The sweet smell of the air in the springtime in Pike County helps me understand what heaven must smell like. The air is calm and still at the moment and I’m enjoying the solitude of sitting on my front porch alone, soaking up the beauty. I hear the crickets chirping and cows beckoning in the distance but the simple pleasure of enjoying nature at its most beautiful lends me peace and harmony if only fleeting.
It was springtime when I first moved to Pike County. I had taken a new job and left my hometown to brave the unknown with husband and child in tow. I had never left Columbus, Georgia nor really had any intention of leaving what I called home. The thought of moving away had not once crossed my mind until I crossed into this beautiful part of Georgia that I now call home.
When I moved here, I was new on a job and we rented a house just to get by until we could find something else. Whether it was fear or simple laziness, four years later we sit in the same house, enjoying the same simple pleasures of the country life yet yearning for something more. The fear of the unknown can keep you from so many things but in my case, it was fear that pushed me to move here in the first place. I had just been laid off from my job and needed a job. When I found one 62 miles away from Columbus, it was evident that commuting was not an option for very long. But my heart was torn as my dad had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Knowing that he had a death sentence and this new job was my “life sentence” tore me in two but I’ll never forget the words he told me, “Go or you’ll always regret it.”
For some time after I moved to Pike I regretted leaving my mom in Columbus to care for him while my life went on as if to the beat of an unseen drummer. It was a painstaking drive each time I went to Columbus because the miles seemed to stretch endlessly and I felt as though I could not drive fast enough. But my new job offered me so many experiences and opportunities that he was right, I would have regretted not making the same decision.
The week before he died I was scheduled to go on a trip to San Antonio, Texas for a conference. I knew his body was fading and his mind was quickly following in step so naturally I feared the worst. I feared that I would be out enjoying my new job and this business trip while he died without me, his only daughter. The Sunday before I left for my trip, I went home to visit for the weekend and just enjoy the time that we had left together on this earth. He was fragile and pale, something that my Daddy had never been in all the years that I had known him. He had settled into the idea of a wheelchair since the cancer that started in his lungs wallowed its evil claws into his bones. Each move he made was wrenched with pain yet he kept a courageous smile so that I would go to San Antonio. He gave me a hundred dollar bill and told me to have a good time. “I’ll be here when you get back,” he said. I remember as I left hugging my Daddy and telling him that I loved him. Those were some of the last words we ever spoke. Though I knew that the cancer would take him, I didn’t want it to take him so soon. Just one more day, one more hour, one more minute.
When I returned from my trip to San Antonio, Daddy had gotten weaker and appeared to have aged another decade. His breathing was shallow and he lay in a sterile hospital bed in his own house, a sobering reminder that this was where he would die. My mother, the brave, she cared night and day for him and loved him to the very last breath left his body. He died that Sunday, just one day after I had been back home and it was like he was making a statement, “I told you it would be alright to go. I’d wait for you.”
The next few months were spent privately grieving and questioning my decision to leave Columbus, to leave my mom there all alone, and mostly to leave my dad in those final hours. As I look back on it today, I know that Daddy was right and I know his encouragement was like that of a bird teaching their young to fly. He knew that I wanted to fly and he supported my wings as long as he could. Then, he wanted to see me fly. I flew, but much like a baby bird, it was so much in a jagged line. My husband and I had been living with my parents for the four years leading up to my father’s death. At the time we were forced out of financial ruin to move back in with my parents, I felt that it was so demeaning and shameful. I was a college graduate after all, couldn’t I at least support myself and my family? But now, older and wiser, I know that it was all in God’s plan to give me one more day with Daddy.
Four years have passed since that first springtime in Pike and as I sit here on my front porch with the sunlight fading into night, I know that it is my purpose to be here right now. God must have told my Daddy that He had something better in store for me but I had to be willing to go outside of my comfort zone to get it. I call Pike County my home now, a place that I plan to stay for the rest of my life. (That is unless God has something better in store…) But new thoughts are going through my mind this springtime in Pike. One child later and one year into another new job, I am at a crossroad in my life as a responsible adult. I’m preparing to make that leap into home ownership. Something that four years ago was so far from my radar that it maybe showed up fifteen years down the road. God is so good. He knows the desires of our hearts and then makes it happen when we are obedient to His will.
I dreamed of Daddy after he died. He was fishing by a lake with a big brand new truck and a cooler full of “cold beer.” He looked at me and said, “Don’t worry about me, I am fine now. I have this new body here in heaven and I’m having the best time.” In that dream, I smelled that sweet, fragrant smell of springtime in Pike and saw radiant sunlight that only heaven could produce. I told Daddy, “I didn’t think that they allowed beer in heaven, Daddy! And what do you need a car for anyhow?” He laughed and said, “Laura, God is bigger than most people give Him credit for and heaven isn’t this big stuffy place like most people think. We have fun here because God is a fun God after all.” I felt such an overwhelming sense of peace after that dream and it did open my eyes to the possibility of living life full of God’s awesome power and sense of humor.
Several weeks ago, I dreamed about my Daddy again and it was like he was trying to tell me something. For days afterward, I had trouble sleeping and felt this overwhelming feeling as though I should be doing something. Then three nights ago, I dreamed about buying a house and I smelled that familiar scent of springtime in Pike, which reminded me of heaven. Then I knew what it was all about. It was time for me to take another flight and find a permanent home here in my little piece of heaven. We’ve found several homes that we like and it’s hard to choose what’s best for us but I know that my Daddy is still watching over me. I can hear him now, “Well, what are you waiting for?” I’m thawing out of my years of fear and uncertainty. When we looked at a house today, church bells rang–loudly–with no church nearby. My husband and I both looked at each other and with tear filled eyes I looked at him and said, “There’s our sign! We’re on the right track!” I do hope that the last house that we looked at today becomes our home but even if it doesn’t work out, I don’t think that I would have started looking if it weren’t for my Daddy…and springtime in Pike.
Messpot Diaries 