue, gold and pumpkin roiled above while foul thoughts of Dad did the same within me. But the sun fought fiercely, and as rays burst through the clouds, I felt Dad and his years of tyranny melting away. Not like the Wicked Witch of the West in the movie, but as if he were evaporating into those clouds, traveling at lightspeed until he was stardust in the ever-expanding universe. Since that afternoon, I carry memories of Dad, but Dad does not haunt me.

So, on this All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day and two before All Souls’ Day, when the border between the living world and the world of the dead blurs, when souls are said to cross over, I believe Dad will not. I believe that he, like me, is at peace.