Running The Bases With Daddy

I wish tonight that he would visit me. But I know such occurrences are rare. I also know that I stand in a place in my life in the midst of some letting go, and I need to hear him tell me to keep running. "Go on past first, round hard by second and fly touch your feet on third, Girl. Run! But don't let your foot off that base."  That's what he'd say.

So, I'd run. And he would signal me to stop on third you see. "Hold it, there." And I always prayed nobody would knock me down getting to homeplate (that could be dangerous for a bony girl) because I knew he was gonna tell me to run.
And I'd better be paying attention.

I took this shot outside his Hospice room on the night before he died.  I can't look at it without thinking of ballfields and moonlight or dust on his oily black glove. I just wanted him free.
And that sky seemed to call him home.

Somewhere tonight...he is running the bases. My daddy. I know it.
I miss him so much. But I remember this day in 2009 when he saw to it, in the most remarkable of ways, that I was OK.  And then he visited my sister and gave her the same gift of assurance, wearing a bright yellow shirt and turning my pain into waves of peace in the window pane where there had only been tears. Somewhere between here and there. Somewhere.
Window Pains and Rain

There is a place between two worlds I've heard of.
Some say it is Holy.


Goodnight Daddy.