By Cheryl L. Kemp
Teenage years are often filled with angst and mine were no exception. I didn’t have a clear path to who I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I never quite fit in with the subdivision girls but rather worked on the 25-acre family farm after school and on weekends.
I worked beside my father gathering the wisdom and life lessons he thought I should know. I loved my mother too. She was a good mother. The house was clean, lunches were packed, dinner was always promptly on the table, but she was a functioning alcoholic. My father was my port in the storm. My older brother was off living his life, and my younger sister was enjoying the freedom of childhood. Throughout personal family chaos, I sailed through school and grew old enough to have a boyfriend. I dated him for over three years and in retrospect, he was very much a narcissist. My self-esteem took daily hits, and then I realized he’d been cheating on me. All the home and teenage drama chipped away at my soul more than I realized.
Those “angsty” teenage things suddenly meant nothing though when my father abruptly died from a heart attack at the age of 57. I was 19. The incredible pain, fear, emptiness, and anger of those days can’t be adequately described. I felt like I carried huge, black, heavy boulders inside my body. It was hard to lift my feet. Smiling and laughing had become foreign to me. I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders.
This was the time in my life when I suffered from collective “soul loss,” an inner fragmentation caused by a traumatic experience. Most often from the loss of a loved one.
I went back to my abusive boyfriend, trying to grasp on to something familiar. My mother drank even more. I felt the need to comfort my grieving siblings, but I had to scratch up the ravaged emotions buried deep inside me in order to give. I had nothing. I just desperately wanted it all to end! Car, veer, tree, peace...
As I laid in my bed, drifting in and out of sleep one night I experienced the orbs. Small, iridescent balls of light coming at me. Passing through me. I remember squeezing my eyes shut and calling out in confusion and fear. What I don’t remember is whether I was dreaming or not. Then it was over—as fast as it had come. I opened my eyes and sat up. My heart was pounding, and my body trembled. When the adrenaline receded, I was so tired, both physically and mentally. I melted back into my pillow, my head feeling like it weighed a hundred pounds, and I slept.
The air was balmy and smelled like flowers. The vivid blue sky was dotted with white fluffy clouds, and I stood looking at a hill. The green grass rippled in the breeze, and I stared at the beautiful, solitary maple tree standing on its summit like a sentinel in the sunshine. There was barking and I cocked my head to make sure I heard right. There it was again. Our late family dog, Freddie, a lumbering white Pyrenees, came bounding over the hill, running in my direction. A smile split my face because I knew wherever Freddie was, my dad was close behind. And Dad came...over the crest of the verdant hill with his sure, authoritative gait. My joy built until I was ready to explode. He grinned. I ran to him and threw my arms around his waist. I felt his familiar hug deep into my bones. He stepped back. I could see he knew my despair and understood, but his scolding look made me feel ashamed.
“You know what I’ve taught you,” he said in his calm, reasonable father’s voice.
“I... I can’t,” I sobbed into his flannel shirt front.
“You can. You can, and you will. I know you will.”
“I miss you so badly. I don’t want to navigate this world without you.”
“I know, honey, but you were put on Earth to help the family. And to help others.”
“I’m tired, Dad. I’m so sad and tired. I feel empty. Can’t I just be with you?”
He shook his head. “No ma’am. You’ve got a job to do. Do it faithfully and do it well, and we’ll be together soon. You do know I’m with you, always, right?”
I stared into those kind, familiar brown eyes. Eyes that always watched over us with a good father’s vigilance. Eyes that held amazing knowledge and unbending virtue. Eyes that were taken from our earthly home way too soon.
“I have to go,” he said gently but in a manner that told me it was non-negotiable.
Warm tears moved down my cheeks in rivulets. “Please don’t go. Please.”
“I have to, honey. I’ll see you again. You know that.” His tone—that voice I had tucked so deeply in my heart and knew so well—balked no disagreement. It conveyed: “Don’t whine about this, daughter. It is what it is.”
“I understand,” I relented. “But saying I’ll miss you just isn’t adequate.”
He smiled at this revelation. “Isn’t that the truth? Remember the adage I taught you?”
“Character is who you are when no one is looking?” I asked.
“No. The other one. Now would be the time to use it.”
He laid his hand on my head—the hand that used to be work-callused and bent with the onset of arthritis was now perfect. He nodded, smiled, and started back up the hill.
“Dad!” I yelled, the frantic tone signifying I didn’t want him to leave me. Not again.
He stopped, turned, and looked at me with such compassion and love I ached to run to him, but instead simply said, “I love you.”
He gave that twitch of a grin. “I love you too, honey. More than you’ll ever know. Don’t forget our adage.”
He walked over the hill with Freddie prancing happily at his feet. Calm and joy infused my body, and I knew what he said was true. Everything would be alright.
I opened my eyes, and I was laying in my bed with the pastel colors of the morning filtering through my window. Dad’s favorite adage was ringing in my mind. “If you can’t change something, you better change the way you look at it.”
It was my father’s passing and his blessed gift of our dream that was the catalyst of my spiritual journey. I began acknowledging that death was a part of life and nothing was going to stop it. I tried a few paths: psychic, mediumship, different churches, and they may have been comforting at the time, but there was no certainty to them. I wasn’t healing that void in my heart and soul.
It wasn’t until I stepped back into and embraced my Catholic roots that my true healing began. I completed the Bible-In-A-Year series, and God’s words and stories contributed greatly to my spiritual healing. I am now spiritually aware of every blessing sent my way, and I walk happily and calmy through this life God has gifted me.
Cheryl L Kemp is a writer living in rural South-Central Lower Michigan — part of the Irish Hills area. She is a wife and mother, an artist, gardener, and herbalist. She is currently the social media director for Feathered Follies and the non-profit Feathered Follies Foundation. You can reach her by email at cherkmp428@gmail.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/CherylLNalepaKemp.
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We live in turbulent times, yes, but human history has been full of crises, natural and man-made. What is important, what makes or breaks us, is how we respond to life’s challenges as well as its gifts. Maya Angelou wrote, “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” All we can do is try to meet that challenge with power and presence, becoming bigger through our response, and perhaps even do something positive in response.