Dear Winn

Buechner's Ghost

Winn,

I’ve been reading haphazardly through Buechner’s Now and Then again. I love that book. I bet I’ve read it ten times at least, and each time I notice something new, something I missed, or probably forgot is more like it. Early this morning it was this paragraph -

“In Drumlanrig Castle, where we stayed with the Douglases’ friends, the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, on the way home, I saw my first and only ghost—awoke just at dawn to find it sitting huge, white, faceless, in a wing chair facing my bed, then pulled the covers over my head and lay there sweating in a panic…”

Buechner’s ghost. How in the freakin’ Frederick had I missed that? A ghost of all things by God. Buechner mentions it there on p.7 and then never again. Doesn’t circle back or draw some connection later on, no connecting of that dot with other willing dots. He simply flexes (ha) a bit—the whole Drumlanrig Castle, staying with the Duke and Duchess thing—then gives a nod to his first and only ghost which then vanished from not only that wing chair but the rest of Buechner’s story.

Why’d he choose to mention that? Sure, memoir’s not straight narrative so old Chekhov’s gun rule doesn’t quite apply, but still I found it odd. It felt out of place.

Irreverence is when something is where it shouldn’t be.

-Dean Young, The Art of Recklessness

The mention of Buechner’s ghost was, in a word, irreverent. Now you know me and know my affinity for irreverence, so I absolutely loved it. And, it caused me to immediately remember my ghost story which I can’t remember if I’ve told you and if I have you’re gonna hear it again and if I haven’t then, well, hang on.

February 23, 2021 is the saddest day on my life’s calendar for that is the day my dad died. I’d been in Arkansas staying with my mom while dad was in a COVID unit an hour’s drive away. We were not permitted to visit, peer through a glass window and wave, hold up signs that said WE LOVE YOU!, none of that, nothing. I flew back to Colorado to take care of a few things after which Meredith and I would then head directly back to Arkansas (head = drive, close to 16hrs). Not too far into our return drive, we got the call that dad needed to be intubated, the doctor felt it necessary as dad’s lungs needed some help, and on a fuzzy Facetime call along a stretch of highway with poor cell service we glimpsed dad being prepped and he gave us a thumb’s up through the glass darkly. We kept driving, actually started driving faster.

How much time, how many miles passed between that thumb’s up and my brother calling to tell me dad went into cardiac arrest and died? I don’t know, Winn. I do know the next town on that long lonesome stretch was Clayton, New Mexico. We needed to stop and call the kids, break the horrible news. There’s a Love’s Travel Stop in Clayton, we’d stopped there umpteen times on trips from and to Colorado. We pulled into a parking spot and then this happened, huge, right in front of our faces. And somehow I had the presence of mind to grab my phone.

When I showed my mom this picture weeks later, she screamed. Winn, from the Orvis hat to the denim shirt with sleeves just a tad short to the leather buckled suspenders to the baggy ass jeans to the vascularity of that paw/hand to the size and shape of that ear, that’s the spitting image of my dad, like his twin or something, to the degree you wouldn’t have to press me very hard to say, well, that was my dad. Sounds crazy I know. It was like seeing a ghost. Blase’s ghost.

I don’t know how this life works. For me, it gets a little muddier every day. It broke my heart that I couldn’t be there when my father drew his last breath, that I couldn’t be by his side and hold that vascular paw, especially as I’d not seen him in the flesh since he’d been admitted to the hospital several weeks before. Maybe it’s an adulterous generation that seeks for a sign, and if so fine. But I needed a sign that something or somebody saw me, saw us, and gave a damn cause it sure didn’t feel like it. On that day I needed something where it shouldn’t be, something irreverent. Like dad’s ghost flanked by a Chester’s chicken sign and ice for $2.49 and a Christmas stocking decal in the window that should’ve been taken down weeks before.

I look at this picture now and then, much like I return to Buechner’s memoir. And in the same way, there’s usually a feeling I have when I look at it that I didn’t have before, or maybe I did and simply forgot. When prompted by Buechner’s ghost early this morning, I pulled that picture up and laughed, for I saw dad stopping for a quick break to grab a cold Coke before he continued his journey on to that next place. I do wish dad’s ghost would’ve turned and looked at me. But maybe he knew that would’ve been too much, both for him, and for me.

Does the route from Arkansas to heaven go through Clayton, New Mexico?

Winn, I believe it does.

I believe it.

I believe.