As I stated before, I was walking down the driveway to my car early one morning to go to work, when I suddenly realized I felt safe. It’s always dark at that time, no matter the time of the year.
I don’t think I’ve ever truly felt safe in my life. So it was a different sensation going to my car. Something I couldn’t identify. I know what I didn’t feel. There was no fear walking down the driveway. There was no paranoia that someone was lurking in the dark somewhere waiting to get me. Even inside my house, there was always a sense of uneasiness. I would occasionally smudge the inside of my house to cleanse it, to try to feel safer.
Anyway, walking down the driveway, I found it was silent, inside and out. Is this what safety feels like? Not a blind disregard for surroundings but seeing no threat where there is none.
All of this seems to have happened since my father’s death.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. When my father was in his 90’s, there times I’d be talking to my massage therapist, telling her even though intellectually I knew he wouldn’t come and get me, my heart did not feel the same way. I’m imagine my 7-year-old alter felt some of that, but I’m not totally sure.
In my mind though, he wasn’t age 90, but a whole lot younger. That’s probably why I felt the need some sort of proof that not only was he on his deathbed, but that he’d actually died. It came in the form of photos my brother took before my father died, of an old man, whom I did not recognize. The only similar feature was the shape of my father’s nose. That’s how I recognized him. Afterall, I hadn’t seen him in about 18 tears or so, at my sister’s wedding.
And now that I saw the photograph, along with my sister’s call when he died, that threat is no longer there.