These Years Later - Ray Barker

I try to keep an awareness of this date as it draws near, with the intention that mindfulness will keep me from being ambushed. Silly me.
Today is the anniversary date of my father's death; four days from now will mark the day that was his birthday in this lifetime. He has been gone from this world 12 years now, and I am still getting to know him. I am closer to answers, perhaps, in a "Shaka, when the walls fell" kind of way, but I suspect it will take a lifetime of musing to make any real progress. And when I finally know all the truths I need to know, they will no longer matter.
I have spent the morning lazily immersed in memories, photos, and old writings about my dad, both in this world and dream visits in the other. They are real and surreal, quiet and intense, rabbit hole and Summerlands, sometimes all at once.
In one of my old dreams, I could hear my parents talking in their coffee-at-the-dining-room-table voices. I was walking a perfectly shoveled path (a theme in many such dreams, and a Ray Barker art form) through the snowy woods, and I called to them but they didn't answer. I thought I was getting closer because the trees were thinning out and the light was getting brighter. I finally stepped out of the woods and found myself on an Adirondack lake shore, with Autumn all around instead of winter. There was a picnic table with their coffee cups, and a box of plain cake donuts. On the table, next to Dad's cup, there was also a copy of the poem I wrote a few years. It was held down by a piece of beach glass. I sat down at the table, looking out over the water, soaking up the beauty of the place when I heard Dad call my name from a distance. There they were, far out on the water in an old style canoe, sunlight dancing on the water all around them. They both waved to me before turning the canoe and paddling away.
I still miss him every day. 

See you in our beloved North Country, Pops.

Peace out, peeps.

~sheri

These years later

I mimic the mystic they and say

"It doesn't get any easier." But truth be told, as was your wont,

Your death brought a storm of grief and fury

So thorough and unrelenting

That over time it smoothed the edges

Of the pain of your loss until it became

A piece of beach glass, tossed and

tumbled by rough seas.

I can hold it now, sometimes,

Turning it in my fingers,

Feeling the beauty of your life

Without the cutting edges. ~s. barker 2015

Baby Ray - photo taken by his father, Raymond C. Barker, Sr.

Punk looking Ray, which goes with what I know of his life.

Dad on the left, with his mother and brothers. I am grateful for the healing that took place between them.

Dad with the love of his life.

I wish I'd done a better job with this picture. Camera issues, and a cigarette haze filled house. Dad with his sons. I wonder what he thinks of who they have become.