Writing Wings For You

Marie Lukasik Wallace ~ # I LIVE Poetry – I'm passionate about life and writing and all things creative and poetic!

Category Archives: Daddy and me


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The Gold in the Soul of the Junkman

 

Two years ago today, my daddy died.  I’m a grown woman and still call him my daddy because that’s the relationship we developed shortly before his passing.  Most of my life, our communication was strained, our understanding of each other minimal.  He grew up in a time when feelings weren’t shared, especially men’s feelings.  And I, a young girl and woman, was all feelings.  He didn’t know how to speak my language, and I certainly didn’t know how to speak his language.

But in the last few years of his life, I think two years, we were able to slowly build and deepen our relationship.  And though for me, it wasn’t as ideal as I imagined, it was a thousand times better than I hoped.   A man who was once so closed I called him a vault, allowed me inside to learn more about him and leave a legacy…a man who rarely voiced anything, wrote poetry with me and was brave enough to share it with the world…a man who opened up to explain why he collected the junk he did and why he was still tender about his cars even after all these years shared his story…a man like many of us who wanted to leave this earth being understood by at least one person, allowed me in.

I was blessed to be that person.

I got a chance to video tape him and ask him questions.  And though I didn’t get whole stories and still know little about the actual biography of his life, I do feel I know the heart of my dad and can say a few things in his name.  He had so much, gambled with drinking and lost everything, and slowly rebuilt a life he felt comfortable with and lived on his own terms.  I didn’t understand many of his quirky ways or why he was so reclusive, but I understand that he was genuinely happy and loved living, which is more than many people would say.  I remember in his last months he said he didn’t want me to finish the book or at least he wanted me to write a sequel so he would live longer.  I remember being really mad that he didn’t live longer and that I still haven’t finished the book.

Many of you followed me on my journey and cheered me along.  I promise it wasn’t in vain.  I am going to finish that book this year, even if it’s not perfect, because it was a promise I made to him.  And maybe…just maybe my family will read it and feel the words as I felt them and know that we all have GREATNESS inside us..that sometimes our value and goodness are covered by shadows and darkness…and that we need to dig around and shine a light to uncover the Gold in the Soul.

For now, I will hold my Daddy in my heart and use the gifts I learned to guide me.

My plea to each of you is to think about what relationships in your life get to be better because you opened your ears and your heart a little more and you leaned into understanding.   It is a most beautiful gift when you do.  I can’t wait to hear what happens when you do.

Namaste my friends.

Marie

 


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Hello My Daddy

Good morning my daddy.   On the anniversary of your death, I write this to you in honor of the poem we got to write together.  I remember how excited I was about finding a way we could talk and share more intimately through a mode you loved best.  I couldn’t wait to write more poems with you.  Later that week, you had your stroke.

I love this picture.  Carole calls it the goodbye picture…but today, it’s the Hello My Daddy picture.  Heard your EMS sirens today…so I know you’re awake.  I love you.daddy and me      20160301_072054_resized

I REMEMBER

I remember when you were just a vault…no affection…little talking…always about you.

I remember the first time I asked you if you could do the Father’s Legacy project.  You were apprehensive, but you said, “I could probably do that.”

I remember asking the first question and held my breath for the answer.  It was a simple question like “What is your favorite color?”  You answered two questions that day.

I remember when you would peak over my shoulder to make sure the questions I asked were in the book.  We were building trust.

I remember the first time you were vulnerable and told me your angel story.  This time you held your breath, until I said, “I believe in angels too Daddy.”   I felt your sigh of relief as your story, held in for about sixty years, was believed for the first time.

I remember coming to visit you in the summers as you told me about all the junk in your junkyard and learning why they were your treasures and realizing you were an artist like me.

I remember our last summer together savoring every detail….getting lost with you and loving every minute.  Our last Father’s day, making it special with a sheet for a table cloth and wild sunflowers from your backyard. It was so special that I will always remember it, but you couldn’t remember it the next day.

I remember writing this “I remember poem with you”

and then it all went black…and there was no more remembering.

 

 

 

 

 

 


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My Daddy’s Angel

daddys angel

Guardian Angel

Cascading your love and light

Send out your legions to

bring peace and joy

everywhere

Today was My Daddy’s birthday, and he would have been 78.  It felt strange not to be able to call him and gush birthday greetings, telling him all the reasons I love him. While I was so very grateful for all our chats and for the chance to get to know him and feel closer, I can’t help but to have wanted more time with him.  Last year, I sent this angel to him to guard over him while he was at the nursing home, guardian angels being our thing.  I sent her two  day mail so he would have some holiday cheer for the Christmas season, but no one even took her out of the box for two weeks.  Disappointment couldn’t even be a strong enough word for how it felt when he had to remain in a sterile white room with no holiday cheer.  Finally, my brother found it and set her up on his table ; but alas, not in all her magnificence.  Now she graces our tree with her elegance and protection.

This year, since I couldn’t be with him, I sat under the guardian glow of our angel, reminiscing on our fond memories of this past year, writing small clips down so as not to forget them…and calling on the legions to bring Peace and Joy to our world for this New Year 2016.  In loving memory, rest in peace my daddy, and keep watching over me.

Love you so much, Ree


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The Watermelon – I Remember

I remember last summer

You were sitting at the table

Like so many summers before

With skilled hand piercing

watermelon skin

And with a fluid motion

Began the ritualistic carving

I had seen you do this

Hundreds of times

But not through these eyes

These eyes savoring precious moments

These eyes watching an ordinary act

As if it were extraordinary

You cut it in circles

Then slicing them in half, forming tasty boats

And the knife followed the

Curve of the boat

To free melon from the rind

Then up, down, up, down,

making cubes

on the curved “u” stand

Lightly salted

And a knife stab of a savory chunk

Plopped it in your mouth

How I remember

I hadn’t eaten mine

For I was mesmerized

In the moment

Watching your face light with delight

At each piquant morsel

A sweet summer treat

I did and didn’t know

that would be the last time.

-This post serves as my “I Remember,” a collaboration with fellow writers, and as savoring a precious memory of my daddy.

Sometimes the beauty of knowing that someone is in their last days, you hold on to the how extraordinary ordinary moments are.”      Sounds like another collaboration of “extraordinary ordinary.”


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Breadcrumbs

You left me breadcrumbs

to figure out your life

put together our sorrows

make sense of your strife

never knew why the door was to stay closed

and locked up so tight

you barely arose

and now you’re on the other side

We are left here wondering

filled with mystery

digging for knowledge of you

knowing no history

couldn’t you have stopped a moment to provide

a trail of crumbs on this side?

Wish there was a way to lift the veil

It seems I knock and knock,

but to no avail.

Poets inspire each other.  Sometimes it’s a poem…sometimes it’s a phrase…and sometimes it’s a word  like breadcrumbs.  Curiosity gets me to write.   Where do “breadcrumbs” lead you?   Thanks to Poetry Channel for the inspiration.


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REMEMBERING

daddy journal

For Christmas of 2000,  I had given my daddy a journal with the inscription:  “the best gift we can give anyone is intimacy, sharing our thoughts and feelings.  Please jot things down once in awhile for me so I will have them as a gift forever.”

For those of you who know me, I’ve been working to get to know my dad for quite some time. I hadn’t realized it was this long. He passed in March, and as we were cleaning things, I found this journal with only 2 entries (above) that were written, a year or so llater.  I never knew he had even written anything in that journal…  And now, 14 years later, his words mean so much more to me.  Below are two of his journal entries if you’re not able to read the above.

To Marie,

I found this book while digging in my library closet 9-11-2001, the day New York City was bombed by terrorists…Hope to have better news later – Papa

9-17-01 – NYSE opened at 9:30 EST looking good – We’re doing better already…love to all my children and grand children…God Bless All of you and God…Please bless all of the world….America needs you now.”

There’s so much that I notice here!  Without knowing, I use ellipsis all the time and didn’t know why except that I like that kind of pregnant pause.  I must have learned that from him or at least picked it up by watching him. Seeing it in this journal was super cool.  Another thing I noticed was that since his death, I have found little notes like this. He often thought about us and prayed for us, even though we never knew it.  The VAULT speaks on paper….I’ve probably not said this before, but when we were younger, my dad wrote a lot…and I know that my desire to write comes from watching him spend much time doing this.    I do wish he had done it a little more because he was so good at little quips of history and dating everything!   (newspaper articles, cards, letters, etc.)   I don’t date things enough, but know its value.

So the advice I leave with you there is so much we don’t know about a person.  It takes time to “find gold in the soul.”  Sometimes it takes years for the intimacy to appear.  Notice…learn…be patient…and just enjoy…Little things will be revealed in their own time.

God Bless America and its beautiful people on this day and years to come.

I LOVE YOU so much AMERICA!!!


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The Value of Run On & a Tribute to My Daddy

In my experience of writing, often the muse is elusive.   I do Poetry Therapy, which is healing through writing.  Our writing is on demand.   Talk about an elusive muse!   However, Natalie Goldberg, in “Writing Down the Bones” talks about the power of first thoughts and she encourages run-on sentences.  In my group work, it’s imperative to keep on, keep on writing, without critique, without the inner critic, getting to the first thoughts, the raw, ripe emotion of things.   In other words, it allows the writer to “get real.”

In honor of my dad, who has now left this earth for six months, a man, I was just getting to know, and didn’t get to say as much as I wanted to say, I decided to do a run-on.  (By the way, taking dictation for Alzheimer’s patients and asking them to just keep talking and not stopping works well too!)   Not only do I get first thoughts, but there is ‘Gold in them hills!”   I can always go back and underline what strikes me or my reader or has great emotion or provocative, intriguing language and rewrite from there.  Nothing is in stone!

Here goes my vulnerability:

I want to tell you daddy….

  •  That I started a garden with all your favorites:  tomatoes and cucumbers and green beans.  I have sunflowers too with big bulbous heads and radiant petals and some intense jalepeno peppers and onions with ruffious heads, so I can make your wonderful salsa.  You would love the spot…maximum sun spreading its goodness all over those plants.  It’s going to be a good crop daddy.
  • I want to tell you that last summer when we got lost and stopped at the Dairy Queen and slurped ice cream sundaes together to relieve ourselves of the hot sun and long car ride was one of my favorite memories.  I got to have you all to myself.  I don’t even ever remember a time I had you ALL to myself…and no one could call us and bother us…and no t.v. and no dogs or anything but you and me.   And I want to tell you that the other day I went to Dairy Queen just to spend time with your memory…it was most lovely.
  • And I want to tell you that I miss you terribly and that I want to call you all the time and tell you things…but I can’t…they say…just talk to his spirit…he can hear you…but it’s not the same…Joe preserved many of my tapes with you…that was nice…I can hear your voice now and again…and I want to say I’m so frustrated sometimes that our time was so short…we were just getting to  know each other and have great conversations…and now…well…you know…

This wasn’t great writing, but there are jewels in there and places I can write from that I want to explore or know more about.  The beautiful part of this journey is that I can keep practicing writing…I can keep working on my dad’s book..  This is also great for if you only have a few minutes.   I believe in the book “The Artist’s Way” Julia Cameron has writers do “morning pages” which is much the same thing.  And by the way, the TRIPLE ADDED BONUS is that it’s therapeutic too…no longer running around in my head.

Happy writing to you.  And may the power of run-ons forever be yours!

Marie


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Can You Take me Back Daddy?

This is how I know there’s gold in every soul.  I think back on m relationship with my dad.  What I remembered as a child…both the open man and the closed man…and then I remember the man I knew as an adult.  Most of the time closed…but there were glimpses of gold in the soul.

I wrote this recently as a pondering.  What I like is that it pointed out to me where the walls were starting to form…the prison my dad built around him.  How I was so blessed the last couple of years that the walls started to get holes in them…and then I saw shiny gold peeking out.

If I could go back to any

Moment in time

What would it be?

I think this summer

When it was

Just you and me

 

We talked so freely

Just you and me

And I imagined how

It must have been

When I was a baby

And you cradled me

And you cooed with me

And life was simpler

Before you knew

You world was crumbling

And that people weren’t happy

Before your tenderness

Was crushed by the weight

Of real life

Before you knew that the love

Of your life wasn’t as happy as you.

Could you take me there daddy?

 

I want to know what

It was like before

The monstrous voice of the drink

Allowed you to say things

That were not really you

When the hurt unleashed

And lashed out on anyone

In its path

 

Somehow I always knew

That it wasn’t you

On those cold dark days

How?

Because there were

Those quiet moments

When you taught us

Poker and dominoes

And we sat around

Like a family

And laughed and played

As if there were no cares

In the world

 

Can you take me back there daddy?

May you find gold in the soul of all those you love.  Where would you like the time machine to take you?


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Daddy – Please Re-Remember

Missing you…whisper in my ear.

Writing Wings For You

daddy talking with hands

Maybe tomorrow

My daddy

You can somehow

Re-remember

How to form words

And you can tell

Me your stories again.

#fieryverse

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It’s the Small Things

ernest-lukasik_5728580 (1)

When I wrote, “Where are you Daddy?”  I was really lost.  It seems like a rollercoaster of emotions this grieving thing.  I don’t like it much…but I understand the need for it.  I also know that there is beauty and glory in all of it.

It’s the little things that remind me of him…my daddy.  My sister and I balled when we went to his house and saw peppermints  on the counter.  He always had them with him in his pocket.  You see my dad quit smoking 30 years ago, and his peppermints replaced that habit…so you can imagine, he always had a pocketful.  Then, my sister taught him how he could let the grand kids sneak up on his lap and steal one out of his pocket.  We built those memories together.  At the same time, he also replaced beer with Sam’s cola.  So, if we were at the store, he would ask us to get him beer & cigarettes…cola and peppermints.  What fond memories.

I still hear him through music, even if it’s music we didn’t listen to together.  Sometimes it’s the emotion or feeling that will zip right to my heart and remind me of him.   Last summer on a road trip, and when he was in the nursing home, we listened to a lot of Carole King, Tapestry.  He sure loved that album…I listened to it over and over while he would sleep.  What a brilliant, soulful woman who gets to the heart of everything.   While I listened, I KNEW which songs would be at his funeral…funny thing is that others have used “Way Over Yonder” for funerals before…and I never knew it.  I just knew that at that at the time my daddy was in the most pain of his physical body, I prayed for his sweet release and told him he could visit “yonder” anytime he wanted…and that his mama and papa would greet him.  And I also knew that the song “I Feel the Earth Move Under my Feet” would be played at the end…because my daddy would want people dancing, not crying.  Even the last week of his time on earth, when he could barely move, he would rock in his chair or tap a finger to that song.  It will always be our song.

I believe with all my heart that he graces me with his loving presence every day.  I just get to be still and listen and look.  It will be in the little things, the song of a bird, a dog that looks like his, or maybe even a Sam’s Cola.