Outdoor Life
Back to My Roots
As we walked my eyes darted from the trees to the leaves, moss, and rocks. I wanted to take it all in, study every detail. My dad knew everything about these woods. He had an eye for detail and he hiked this trail for decades. There was once a time when I would be looking for the differences between the Pennsylvania oak forests of my childhood and the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest Cascades, my adult home. But on this short hike I was desperate to find similarities. The way the granite sparkled on the trail, how the green moss gathered in clumps that were irresistible to touch, how mushrooms and lichen cling to the bark of the trees.
It had been five days since my dad passed away. Five days since we left the hospital in the wee hours of the morning under an almost full moon and a layer of frost. Five days since he squeezed my hand and gave me his bright and comforting smile. Five days since my sisters and I sang to him the last words he would hear in this world. Five days since the air was turned off, the mask removed, and peace enveloped him.
We spent five days with him before that day. At first he seemed well and we talked late into the night. We combed his hair and rubbed his feet and made sure he was comfortable. We watched Jeopardy, something we did together daily when I was a kid, and golf and a Phillies game, his favorites. We snuck sweets in for him and made him tell us all of his favorite things. Evie sat on his bed and blew him kisses. His room filled up with family daily. He greeted them all with his bright smile and cracked jokes. At one point we had the whole waiting room filled with family, laughter, and kids running around. We all sat around him and told our favorite stories and laughed and cried. My sisters and I told him that he was an amazing dad and we were so lucky to have him raise us all on his own. I made him promise he would always be with me and I told him I would take him everywhere, on every adventure and every mountain top.
Back on the trail, my Uncle Jack led the way as Evie yelled, “follow Uncle Jack!” We stopped at a small clearing near a large pine tree and he pointed down into the woods. That’s where your dad’s tree stand was, he told us. Everyone continued on walking and I lingered for a little bit. I was secretly hoping for a sign that he was there, like a visit from an animal or a sudden breeze. But there was nothing, no sign, just a comforting silence.
My dad often wrote poems for us and about spending time in the woods. As the family gathered in a circle to spread his ashes on his favorite mountain, my sisters and I read some of his poems aloud. We all held hands and my uncles and cousins shared their hunting stories and we prayed together. We brought some of the flowers from his memorial service and the kids took some of them and stuck them in the remaining patches of snow.
A month later, on another night with an almost full moon, I sat by the window and read my dad’s hunting journal. I didn’t know about the journal and I especially didn’t know he was such a great writer. My heart swelled as I read the entire thing in one sitting that night. He started it when I was 3 years old and kept it going for thirty years through the 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s. Every winter he and his five brothers along with his nephews would go up to the hunting cabin on his favorite mountain. He enjoyed the hunting part and spending time in the woods, but mostly he loved getting the family all together.
There is a passage that he wrote that I think captures him perfectly.
“I spent several hours in my stand without seeing anything and decided to go back to the cabin to see if the others had any luck. On my way back along the trail several chickadees were in the laurel just a few feet away from me. I stopped to watch them move about from branch to branch. My rifle was tucked in under my right arm with the barrel pointed down toward the ground. I stretched my left hand out to see if I could coax the closest one to bite on my glove. He looked closely at it and flew instead onto my rifle barrel. He sat on the end for a half minute cocking his head back and forth looking at me as if to say Hello, what are you doing here? They are one of my favorite birds.”
I miss my dad terribly, but I feel fortunate that I got to spend time with him before he passed. It gives me great comfort that he was surrounded by family and treated with dignity and respect in his last days. I am forever grateful for my amazing family who helped us during this difficult time. No matter how far away I am I will always feel that pull back home. And until I return I’ll be seeking out the glittering granite, the pillows of moss, and acorns that bring me back to my roots.
“I can safely say that I never left after time in the woods without feeling all the better for being there.”
