Wind Chimes
I purchased two nice wind chimes this spring for the deck. Neither my wife nor daughter were a fan of them. The first two weeks they were out there my daughter went out in the middle of the night and took them down because she couldn't sleep with them going.
I visit my elderly mother on Wednesdays every week. My sister Deb suggested I give them to my mom. I took both with last Wednesday. I told mom about the dilemma. She volunteered to take both of them off my hands.
We talked for a while and I learned from her that my father loved wind chimes. I didn't know this fact. It didn't surprise me because my dad was a nature guy and he considered wind chimes an extension of the outdoors.
Mom picked the one she liked and I hung them outside her kitchen window. She told me the other one my dad would like and I should take them to him. I thought this was an odd request because he had passed away in 1967. She told me there was a metal stand with a hook on the grave and the wind chimes would look and sound beautiful there.
Through the years I have visited his grave typically a couple days before Memorial Day. My dad has a purple lilac bush on his grave and it was in full bloom. It was his request to have such a bush on his grave.
My wife and I put the wind chime up last night. It began to sound immediately. There was no wind. It really freaked me out. Ever since I have been little it has freaked me out to visit my dad's grave. Something about seeing your own name on a grave stone has always bothered me. I am a junior.
We stood there and listened to the chimes toll and smelled the lilacs for quite a while. My mind was racing. I have never been comfortable being in the cemetery ever. The sound and smell made me linger there and think.
I dropped off my wife at her mother's and went to the dam in Gays Mills to fish. I stood there a while before I fished and pondered. Many a day in my youth I had sat on the banks of the Kickapoo River and fished with my father. I was the most happy as a kid when I was out in nature with my dad.
The cemetery was about two miles away but I swear I could hear those wind chimes singing. It finally came to me why I am so driven to fish. I wanted to be with my dad. He was taken from me when I was 10 years old.
Being on stream was like being with him. Every change of the wind was like he was speaking to me. I could see his smile as I landed a big trout or pike. He never really died. He is part of the outdoors.
This was the real reason I escaped in to the outdoors every chance I could throughout my life. His body was at the cemetery but his spirit was with me on stream and he had never left.
2017 marked 50 years since he left.
For more of Len’s work visit; https://lenharris.blogspot.com, Small Streams Trout Monsters Club, or www.facebook.com/len.harris
