For my Father

"...like a champion he runs his course" (Ps. 19) and "Let him sit enthroned before God forever, bid love and faithfulness watch over him" (Ps. 61)

Healing Snow

I buried my father yesterday. All day Saturday through that giant storm L. and I shoveled, enough to get the car out to make it to the hospital on Sunday to stand watch. He died on Tuesday, while I was back at work. Wednesday it snowed hard again. And shoveling snow became my therapy. There was something deeply good about the physical work, the cold so sharp and strangely consoling.


Out in the cemetery, the sun came out, first time in days. Snow, pine and a softer cold, refreshing after the viewing and service. Then the clean, plain work of hauling the casket up an icy hillside.

I stayed home another day and went out hiking in the hills around town. And it snowed-- a peaceful, ordinary snow on a peaceful, ordinary Tuesday. My father's death, long feared by me, has left me believing more firmly in divine providence. "I lift up my eyes to the hills/From where is my help to come?/My help comes from the Lord/The maker of heaven and earth." (Ps. 121).