Wind Beneath My Wings
Dad passes:
The very next workday and on the way. (I didn’t take bereavement)>>>
Bette Midler lights up the airways with a random reminder… A nice comforting travel down memory lane. “Wind beneath my Wings”, I was forced to remember the bond I shared with my father. The special feeling of just not figuring out who is who! We never could pin down who the eagle is, or who the wind is. Or … “are we both each of those things?”, my dad would sometimes ask. Wait? How is that possible? Dad liked to remind that “anything is possible!”, just as well. I could only remember his last words that rang through my ears through the phone in July of the recent summer “Ben, I’m proud of you, and I love you. Glad you called!” In July of 2022 Dad came through at the very end, he was there for me all along! It seems he had a sense that he was very aware of the footsteps that he had laid out for me! Dad was a man that could figure things out, along with it he was never taken seriously due to his other behaviors, which was displayed on various outnumbering instances. I then, immediately after his passing, somehow couldn’t let go of listening to this song in the morning before I went to work. Usually while getting ready for work in the morning. I wanted to press into the very first moment it became such a special bond. Coincidentally, Red Tailed Hawks perched out the backyard at work on power poles, screeching the morning away! This happened most mornings throughout the fall after his passing.
I had the actual memory of when this song came on the very first time and that really meant something. It was ‘that moment’. There were many other instances of this song following, they were always at random, the moments that neither one of us could be prepared for. Although, I noticed how it would usually come on during a routine farm chore of some sort. Usually checking or feeding the cows, we had this silly figure it out reasoning of who is who, every time! The very first memory was when dad stopped the tractor! This was a time that couldn’t be forgotten! Dad made an intention to connect with his son. Now, how do I know this is intentional? I already recognized that dad stopping a tractor was an annoying thing. Stopping the tractor, usually had to do with his sons on the farm and was already an observed annoyance by this time. Dad stopped the tractor that day though! He even killed the motor, then standing me up taller than him on the front tractor wheel. Of course, warning me not to touch the sizzling hot muffler! He then explained how the wind allows the “chicken hawk” to soar and not flap those wings… Following, he started the game time argument, and this only set a precedent for me to follow his footsteps and have something to figure out. Blaring Bette in the background on a quiet and humid half cut hayfield. Bugs scorch as they are hitting the muffler. Here I was, many years later, and very instantaneously taking in a new perspective. I traveled to the scene of a 12-year-old young lad on his way to manhood. As a young man, I had only heard this song in an annoying way up to this moment. After this moment, I couldn’t wait for the warming morning sun even into the next spring. While checking for newborn calves I was no longer waiting for it to be over so I could ride my bike! Just for that summer though, I wanted nothing more than to make hay with dad.
This moment of memory was forever changing for me, I suddenly realized how I certainly have been the wind under dads’ wings, and he has been the wind undermine equally. Yet, years later. Still puzzled and with no way of knowing for sure who was in what role. Dad was the wind under at that moment on the hilltop of the driftless field. He wanted me to be the soaring eagle! The Eagle was a rare sighting in those days and dad made sure that it was an eagle sighting! It was a young and huge eagle, didn’t have a white bald yet. The eagle really has made a comeback since those days… The uniqueness was suddenly only as relevant as the memory I was in. As mentioned, I wanted this moment repeatedly. I would relisten to the song just as frequently as the era it played on the radio. I would only have different memories each time though. Like the time I tried playing the game during intense pressure of a beef cattle operation. It offered some rejection. Dad was annoyed with the timing and once flipped the channel to the stock market reports. On that occasion though, he had that rare apology as a follow up! He held on to that moment for about a year and a half and followed into early teens. Seemed as though the song became less frequent and really was just dropping in the Billboard charts, songs like “Eternal Flame”, by The Bangles were just a bit more mainstream at the time. We would hear it while getting firewood occasionally, right along with “Turn Back Time” by Cher. Sometimes just on the way to town, getting a can of Copenhagen and soda. While gutting the young and tender deer on opening morning of hunting season. These times didn’t have an eagle flying so high above us though. A significant instance a few years later was an early morning when he went to start the tractor on a cold winter morning. It was just before feeding the cows and he came back to have me help start it. He needed me to turn the key while he put starting fluid in the carburetor! “Dropping bales to feed the cows” This was something I looked forward to as “young buck”, I would get to drive the truck or tractor while he “tossed the hay”! Or I would get to practice driving the tractor dropping a round bale. Of course, I was able to turn the key, I could have gone out and fed the cattle myself by this time! Not really knowing it was going to be mid-song; there was urgency to get out and help, dad knew. Dad wanted that moment on that morning! Starting the tractor became not really that important on that morning in other ways though. The only bond we had was an intense argument, out in the freezing cold. By then, I absolutely hated the cold. A warm tractor would have been ideal. I didn’t plan on going that day, just super annoyed the blanket was ripped off my head. I rejected the argument and took charge of the best way to start the tractor. Evidently, my ego and need to be of importance were well established by this point. While the memories stuck around; the bricks were being laid in the reality part of life also. After Thanksgiving the days were becoming short, and the darkness was only taking me back to that moment with a flashlight flaring all over the place. So extremely cold that I couldn’t hold a flashlight or a can of ether to choke. Although, I had made the determination that I would spray. My experience at the time was that the tractor floor intensified the cold and I in no way wanted a part of frozen feet! This morning was so brutal! I was going to be miserable no matter what! I probably would have been better off taking the sting through frostbitten fingers and turning the key! At least I would have been out of the wind! I had to be important though, and the only way I knew was to demonstrate how capable I was of whatever dad did. Oh, did I mention, this morning I was having my very first hangover!
So that would be the fall of traveling the associations through a song, a journey of memories that only I could understand. I was the only one that experienced such moments. It was always just him and I, father, and son. I was alone in grievance, right where needed to be throughout the fall of 2022. I only allowed myself to share the remembrance with my fiancé and a few random mentions with co-workers. My memories could only be good ones. The reality of life and inheritance was present in its unique ways through those days. I was diagnosed with the same kidney disease that brought my dad suffering for the last 8 years of his life. I also inherited the toolbox that dad had me huff around the farm, it also made a good footrest in the tractor! Oh, I inherited his clothes also! Finally found the one article I wanted once I went through them! And ultimately, good memories went silent around Thanksgiving. I became depressed. Abandonment was even more present. I was forced to be in a state of recognizing how dad had to be creative with his connection to others, especially that of myself and others differently. Those memories of 2022 were coming back as a balance to the physical abuse I witnessed and experienced, I observed violent encounters with his brother (my uncle), as they had many shortcomings! I witnessed a lot. Associations with the winter snow were not something foreign even while dad was in his living years. Spent years into my early 40’s that were evenings alone tossing a few neat whiskeys down, just to block the trauma out. I was in nothing but panic staring at a long winter ahead. I was 2 years sober by this point and knew I was not looking back towards destruction!
The stage was set for 2023. The first day of winter put that into perspective. I am pretty sure there is a relevance that was manifesting in real life as well, as Christmas was just four days away. Here I am totally unprepared! I didn’t have a single gift laid under the tree or even started shopping! Just like that day of rejection! The remembrance was fading as I was wrapped up and wound tight about how I was failing current day reality. The first holiday into a ‘manic one’, shopping was a lunchtime chore and then a last minute “Manic Monday Christmas”. This was more internalized than presented outwardly, I was sleeping regularly even. The memories though, are silent by now and I dropped the pursuit!
The very last day of the year 2022 was one that I could never forget. The Merlin, the bird of prey that gave me a promise of uniqueness and enlightenment. Even though he took a huge crap just before taking flight and left the back yard!
