NaPM April 27 2016

[bedeep]

I Learn To Love Hurricanes

We'd gone late
to the family fish camp on the coast
in September, just for a weekend,
when a big storm blew up.
I was maybe 7.
I remember sitting
all five of us huddled --
me and the younger kids,
Mom and Dad --
in the dark downstairs with one lantern lit.
The wind took charge, banging, yowling,
the windows shook, and outside them
the rain rained sideways, I could see it.
We held close together
like we would in a cave,
taking that comfort
in the illusion of safety.

Later Mom recalled that trip:
Oh, we were very frightened!
but I remember my dad's excited grin, his eyes
gleeful as a kid's.
He never met a storm
he didn't like, the wilder the better.
Whatever it brought,
he just loved the weather.

When I went home years later
to meet his dying,
a hurricane came along that next week.
He lay in bed with the windows boarded
for four days, finally asking "Why is it so dark?"
when it was all over. We got someone to take
the boards down to let in the day.
The next week
he went on, never once
afraid.

My dad taught me
how to love hurricanes
and then he taught me
how to die.