The Big Wood Cross
Monday Missives #21
When I sat at my computer yesterday and tried to force the words out of me, it hit me. Not only was it Sunday, but it was also Father’s Day. Once I made that connection, I pulled out a short piece I wrote a while ago, re-tooled it and added to it as a way to honor my dad.
Late on Tuesday, January 8, 1999, the phone rang. Sitting on the small couch in the living room of my apartment on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, when I picked up, all I heard on the other end was my mom in hysterics. I could barely make out a word she said.
“Herzchen, Papa is not breathing.”
“What?”
“I tried…but…I called the ambulance.”
After that, she was incoherent. All I could hear were sounds trying to become words. My mind went into high gear. I was supposed to be there with him, with them, when this moment arrived. But I was in New York and they were in Virginia. How would get I there in time to see my dad, hold his hand and say goodbye? Then I heard the paramedics in the background come into the room and perform CPR. That’s when I knew there was no way I would make it to Virginia in time to see my dad alive. This was it.
My mom hung up the phone, and I sat stunned on the couch. A guttural scream rose from my gut. It barreled through my torso and grated over my vocal cords. It was a tornado that ripped through my inner world, and it laid utter devastation to my insides. Because that scream carried with it a mountain of grief, despair, and utter, utter fear. My dad had been the only emotional safe harbor my whole life. He understood me the best because in many ways, we were the same. Like him, I believe in the healing power of love. Like him, I know things deep down in my gut long before they become real out in the world. And like him, I express myself through creativity of many different kinds. Without him, I felt I had no hope of making it in a world I felt ill-equipped to be in on my own.
About ten years before he passed away, smack in the middle my teen years, my dad had quadruple bypass surgery. At the time, the doctors told him the surgery would give him ten more years on the planet. Not sure on what exactly they based that assessment. Maybe they based it on medical facts about what they know happens over time once the heart begins to break down and the arteries clog up. Maybe they based it on his thirty-plus-year history of not really managing his diabetes due to his unwillingness to give up eating Wurst or sneaking McDonald’s cheeseburgers. Maybe something else. Sometimes I wonder if it was even something the doctors actually said or just something I told myself they said because, deep down, like my dad, I knew that his surgery was the beginning of some kind of end.
I mean, that’s why, when I moved home after college and lived there for two years to sit vigil with him, he looked at me on day in 1997 and said, “Hellachen, go. Get out of here. And live your life.”
Around the time of his bypass surgery (probably before but I can’t really remember the exact timing), my dad commissioned a ginormous wood cross. When it was finished, he had it installed with a proper cement footer in between some immensely tall pine trees in a back corner of the 4-acre “yard” that surrounded my childhood home. There the cross not only stood sentry (it was a visible from a distance) but also served as the backdrop for the annual summer church service slash picnic slash pool party at our house.
Anyways, after my dad died and once he was cremated, it was decided (or was it specified in his will?) that we would bury him, well, the urn filled with his ashes, in the back yard underneath the big wood cross. None of that seemed out of order. It seemed very much like him, which meant it was very much like us, our family. Besides, it wasn’t like we had to dig a hole big enough for a casket. That would have been ridiculous.
When we planned the back yard burial, my mom realized that she still had the two small boxes filled with the ashes of our two dogs, Sam and AJ, sitting on a bookshelf in the den. Sam and AJ were my dad’s constant companions. They sat next to him, curled up on their beds by the windows in the den, while he reclined in a motorized arm chair (as he got sicker) and read his books. So, logically, we decided to bury Sam and AJ along with my dad. You know, two birds, one stone. Or three urns, one…grave? Either way, after we dug a hole next to the cross (no easy task since there had been an ice storm the day before), we stacked the three urns, one on top of the other, into the ground, and packed the hard dirt on top of them before the pastor showed up to perform a funeral service in the shadow of the big wood cross.
I have no idea if the pastor knew that my dad was actually buried right there, in the ground below. Or that the service he performed was a three-fer, a package deal that included Sam and AJ. Because I am pretty sure he did not mention the dogs when he delivered his thoughts on the life hereafter and his words of comfort for the life here and now.
As soon as spring warmed up and thawed out the ground, my mom planted bushes around base of the cross to form a kind of semi-circle. She routinely placed bouquets of fresh cut seasonal flowers or themed-potted plants for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas on top of or next to the stone plaque at the base of the cross. And, rain or shine, she made sure a tall candle (but not a battery operated one) flickered inside of a hurricane glass candle holder. It was an on-going ritual of remembrance that allowed her to maintain a connection not only to him but also to the life they had shared.
But I did not share in that expression of remembrance. I had zero emotional connection to that patch of dirt or giant wood cross. And yet, every time I came home to visit my mom, as soon as I put down my bags, she grabbed my hand, and walked me out back, all the way to the big wood cross. I did not argue or resist. In part because I did not have a good excuse. Why wouldn’t I visit my dad? He was literally in the back yard.
Once we got to the big wood cross, I stood, silently, next to my mom. With my head bowed, my hands clasped in front of me, and my eyes trained on the ground beneath me, I looked appropriately sad and sullen—on the outside. But on the inside, all I could think was, “How long is long enough for me to stand here until it’s ok to leave? Five minutes? Ten minutes? More? Less?”
With a sideward glance, I checked on my mom to see if I could take a queue from her. Like me, she stood quietly. Sometimes her bottom lip quivered a little. Sometimes her eyes got misty. Sometimes she bent down and, like a master gardener would, pulled out the weeds that popped up from under the mulch. But mostly we both stood there together without saying a word, while I wondered, “Does my dad know I am here? Does he expect me to say something? Should I say something? And what about Sam and AJ? Should I acknowledge them?” With no clear answer, I shifted my weight back and forth from one foot to the other, picked at my cuticles, and waited until finally, my mom said, “Ok, Herzchen, lass uns gehen.” Let’s go.
Since my dad passed away twenty-six years ago, my childhood home was torn down. My dad’s urn (along with my mom’s, whose ashes were also buried in the back yard, in the same spot as my dad and the dogs) was relocated to a real proper gravesite—a family plot in a small cemetery in Germany that is also the final resting place of my paternal grandparents and a great-aunt. And the big wood cross still stands. (Well, to be honest, I am not sure it still stands, but it might).
Even it does, standing by the big wood cross was never how I marked my dad’s passing, grieved his death, or reconciled my intensely complicated feelings about him. In fact, I did not allow myself to feel or release the grief of his loss until fourteen years after he passed away. It happened on a random summer day in 2013. I stood on top of a ridge on the High Road to Taos in northern New Mexico. Surrounded by the same light that inspired his favorite artist, Georgia O’Keefe, I finally let it all go, crumbled down to the ground, and shed all the tears that needed to come out. Then I said, out loud, “Good-bye, Papa. Ich liebe dich.” And somewhere deep in my soul, I heard him say, “Ich liebe dich auch.”
That was the moment I took my first step on the road that led me to where I sit now—not on a mountain top or next to a big wood cross, but in my sunroom. This is the place where I record my podcast and where I sit as I write this post on my laptop. This is where I can feel him now.
In some form or another, I grieve the loss of my parents, Sam and AJ, all the time. I also feel their presence with me all the time. Along with Barbara and Harley (my sweet little morkie and love of my life), they are locked away in a special place of my heart.
To connect with them, I do not need to travel to a specific place, but I do need to venture into my heart. And sometimes, that is a much longer journey than traveling to a big wood cross in suburban Virginia or a cemetery by a river in Germany.
Meals Out: Didn’t I tell you last Monday that I would go to Water Street Kitchen for brunch this weekend? Well, I did and I had the usual—Steve’s Breakfast—only this time, with a side of tomato cucumber salad.
Listening (voice): Just now realizing that I have not listened to much of anything except for music.
Listening (song most likely on repeat): Little Mess You Made, The Favors, FINNEAS, Ashe (quite the collab!). Brings a real pep to my step and now that I have resumed my daily walks when the rain stops, this is my new fave “dance while I walk through the neighborhood” song.
Watching: Yep, new episode of Death Valley is out. I must admit—the first episode was the best ones; the other ones are bit too campy for my taste, but I still enjoy it and will continue to watch.
Reading: No books and nothing long form. My eyes are tired.
Most Hours Logged Doing: Editing episodes of the podcast, catching up with friends, going for a long walk with my bestie through downtown and running into other friends along the way, chatting on the phone with two different besties for an hour each, recording a new episode in the sunroom while sipping on a smoothie and a cup of coffee I made for us, walking through the neighborhood talking to another bestie…and writing this post in-between all of that. Kinda the perfect combination of all the things packed into one weekend.
Monday Morning Meditation: 6.16.25
What does it mean to shift from “approach with caution” to “approach with care”?
And to keep it real: No sooner did I put up last Monday’s post about what it means to me to “stop, step aside and watch,” than I promptly did not stop, step aside, or watch. In fact, I ignored the part in me that tried to re-direct me when it said, “Do not do what you are about to do. Wait.” Yeah, I did not listen to that voice. Almost immediately (but also much too late) I understood that my actions were motivated more by fear than by love (both were present, just not in the proper proportion or expression). It is part of an old pattern of mine that I am breaking in one relationship only to superimpose it onto another relationship—a classic game of whack-a-mole.
Is there a topic you would like me to write about in a Monday Missive? Cover in a podcast episode? I am curious about what you are curious about and would love to hear from you so leave a comment below or drop me line.
So beautiful. Reminds me of my dad’s passing, our complicated relationship, the grief that still periodically comes in waves and that love can just be plain messy sometimes. Thank you dear Hella🩵
Beautiful 🤗