Authors: Michael Phillips
Ranald nodded thoughtfully. “But ’tis no’ hard tae understand why God brought ye till us here in this little oot-o’-the-way village in Scotland. Ye an’ yer wee harpie brought life an’ healing an’ reconciliation tae this whole community.”
He paused, thinking. “Div ye mind my tellin’ ye aboot Iain speakin’ o’ the prayer o’ Christlikeness?” he said after a moment.
“No, please do.”
“He always says that prayin’ tae be made like Jesus isna a guarantee o’ a life o’ ease. Jist the opposite. We are sma’, an’ sometimes oor prayers are sma’. There are times when God canna du as we want in the matter o’ sma’ prayers, ’cause he’s waitin’ for us tae pray big prayers. Big prayers swallow sma’ worries an’ lift them tae higher places. The prayer o’ Christlikeness is the biggest o’ the big prayers. Whan we pray tae be like oor Lord, we gie up oor rights tae pray for things that might suit oor ain convenience, e’en oor ain happiness, or tae be spared life’s pain. When things dinna turn oot as we might like, ’tis those circumstances that God uses tae answer that big prayer in oor lives.
“God’s desire for Alasdair, as for us a’, is that he be a son—a humble son o’ his heavenly Father. ’Tis the biggest, maist important thing in life. Gien a mortal illness is what it takes for God tae achieve that end, though pain an’ grief come wi’ it, then God willna spare’t. He doesna mind the pain, even pain tae himsel’ when it leads tae the sonship o’ Christlikeness. Think hoo Jesus suffered. Yet in his sufferin’ his sonship was perfected. Hoo can we complain whan God takes us upo’ the same road o’ sufferin’?”
I continued to cry softly. After a minute Ranald rose, took me in his arms, and held me.
“Be strong, lass,” he whispered. “I’ll bide a wee doonstairs gien ye need me again,” he said as he left the room.
I went back in to sit at Alasdair’s side. I remained with him about forty minutes. He was dozing. After a while he became alert once more and asked if Ranald was still at the castle.
“He is downstairs with Alicia,” I said.
He asked to see him again.
When Ranald appeared, Alasdair held out his hand toward him. Ranald approached, took it with a tender smile of fatherliness, held it a moment, then sat down.
“I need to tell you something, Ranald my friend,” said Alasdair in a weak voice, “something that happened a long time ago.”
“If it’s aboot the Dove’s Cove ye’re thinking, Ally,” said Ranald, “Iain telt me aboot it mony years ago, fan ye were in England tae the university.”
An astonished look came over Alasdair’s face.
“Ye
ken
?” he said.
Ranald nodded.
Alasdair continued to stare at him from the bed. “But ye teld naebody?” he said at length.
“I think my Maggie kennt,” answered Ranald. “An’ it ate at her through the years. But there was naethin’ tae be deen. No one wud hae believed
us
. Tales full o’ innuendo had already begun tae circulate that wud hae thwarted anythin’ we might hae deen. The maitter was best left tae God’s hand.”
Alasdair laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. I had no idea what they were talking about. “But there is still the matter of my own conscience to be dealt with,” he said at length.
He looked over at me. “I’m sorry, Marie,” he said, “but I need to ask you to step out again. There is something we need to discuss alone.”
The two men were alone together for an hour. When Ranald left this time, Alasdair was exhausted and immediately fell asleep.
The settin’ sun, the settin’ sun,
How glorious it gaed doun;
The cloudy splendour raised our hearts
To cloudless skies aboon.
—Lady Nairne, “The Auld Hoose”
L
ife’s troubles so often come in waves.
In the midst of my grief to see Alasdair weakening and trying to keep my spirits up for his benefit, a letter arrived one day from the last quarter I had expected.
The familiar handwriting immediately sent me back to my college years and receiving the perfunctory twice-yearly letter.
Dear Angel Dawn,
You have now been married, what is it, two or three years. I hope and trust you are happy. I am sorry my schedule has not been such as to have permitted me to visit you and meet your new husband. A real duke! Just imagine, my little girl married to British royalty!
I am afraid I have some regrettable news. I would rather not have to tell you, but realize you must know and I want to tell you before it is too late. Last month I was diagnosed with cancer. I have been to a round of specialists and have begun chemo treatments. But it is more a prolonging than a cure. It is the same old story—too busy to take the time for regular colonoscopies, and then when finally forced into it by my doctor after complaining of bowel irritation…by then it was too late. They think the colon cancer has begun to spread to my liver.
The long and the short of it is that I probably have less than two years. Even two years is optimistic. I hope I will be able to see you before then. I have some things I need to discuss with you. Unfortunately it does not look like a trip to Scotland is in the cards for me, so it will be up to you if you can find time to get over to Portland.
Sincerely,
Your father,
Richard Buchan
The single sheet dropped from my hand and I began to cry. They were tears containing many mixed and confusing emotions.
What a horrible time for this
, was all I could think. How could he do this to me now? I had my hands full with Alasdair. How could I possibly leave for a trip to America?
I suppose it revealed a lot about me that my first thoughts were of
myself
, not my poor father. How selfish we can be, even unknowingly at times when other people need us the most. I’m not proud of that reaction. But I can’t pretend I’m something I’m not. My reaction was selfish, pure and simple—feeling sorry for myself.
Now it might be
me
needing the counseling services of my harping friends. Still crying, I went to find Alicia. The look on my face said most of what there was to say.
“Oh, Marie,” she said in alarm, “what
is
it?…Is Alasdair—”
I shook my head and handed her the letter.
She read it, then opened her arms and held me tight. I broke down and wept harder than I had in years—maybe ever. I wasn’t even weeping for my father, or because he was suddenly dying. I wept for the years of a relationship that had never been right, never been complete, never been whole. I don’t even know how to describe what had been wrong with it, or whose fault it was. Maybe it was my fault—though I’d spent my whole life blaming my father and never considering my own half of the relational equation. But when you get to the age I was, things begin to look different. You don’t see all your own past motives in such an idealistic light. My initial self-centered reaction was compounded as suddenly a lifetime of doubts came rushing over me like a flood. Inexplicably, one of the emotions I felt was
guilt.
I’d been in the habit of blaming
him
, not myself. Why did I suddenly feel guilty?
Alicia led me to a chair. I sat down and she pulled another chair over and sat down opposite me.
“Alicia,” I said, “you’ve got to promise me to say nothing about this. We have to keep it between ourselves, at least for now. Alasdair must not know. It would only make him anxious and sorry for me. I can’t do that to him, not now. He is my first priority. I’m sorry he’s got cancer, but…it’s probably a terrible thing to say, but my father just doesn’t matter to me as much right now as Alasdair.”
Alicia nodded. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” I moaned. “I’ll write him I suppose, though what will I say—‘Gee, Dad…sorry you’re dying, but I’m busy now. See ya’? We haven’t had the kind of relationship that fostered much honesty or reality. All those years he was too busy for me…How ironic that now I’m too busy taking care of a dying husband for him. Life is so cruel sometimes. I really wish I could care more deeply, but the honest truth is, my feelings are…just sort of a numbness. I don’t know that I
do
care. What a terrible thing to say. He doesn’t know me. I don’t know him.”
“Will you tell your father about Alasdair?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. I’ll have to give
some
reason for not dropping everything and rushing over to see him. But I don’t want to unburden myself to him either. He’s got enough to worry about without me dumping on him with my problems that he’s never cared about before now. How did you deal with it?”
“I didn’t have to,” replied Alicia. “My dad died suddenly. There was no warning or preparation. But we had a good relationship, so I had no regrets. With my mom it’s different. With her Alzheimer’s she doesn’t even know who I am.”
“But you go see her twice a week.”
“Out of duty, not because of anything I really believe she is getting out of it—or me either, for that matter. Frankly, it’s depressing.”
“But you do it.”
Alicia nodded a little sadly. “You do what you have to do. And usually, I think, most people try to do the right thing. I’ve never made any pretense of being a saint. But I try to do the right thing. So will you. I hope that matters to God when my time comes. So, tell me about your father,” she said.
The directness of the question caught me off guard. Suddenly our roles were reversed. I suppose it’s that way in most friendships—no one person is
always
the strong one. The roles of strong and weak in a friendship of honesty and transparency are fluid and changing as two people grow together. Marriages are like that, too; husbands and wives lean on each other in different ways and at different times.
There had been a time when Alicia had leaned on me for strength. Now it was my turn to lean on her.
I drew in a long breath and slowly let it out. My relationship with my father had always been troubled. Even the recent years of spiritual renewal in my life had done little to resolve the deep conflicts in my mind whenever I thought about my parents. It was one of those areas in my life I compartmentalized and stuck off in a corner where I wouldn’t have to look at it. I had never opened that box to God’s scrutiny either, never asked if there was anything he wanted me to do with it. As personal as you think your faith is, maybe there are always areas you close off like that, both to yourself and to God. I wasn’t feeling like a very dynamic or mature Christian right about then. What did my last few years of growth matter if there were areas left I refused to look at, and refused to let God into?
“I don’t even know how to answer you,” I said at length. “My father and I…we were never close. He is a lawyer. He was always busy…gone, involved with other people whose needs, as I saw it, he put ahead of his family…ahead of me. It’s the same story you always hear—career man neglects children…children resent it…estrangement results. I didn’t think he loved me. I know that’s not true, but when you’re young you think those kinds of things. Then my mom died, and at a time when I really could have used a father and maybe we might have repaired the damage and grown close, he buried himself even more in his work and his clients and his causes. Though he mostly mainstreamed, he was always sort of a Greenpeace, Save the Whale, Free Tibet type. But even then he still had no time for me. I suppose I never forgave him for that. Basically, I suppose I gave up trying to have a relationship after that. Who’s to say it wasn’t as much my fault? I blamed him for not making room in his life for me, never coming to visit. But then how many times did I go visit him?…How much room did I make for him in my heart?
“It gets confusing, you know. You can be completely sane and rational and mature in every other area of your life, but with your parents, all the emotions and confusions and longings and disappointments get twisted into a mess, and you’re nothing but a confused hurting child again. Maturity…what’s that? In any event, whatever there was between us degenerated into a Christmas-letter relationship. I never thought he liked my husband—my first husband. I don’t know if it’s true. Who can tell with such things? But in all the wedding pictures my dad had a scowl on his face. It’s like he didn’t care about developing a relationship with me, but he resented my husband taking his little girl, his little angel, away from him. But like I say, my impressions of the thing might be completely cockeyed from what was really going on. I guess I was more confused than ever. By the time you get to be an adult—or when you
think
you are—your relationship with your parents is based more on false expectations and misunderstandings and disappointments and guilts than actual facts. If there’d been grandchildren, maybe it would have been different, I don’t know. But there weren’t.”
“Do you regret not having children?”
“Sure…I suppose. But life isn’t always what you expect. Do you?”
“No, not anymore. You adjust. Sure, there’s an unfulfilled part of life you won’t experience. The way it’s going,” she added with a light laugh, “I’ll never know what it’s like to be intimate with a man either. But the older you get, the more you realize there are more important things in life. I’m dealing with it. I’ve got no major regrets.”
“But minor ones?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling, “who hasn’t?”
We’ll meet nae mair at sunset, when the weary day is done;
Nor wander hame thegither by the lee licht o’ the moon.
I’ll hear your step nae longer among the dewy corn,
For we’ll meet nae mair, my dearest, at eve or early morn.
—Lady Jane Scott, “Durisdeer”
T
he hours went by. The days lengthened into a week. Alasdair’s physical condition did not dramatically worsen, but his
spirits
were noticeably altered. He was at peace. But as sure as I now was that he would, neither did he improve.
He got out of bed when he could, but did not seem concerned when he could not. Ranald came to the castle almost every day. They spoke of many things. A number of letters from Alasdair resulted, which he asked me to post. All were addressed to people I had never heard of. When I asked about them, Alasdair only replied with a faraway look and words to the effect, “Just unfinished business from long ago.”
I knew he was trying to set right relationships that had gone wrong. But he remained stymied in that regard with his sister. He sent several messages to Olivia requesting a visit. But she did not come.
When he was through with the letters, a calm came over him. He asked me for my Bible. A wedding gift from Professor McHardy’s sister Moira, who lived in Crannoch, the Bible was becoming well-worn from my use. Alasdair read for hours a day in the Gospels, and when he was unable to he asked me to read to him. He wanted to hear all the words that Jesus had to say about his Father. Sometimes we would talk about what we were reading, sometimes not. Most of what we read was not unfamiliar, yet was altogether new. Alasdair was reading with deep personal interest for the first time. Every story, every parable, every teaching was newly alive with meaning. It became newly real to me all over again as I listened to the words of Jesus through Alasdair’s ears.
One afternoon Alasdair set down the Bible and laid his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes.
“Would you play me the tape of Gwendolyn’s singing?” he said softly. “I would like to hear her little song.”
I brought the CD that included Gwendolyn singing with her harp music. When I again heard the little song she had called “Daddy’s Song,” the sound of her pure high voice was so poignant I could hardly stand it. But Alasdair listened calmly, his eyes dry, a sad but content and happy smile on his face.
A baby came to Mummy and Daddy.
I do not remember—I had just begun to be.
Mummy and Daddy loved baby.
That baby was me.
“Imagine, Marie,” he said, “it will not be long before I will see her again.”
My eyes stung. I glanced away, trying to hold myself together for his sake. I still could not make myself believe it. I was so
sure
he would recover.
“And her mother,” he added. “There is much I need to make right with her. I hope Ranald is right, that I shall be able to do so face-to-face. By now Gwendolyn is with her. She will have told her about me…and about you. You and Fiona will like each other. I hope she will already have forgiven me for doubting her, for thinking ill of her and Iain. But I will talk to her about it myself. That is the important thing, that everything be brought into the light, that everything be made clean…that
I
be made clean and pure. Maybe I will see your first husband, too.”
For the next two days he listened again and again to the CDs I had made of Gwendolyn. He did not speak of her again. After that day, he did not say much. He tried to read, but often simply lay back with his eyes closed, holding the Bible and listening to the music.
One morning I came into the room after being away for about an hour. Alasdair was holding several blue sheets of what looked like a letter. Quickly he stuffed them beneath the blanket. I was puzzled, but he obviously didn’t want me seeing it. The only thing I could conclude was that it was a private communication between him and Ranald, the same one I had seen Ranald with before.
I walked over to turn on the CD player. He motioned for me to come. I walked to the bedside and bent down to kiss him.
“
You
play for me,” he said weakly. “You play me…play the angels’ music.”
Journey
was set up in the room. I began playing mostly what I had myself learned of Gwendolyn’s music, though try as I might, I could not succeed in achieving her same magical sound.
But Alasdair also wanted to hear my own music. He wanted to hear everything—every song I knew, every song he had ever heard me play. He wanted to hear them all over again, as if I were reprising my first two private concerts for him—in the churchyard and in the Music Room where he had listened without my being able to see him—and then every other time he had ever heard me play. He even wanted to hear “Eleanor Rigby.” He listened to it with the most delightful smile on his face.
He hardly said a word now. His body was weak. His large frame had thinned steadily over the months. Now at last his face grew gaunt as well, his eyes and cheekbones accentuated as never before.
It was all I could do not to burst into sobs every moment. I recognized everything exactly as it had been with Gwendolyn, the same progression, even some of the same facial expressions, the same smile of weak contentment and anticipation, the same gradual letting go of earthly attachments.
Gradually I sensed the end was near. I don’t know how. I just knew. He was
not
going to recover.
One day in the middle of my playing, I glanced over at him. A smile of such radiance shone on his thin features. I stopped and went to him and bent down to his face. I could see that he wanted to speak.
“I think,” he whispered, though I could just barely make out his words, “that this has been the happiest day of my life.”
“Oh, Alasdair!” I said, blinking hard and kissing his forehead and cheeks, then his lips.
“You have made these,” he went on, “the happiest years…the happiest days imaginable. Marie…I love you…I will never…will not forget you. Thank you…love you…I love you.”
He closed his eyes and lay back again, smiling and content. I sat up weeping, but remained on the bedside, one of his hands in mine.
Those were his last words to me.
By morning he was with Gwendolyn again, with Fiona, with the angels, and with the Father of them all.