Archie P. Buie, Jr. Happy Birthday

Archie Patterson Buie, Jr.

Today is my Dad’s 89^th birthday. Though he has been gone for two years I still find “celebrating” his birthday without him more than a bit painful/sad.

I miss him as much now as I did when he took off without us. Not that I/we don’t have good times remembering anecdotes about him because we do, lots of them, and I must say it does help to think that he’s making up for lost time somewhere, flying fast jets, catching huge bass, snorkeling for blue crabs, and messin’ around with some unsuspecting woman.

In spite of PTSD, survivor’s syndrome, multiple divorces and other of life's negatives, he did enjoy himself. He left behind many whom he loved, and who loved him. What more can one ask for?

For me, he was one of the bravest men I've known. He was also a “hard-headed cuss” that life had to “kick upside the head” every once in a while-or more often-to get him to pay attention.

So today, on his birthday, my celebration is about loving the man who was/is my father and all that he was and all that he gave to me.
Today is about being thankful for who I am because Archie Buie was my father.

I love you Dad. Fly high and catch a big one for me… 

Korea, fighter pilot

Married to my mom

With all his kids in the 1960's

With all his kids all grown up in the 2000's

Our "flower child" father.

Proud grandfather with co-grandfather

Happy times at Christmas

In his last year 2012/13

Thank you Dad, for everything.

Eulogy for Lewis, My uncle

A. Lewis Wight, Father, Brother, Uncle

Death is a part of everyday life; the end of night, the end of day, a flower fading and falling. Little deaths happen around us all the time. Then there are the big ones. Yesterday my mother lost another brother. She has lost two in this year, one in February and now this one, who was closest to her in age. My sister and I lost another uncle.

With my Uncle Lew dying yesterday, in a tragic and beautiful way, I felt the presence of what was happening all day long, like waves lapping on a shore in a never-ending cycle. I didn’t moan and wail or cry an ocean. Grief didn’t pour over me or take me over. I just lived and breathed and felt every moment that his life would end this day. I was pointedly aware of it. I did weep, yet knew I mourned the man I’d known years ago, not the man dying now. I wished him peace. I sent positive loving thoughts to not only the two children of his who were with him and making hard choices, but to their siblings as well, knowing this day I wasn’t the only one deeply aware of what was happening. I felt wrapped in a blanket of impending death/release/love and family. I felt we were all in one place even though we were physically spread over the US. Hearts and minds blended together, focused on Lew making his way out of this world into the next in the best, kindest way. The awareness of regrets, of past mistakes/judgments/losses remained, but took a back seat to the necessity of honoring his life and how he touched all of us.

Because my uncle was not an easy man. We often felt he was born two centuries too late. A cowboy, rough and opinionated, he wasn’t a man at ease in his own skin. He made terrible mistakes and paid terrible prices for them. The one thing I know in my heart— that we all know/knew, even if he couldn’t express it the way we would have liked—was that he loved his children beyond mortal love. He lost them a long time ago because of his own actions, but losing them didn’t make him stop loving them. In the end, yesterday, two of them stood with him, amongst American Indian Prayer and Willie Nelsons’ crooning, to honor his love for them and to be present with their own; his first son, his last daughter, together representing all their siblings before, in between and after. Lew loved each of them with the same fierceness, wildness and catastrophe with which he lived his life.

I will miss him as I have long missed the man he once was. I grieve for my mother losing her brother. I grieve for his children and the opportunities he wasted and therefore they missed. But most of all I hope he is at peace, that he’s riding that far range with a six gun on his hip, a rifle slung under his leg, and his buckskins flying in the wind of the open prairie, his steed taking him to where he should have been all along.  

Gun collector/historian extraordinaire

Moving On

http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/

 The blogfest for September is "Moving On." Please click on the link below the photo here, to see what the other participating bloggers chose to write about this month!

This couldn't be more on topic for me. My father's birthday is the 25th of this month.

 

 

Spring

February 12, 2013. This was a day, a perfect day, for moving on.  Oh no, not me, not yet anyway. My father. But then again, it was a moving on for me as well.

“My bags are packed, I’m ready to go.

 I’m standing here outside your door.

Already I’m so lonesome I could cry.”

Summer

I stood in his room, alone with his body, tears running, my hands constantly moving over his arms, his neck, his cheeks, his hands. He hadn’t needed any bags to go on this last journey, but I certainly would. I stood with him for forty-five minutes. That’s how long it took the funeral home to get the gurney into the hospice unit at the VA. They came to take away the last part of him I would ever see or touch, his body. In the end he wasn’t afraid because the stroke took him so fast he had no time to ponder. I’m glad. He wasn’t a man to let fear take him without a fight, and at the end, he didn’t have to fight.

Fall

But now my journey has begun. I’m moving on to a life without my father in it. I thought I would be ready when the time came, but what a laugh, on me, that turned out to be. Seven months later I’m still crying. I dreamed of him last night and woke up unable to breathe because the grief was so powerful, heavy and pressing. I feel my baggage is my words. It is the file I made in which to keep my writing of him, dreams, thoughts, memories, photos. I keep one on my computer and in the “cloud” so I am always able to click open the suitcase and paw through to find what I need in any given moment. Or I open that suitcase to add a new page, a new thought or dream. These I will carry with me as my bags, my baggage, a part of his legacy to me as I move on. I know, well, I’ve been told that time will help give more laughter and smiles to the grief, but I guess I’ve not moved on that far yet. So I will write, dream, cry, mourn, love, and remember, as I move down the new road before me, traveling a bit lighter in one area and a bit heavier in another.

Winter

Balance. I’m looking for balance.

 

Images from:

1000awesomethings.com

favim.com

Hurts So Good

Soon comes a time of remembrance as we will hold my father's memorial on the 25^th of this month. I feel like I had a “breather” in April, a time to be in my home with my husband and just let life move around me while I wrote and didn’t think so much about missing my father. I didn’t go to North Carolina for the first month in almost twenty-four. I didn’t realize how un-grounded I was in my own home because of that. I love being in NC, so it wasn’t a hardship for me and I didn’t realize this un-grounded-ness until I didn’t go.

 

This past month I found writing to be fun, a release, a pleasure to look forward to every day. I wrote on my blog and on my work in progress every day. I had a project I needed to finish before the end of May and I made excellent progress on it. I felt stable. I felt entrenched. It was a healthy, wonderful feeling that left me energetic during the day and tired at night. The kind of tired you have when you know you’ve accomplished something good that day. I felt “home.” We also had family come and stay a bit and it only seemed right for them to be here in our home at that particular time. A confirmation.

Now I, we, will once again travel to NC to share memories and the pain of loss with my family and be with others as they say their farewells to my father.  Life is constant change, always in flux and in keeping with that we have a young French girl/woman staying with us which entails me finding a new rhythm, a new stability, which so far (it's only been a week!) has been hard to do. But today I was eager to be at the computer; eager to be back in contact with my "true love." Today I came close to finding a balance, which reinforced the certainty that soon I will once again let my imagination and fingers have free range within whatever new rhythm I discover. One of my favorite sayings is “Life is what happens when you’re busy planning something else.” Perfect example!

Hiatus

Hello all,

Happy May Day! Here is some interesting reading... Origins of May Day

Also, a note to let you know I'll be taking a small break from blogging for a bit. I'll still post for the Reflections blog on A to Z this Friday but I need to catch up on my work in progress before May progresses too far. My father's memorial service will be at the end of this month and I have lots to do to prepare for it. We also have a very sweet and wonderful French girl named Nolwen coming to stay with us for three, yes, three months next week so I must prepare the house (and activities) for her as well. I don't mind being busy, especially right now!

So, I'll be back, but don't worry if you don't hear from me for a bit...

Have a great May,

Lisa

Images from:
www.theholidayspot.com
loveyourplace.blogspot.com
www.syracuse.com 
womensphilanthropy.typepad.com
ocap.ca

Never

Dad 1926-2013

A bit off the regularly scheduled word I had for today, which was Noun. To preface this, my sister and I lost our father on the 12^th of February this year. I’m still, as is she, dealing with all that means. Yesterday while working on a project involving my father’s affairs, I had one of those moments I’ve come to understand aren’t going to go away any time soon, if ever, of looking into the abyss his passing has left in my heart, my life, my soul. And so today my word is NEVER.

My sister, my Dad and me late 1990's

Losing a parent is not like I thought it might be. I don’t really know what I thought it would be like, but not this guerrilla sneak-attack-type warfare with my memory and emotions. For awhile I didn’t listen to any music because I never knew what would set off my crying jags. I think the main thing that causes tears is the thought/word/concept of Never. I will never see him again. I will never touch… well, I’m sure you get the picture.

I won’t go on about this. Just wanted to say that I hadn’t really grasped the concept of “Never” and what it actually means, for some reason. It is a hurtful word and one I’m not fond of at the moment. It has a depth and longevity I had not given credence to before. “Never” is longer than I ever want to think about.

"Pat" Buie in Korea, 1950's

Until it comes to this side of that same hopeless word, the side that meets “Always.” I will NEVER forget him, NEVER forget what he was/is in my life. He is and always will be my father, and I’m okay with knowing that fact will NEVER change.  Sometimes I find peace there, and then the next guerrilla style sneak-attack hits and I miss him all over again.

Archie in the 1970's