It has been years since I have heard from my father.
My sister was visiting and she received a text and then a phone call from her son. We were sitting in my living room when they got into a tussle over a credit card charge. It escalated quickly and she told him to get out of her house before she returned home to Austin. If he was not out, she promised that she would call the police. My nephew was 17. A very young 17. I would not have believed it, except I was there.
My nephew moved out of his home and moved in with his father. This enraged my sister who had instructed her ex NOT to allow their son to move in with him. Punishment ensued and her ex and my nephew eventually moved out of state. The move was not good for my nephew, he had no contact with his mother and his education suffered. After almost a year he asked if he could move in with us.
Because he was my nephew and because he was vulnerable and hoping for a reconciliation between him and his mom I said yes.
CUE DRAMA,
but the drama is not relevant to the story.
What is relevant is that my sister deftly used the circumstances to turn our father against me. One phone call from her and he ended all contact with me. I called. I wrote letters. NOTHING. I do not know if he opened any of the letters. He also cut all contact with my children.
It seems forever, it seems yesterday, has only been four years?
TODAY THE PHONE RANG. IT WAS MY FATHER!
I said hello with great enthusiasm.
Maybe too much enthusiasm.
The phone screen lit up, “GRANDPA BEN.” So much adrenaline. I was filled with hope and trepidation. Maybe the womanfriend was calling to tell me he was dead? Maybe my Daddy was calling to do the dance we have done so many times before. The dance where we pretend nothing painful has transpired and we begin anew?
When I saw his name I knew that I was gonna dance the dance and be thankful he called.
I answered, “Hi! How are you?”
He said something I could not quite understand. He asked for Lou.
It was also a wrong number. He did not intend to call me.
I said, “This is Gwen.”
He asked for Lou again.
I said, “This is your daughter, Gwen. This is Gwen. How are you?”
He stopped talking.
Through the phone, I heard his womanfriend say,
“She is still on the phone. Do you want to talk to her?”
Immediately, I hollered (he is hard of hearing) into the phone,
“I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!”
My Daddy replied to his womanfriend, “No.” and hung up.
There were at least two “I love you!s” before he hung up.
Maybe three.
I don’t know if my father heard me. I think HE heard me.
I know the womanfriend heard me.
My 90-year-old father accidentally called me
and before he hung up
I was able to tell him that love him.
So, what does this mean?
It means that, quite possibly, the LAST words my father hears from me before he dies are my enthusiastic I LOVE YOU!s.
It means I am going to write another letter and tell him how good it was to hear his voice. It means I am opening myself up for rejection. Again.
I told him I love him.
That is a win!
As I type this I am spinning between the happy dance because I heard my father’s voice and grief that I allowed my sister to steal so very much from me. (She was not alone in this. My father was of sound mind when she called. He made his own decision.)
This wrong number is such a tremendous gift.
I told my Daddy that I love him.
Surely somewhere deep inside himself, he knows. And if he forgot maybe this will jog his memory. Maybe it opens the door for the dance to begin again.
I SPOKE IT OUT LOUD!
To him.
I LOVE YOU!
I am so very very thankful.
This is NOT what I planned to write about today.
I had it all planned out. Plans be damned!
Thank you for bearing with my emotional soup of gratitude and grief.
Also – not what I planned to write about but relating to the business of art – I am finishing up an electronic press kit. Just need to find a place to insert the photographs of my work hanging at the Texas White House Bed and Breakfast in Fort Worth, Texas. (One of the best in Texas!) When I get it done I will send you and post the link. You will let me know what you think and maybe you will be inspired to pass it along.
Happy dance.
Tears.
Back to work.
Plan the work.
Work the plan.
Chase rabbits!
MY DADDY CALLED! 
peace out. Gwen
PS The photos are from 1994, a quarter century ago. The children are Ruth and Forrest. It is how I choose to remember my father. Happier time. A time when I knew my father loved me.
The work continues.
Some days I would rather paint than attend to life.
Problem-solving is addictive.
the next has begun.
Shallowness.
The work! The work! A calling.
Through social media, I recently reconnected with an elderly artist. Almost seventy years of stellar work. In his late 80s, he continues to create achingly poignant work.
Alone.
It is their journeys that diverged.
You can’t drink from a dry well.
I did not want to stop. Jubilee did not want to go. Niggling at the back of my consciousness were two elderly artists. Life called. The work called. For a few hours I chose to allow life to inform the work. And we had fun.
It takes more discipline than I am usually able to muster to keep first things first. Family. Books. Journaling. Nature.
Never lose perspective…
PS I was reading e.e. cummings and how he diddled with fonts and word placement.I have always loved to diddle with the words and after reading about cummings I am giving myself permission to diddle with the words.I do hope you were more entertained than annoyed. Peace out, Gwen
That was what I was going for with my new passport photo (she said sarcastically.) In the actual passport there is NO separation between my white hair and the white background. I look quite the SPECTRE!
Dear Ones, Have you noticed how sometimes life is funny? Sometimes it is not. And sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. When I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, I just do both. There has been a lot of both as Winter gives way to Spring. Spring tends transition for me. The North Texas winds always stir up something that is best not stepped in.
This is a strange blog, so I decided to start with a little levity. This is our family portrait from Christmas 2017. Happy New Year.
The last time I heard this voice concerning my father, I also thought he had died. He had only had a heart attack.
After my last test, I stopped by a friend’s apartment. It was a procrastination move to avoid finding out what I already knew. I told her the story and she asked my Sunday School teacher’s name. Claudia. Yes, she told me, she had died and the funeral was that day. Erika knew because she was in a bible study with a student from my hometown church. The funeral was that afternoon.
The paramedics were wheeling Grandaddy out of the house on the gurney and as they lifted him into the ambulance he told me, “Gwen, you have the worst timing.”
Another time I woke up very early crying over Brenda’s newborn baby, my niece, Chloe. I was crying because she died. I tried calling Brenda, but I did not know which hospital they were in. I knew Austin, but there are a lot of hospitals in Austin. I started calling them. I found her in the fourth hospital. The nurse told me Brenda was awake and asked if I wanted to talk to her.
There is a pattern. A pattern that does not fit my Southern Baptist tradition. I don’t know if it fits an Episcopalian tradition we now embrace. But it fits me. When I hear this insistent voice I start praying. Then I clean house to avoid what I know hoping that maybe it will go away.
Today I started writing. Tomorrow a friend of 30 years will be buried. I don’t have time to pretend that the voice is not there. If it is too much for you, that is okay.
Last I heard from my dad December 2015. My nephew, Kade, moved in with us in January 2016, just for a season. My father did not approve of the season so he cut us off. He did not say we were cut off. He just ended communication and did not respond to mine. Me. David. Grandkids. Nothing. This month marks two years. My dad has always been that kind of person. Vengeful. But he is still my dad and I love him.
These two years of not speaking to me are not new. He did not talk to me for two years after David and I were married. He was mad about my wedding dress! He did not talk to me for four years after Peter was born. He stopped talking to me for various chunks of time my entire adult life.
I know now.
Roy, one of my sons, was in the kitchen making breakfast. He greeted me and asked me how I was doing. I told him about the voice and in the telling my voice became shaky with emotion I was unaware of.
The “He” in the title refers to Jesus and it goes on to say that because (Jesus) lives, “I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone.” It is a song about the confidence the Christian faith tradition offers in an eternal future. A future free of sorrow, pain, and fear. A future, regardless of life’s circumstances, has a beautiful ending.
It is a lot to ask of substrate and pigment. It is a lot to ask of the viewer. It is a lot to ask of myself, but I ask it.