Forward by My big Sister
After our Dad passed away last year, my sisters and I felt a deep well of sadness rise inside each of us that can be communicated with one question "Why Didn't Dad take us to work too?"
There were 10 Born (in total) 6 boys and 4 girls, and our brothers grew up going to work with Dad. They learned his trade, Natrual Stone masonry, and were able to travel with him everywhere his jobs took him. The girls stayed home. It sounds very dramatic but we felt unwanted and neglected; the boys left the house and had these great adventures, and the girls were left behind. Most importantly they got to know a father we didn't get to see very much.
After my father died I was personaly effected. My younger brother, Aaron (who worked
along side my Dad) said the most comforting words to me. He said, “ I wish you
could have heard Dad talk about his girls.” I was surprised with this new
information! I didn't know my Dad thought about the girls at all; especially
not at work.
My brother described the tender feelings my Dad had
for his little girls. My childhood heartache was soothed by a few memorable things he shared.
I asked him to write those thoughts down
in a poem or a story to share with my sisters. I thought it might help me, and
possibly them, to gain closure from haunting childhood memories and be at
peace with our father.
Aaron wrote it as a story In our Dad's
familer if not unique style, a style I didn't know until now. I'm grateful my
brother knew his language. The story has a wealth of information of my Dad's
all to familiar behaviors to help all my siblings understand how he felt about
his children even the boys. -- CS
Rocks and Roses
By Aaron Miller, inspired By My Father, to his daughters.
I post this with their blessing.
The sun slowly rose over the dry
river bed. The dew lay glistening in the awakening sunlight. The air was dry
and warming but still cool, and the first rays cast a yellow luminance on the
world that would only last a few more minutes.
A beat up old truck came bouncing
down alongside the dry bed, slowing down to carefully navigate its way into the
stream and continue to the middle. It stopped and a man stepped out; he took a
long drink of the ice-cold Pepsi he just bought, condensation dripped off the
can as he threw it back. He winced as he finished, one eye tightly closed and
he shook his head as if it would help ease the effects of cold carbonation. “Ewe
that’s good!” he said as he placed the half full can onto the dashboard of his
truck.
He put on his hob-nob gloves and
adjusted his truckers hat and got to work throwing nice flat stones into the
truck bed. The sun slowly rose and its rays warmed the dew, casting
imperceivable vapers into the air causing a light humidity in the wash, causing
the man to sweat. He stopped a minute and stretched his weary back a bit. While
stretching he noticed a beautiful rose bush with baby rose buds nearly
ready to bloom. He was an outdoors man, and appreciated everything God created,
and especially loved the beautiful flowers in the washes and quarries and
valley’s that he traveled while collecting stone for his various Jobs.
He always stopped to admire the loveliness
of it all. He smiled and tipped his hat at the rose bush and if it was real. He
went back to work and was soon done. He finished off the now flat and warm Pepsi,
deemed it a “dud” threw the can onto the passenger side floor board and started
up the truck.
The fully loaded truck drove smoother on the
bumpy path that lead out of the wash. He had driven it a couple times and knew the
right turn’s and which dry streams to cross until he reached the safety of a paved
road. He stopped the truck, got out, and carefully checked each of his tires,
he was looking for little rocks that could get lodged into the dual tires of his truck and
cause a tire failure down the road. Not just a flat…but a blowout that could be
bad news.
Satisfied he was safe, he started up again, and let his mind
wander. He thought about the little rose bush, he thought that if it were alive
then it would have been watching him. He chuckled and stopped at the gas
station for gas and a cold Pepsi
He returned to the wash a few days
later and stopped next to the rose bush. He had his arm out the window and looked
at the blooming bush.
“Hello there bush, you rose bush,
you.” he said. “You’ve got a beautiful bloom going on”
He got out of the truck after finishing his
Pepsi (with a loud smack of his lips) and started working. Yet as he worked he was thinking
about the little rose bush as he gathered the rocks, throwing them one by one
into the truck. He was hot, tired, thirsty, but he needed to finish his work or
else it would never get done, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that the roses
were watching him. Every now and then would say hello to them as he passed
them.
“Hello there rose bush, I see you haven’t moved an inch
since I arrived. Keep growing up up up!” he said in
animated tones. When he finished loading the truck he started to leave and waved good bye to the roses and as he did he imagined he
heard them ask.
“Can we come too?’
“No little rose bush” he replied “You
gotta stay, but I’ll be back” and he left.
Time passes, the seasons change and
the man aged. And yet year in and year out he found himself inside the wash
taking stones, greeting the roses as he passed and even doing what he could to
prune them and give them good fertilizer. He greatly enjoyed how they changed
from visit to visit and look forward to seeing them, yet every time he left he imagined
them asking to go with him, and he lovingly told them that he would be back.
Then he came, and he was old. The years of hard labor had
not been kind to him, and he hobbled and limped, he winced as he struggled to opened his
Pepsi, He looked out at the rose bush and offered it some and said “You
want a little freindo freindo?” laughed at his own joke and took a long drink,
smacking and moaning in delight. He
opened the door of the truck and poured himself out and stumbled as he straightened
himself.
“Well!” he laughed in a surprised tone as he looked the bush over, It was now
more like a tree, and the roses were vibrant. “Aren’t you a lovely sight for
sore eyes” he sat down in the shade of the "tree" and let the pleasant scents
wash over him and feel the cool breeze. He was old done taking rock's, he knew he
didn’t come all the way out here to collect them, he couldn’t pick them up
anyways. He pulled out a camera that he hobbied with making "movies" to share with his grandkids and started recording.
“Well…here I am with this, beautiful rose bush” he said
“After all these years I have come here to take away rocks, this rose “tree”
has been here like an old friend. And every time I leave I can hear it call out
to me “Take me with you!” and every time I know I can’t” he traded hands with
the camera. “And, you know?” he said contemplating “I see here that this bush
isn’t really a bush at all but four beautiful daughters” he choked a bit on
tears. “Because they often asked me if I could take them. And I can’t help but
feel like It was them saying it the whole time, through this beautiful rose
bush.”
He backed up to get the whole bush
into the view of the camera, then panned out at the river bed “I have taken a
lot of rock out of this wash here, and I mean a lot of rock over the years, and
every time I do, I see this rather beautiful rose bush asking me to take it
with me and I’m here to give this bush an answer.”
The pointed the camera back at the
bush, and zoomed in on the rose’s which were in full bloom. “Hello rose bush,
how are you? I hope you are doing good, you look great. You have asked me more than
once to take you with me as I leave here with all the rocks and here is my
answer, for you, today, which is, I couldn’t.”
“You saw me take the rocks and
leave you behind, but I couldn’t take you where I took the rocks.”
“Here, you could grow, a living thing to grow
and get strong, and have little buds. I
took the rocks, and well… they were tools, very useful and strong and important
in their own way, and I needed them to do my work, but I left them where I
placed them, set in mortar.”
I couldn’t set you in mortar, and I couldn’t
keep you safe as you went with me. I was busy, and it was hard.” He took a step
and nearly lost balance.
“Look at me! shriveled and bent, my
body was once strong but now it’s quite
crappy! I can’t even hold this camera right.” He chuckled sarcastically, as he
readjusted his precarious grip on the camera. “You know roses bush? I have four beautiful
daughters at home and as I talk to you I am really talking to them. They asked
me to take them too, but I couldn’t take them for the same reason I couldn’t
take you. Because I wanted you…and them… to be lovely, I was trying to protect
you/them. I left you to grow freely, to shine in your own ways. I tried to give
you the best nourishment that I could…and probably didn’t do that so good, but
I did what I knew how. But I left you to be able reach for your own light.”
“I took the boys” he sighed “This is true,
just like I took the stones, they were my rocks, just like the girls were my
roses. I can tell you, that I never
wanted my boys to be rocks, and I didn’t want them to be hammered in, I didn’t
want them in this crappy business. I call it crappy because…”
He stopped and wiped tears that
were starting to down his face, “…because I just wasn’t smart enough to do
anything else, this work made me dumb, and you had to work twice as hard as
everybody else, or more! To get half as much out of it! And even though I tried
to get out Many many times, it just pulled me back in. and so I was never home.
I made the ultimate sacrifice for you, my time, so you could grow” he grimaced
as if in pain, as he fought back more tears. “I wanted them to be roses” he
said “But this work wore me down and if I wanted to keep you safe and fed and
clothed and keep a roof over your head I needed to take them to help me in my
work. They were rocks, tough, strong smart, able to put in a good day’s work
and do it repeatedly, I set them in mortar and they stayed where they were.”
“And in many ways, I feel like I
might have cursed them, but as with any curse comes blessing after the trials.
You were cursed to stay; they were cursed to go. Yet I want you to know
something that is the same. I love you.
I loved you this whole time, and even though I left, I didn’t leave you, I
always came back, you can’t leave what you come back to. You were a figure 8 in
my life. As I worked the stone, and the boys. I left the roses and my daughters
to grow and live, and look at you now.
Each of you, so beautiful and so different, and amazing. You, have different
pedals and found light in different ways and you even smell different, like my
daughters, they have voices like angles, and are so strong and beautiful in
their own unique and amazing ways. They are all great woman now, and I am so proud
of them and they all have amazing children, amazing legacy’s in my life, and
their own. They are major feathers in my cap…"
He turned off the camera. And took
a big deep breath. The emotions of his mind over ran his ability to speak. his
mind was blown.
He laid down in the shade of the
roses moved his hat over his face and took a nap.
He woke up an hour later and gathered his
things and got back in his truck. He closed the door. And looked at the roses.
And said “Well… this is so long; I won’t be back” his eyes teared up he looked
away up the stream and got an idea.
He took out the camera turned it on
and pointed it down the river bed and stated “Here is my road, I made this road
over years of coming to this wash. When I first came here I drove over grass
and shrub and even a tree of two. Now it’s a road, deep and cut into the
ground, you can see it clearly and could follow it to where ever I have been. This
is like a road of life, I made this and you are welcome to travel it to see
where I have been, its your road now to follow, or pave off from.” To my
daughters, if you were here with me now I would tell you this. Don’t let the rain
or clouds of life put out your light. Just let it shine and when you do,
remember me; because my sacrifices are the only inheritance I can give you. You
wanted boundary’s, but I gave you a road.
It’s yours to travel and if you get lost ask the rocks, they can teach
you everything you didn’t get to experience, you get the knowledge without the
suffering…” he laughed at his cleverness
“…but anyways” he slowly continued
“I love you, and in the end, that’s all I have to give, and that’s all that
really matters I love my rocks and my Roses”
He turned off the camera and slowly
drove out of the wash. Over the well driven road. Out onto the paved road, where
over years of experience and habit, he got out and hobbled all around the truck
looking for stray stones in the tires, got back in, went to the gas station,
got a cold Pepsi, and drove home.
We can't talk about writers that have inspired me without talking about Joseph Rudyard Kipling. 
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