My friend
Sam says he counts it a good thing to have a character for a father.
If that is true I am abundantly blessed. My Dad, born with name Valentine
in the heyday of silent screen romantic heroes and thus called Tino
by his friends, can be cantankerous and contentious but is never boring.
Now, at 82 and a widower, he lives in the Allegheny Highlands whose
miles and miles of woodlands he hunted, fished and camped since boyhood.
Gloucester is not a town in which I can claim any special knowledge
of the icy fear that knots your gut when a phone rings and a voice says,
“they’re missing”.
For me it was a February morning - cold enough here but well below zero
in Pennsylvania. “They” were my Dad and his 98 year old,
nearly blind friend Clarence. Both of them grew up in the woods and
have always loved it. One of their favorite past-times is driving the
hundreds of miles of backcountry logging trails that thread their way
through those rich timberlands.
Around three o’clock Dad bought a dozen donuts and headed for
Clarence’s house. When he did not return home that evening my
brother started making phone calls. By midnight the State Police, the
area rescue units, friends, family and countless others with flashlights
and pickup trucks were combing the Allegheny Forest.
It was a very long and fruitless night.
The helplessness that eats at you in endless hours of waiting is mind
numbing. You need the comfort of familiar voices but you are afraid
to tie up the telephone. Your mind becomes your enemy. An endless litany
of “if onlys” plague you. If only I had stopped him, if
only he had waited, if only, if only….
Minutes drag. Hours rush by. You try to steel yourself or find consolation.
You think, “If he has to go let it be quick rather than his being
hurt and hungry and freezing somewhere.” You try to force bravery
and nobility on yourself - “it would be better for him to go in
the dense beauty of the woods that he loved than in the cold sterility
of a hospital ward.”
Comfort is hard to come by. But somewhere in the reckoning of all this
a realization dawns. This is happening because he is who he is. His
love of the beauty of his world is fierce and tenacious. He is true
to the wildness in his heart.
A strange paradox perplexes us today. We long for passion, excitement
and adventure. But we want it safe and definitely well insured. Movies
filled with slaughter and devastation leave our senses stunned as we
drive home in air-conditioned mini-vans. Amusement parks, adventure
lands and flashing video games offer the illusion of thrills and chills.
We are voracious for entertainment. Make it intense. Make it dazzling,
bright and glitzy. But make it safe. Artificial environments and engineered
entertainments allow us to buy a sense of having lived. We are besotted
with cravings for fun. We call that life.
But for hearts with a taste for the depth and lushness of authentic
life it is a sorry substitute. For those who savor the thrills of the
soul, idle entertainment has little attraction. The wildness of the
world beckons. And I cannot help but wonder if a life with depth and
authenticity is possible without risk. Whether it is the risk of speaking
our mind, baring our soul, following our bliss, or choosing to live
life on our own terms - without regard for the safe and the sensible
- is a safe life a life that honors the heart?
My story has a happy ending. I am lucky. Dad and Clarence returned home
on their own - unaware of the ruckus their disappearance caused. They
were driving down a steep grade when a wheel went in to a hole. Failing
to dig it out they spent the night in the woods, running the heater
just enough to keep from freezing, talking, wishing they hadn’t
forgotten the donuts.
Mid-morning two young hunters in a 4x4 came across them and pulled them
out with a winch. They drove to Clarence’s house for hot baths
and lots of hot coffee. They were embarrassed by the fuss.
“My God,” Dad said, “they act like I’ve never
spent a night in the woods before.”
Days later, when he was rested and a little humbled by the rescue efforts,
we talked. He talked about the still, quiet beauty of the frigid night.
Stars as big as sparkling plums. Moonlight slipping round snow laden
fir trees trailing sparkles across frosted branches. He spoke of the
mysterious call of night birds. Of the fine fairy dust of snowflakes
shimmering through the dark.
“I’m sorry I caused so much trouble,” he told me “There’s
no way I can repay everyone. But, I have to tell you one thing; I never
thought at my age I’d get to spend another winter night in the
woods. It was just so beautiful.”
A heart that wild will never die.
