It was a windy Sunday morning on North 8th street. The weather was beaming in beauty. Spring was well under way outside. Troy’s hospital bed was situated such that he could see out the windows in the back bedroom onto the backyard. We had cleared the large shrub from the back of the house so that he could see outside. There was a newly planted garden just under the back windows of the house, which he could not see any more since his eyesight had gone. Tiny blooms were already started, even though the plants were still small in March.
His breathing had gotten labored that morning and he was quiet. The chimes on the front porch rang in serenity as the seasonal winds blew through them. Dad’s sisters had come in as they knew the time was close. They were at church with Leonard when Troy’s passing came. I recall that I felt called to put on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the 1973 album by Elton John, as that was one of his favorites.
He had had many visitors those two and half short weeks in 1995, when he lived with us, after he had gotten his diagnosis and declined treatment. Friends, family, co-workers, they all came to say goodbye in their own way, or perhaps to receive some type of blessing.
His strength of spirit flew full sail as he elicited laughter and amazement from those witness to his sarcasm and joy. It was almost as if he was administering therapy to those who visited him, in a quite unconventional way… which was His way.
It’s funny how grief, or whatever grief becomes over the years, tends to surprise you. For some strange reason, it occurred me today that I was 31 years old when he died, and now I am 62. The significance of that? It seems odd that from this point on, I will be here on earth for a time period longer than the time he and I were here together here in body.
Still, there is the wind, the March winds that sing of a Presence that goes beyond and deeper than all that, yet still glistens in all that we see here. He has much company with him, family, friends, and most recently our dear friend Dina, who loved him so dearly!
It is always Spring, even in the cold and dark and lonely. Deep roots, buried, sprout first in darkness and then return. And the wind blows where it will…
I love you Troy!