Memories of my dad and I sitting on the couch next to each other, head laid back, eyes closed as the latest Celtic CD we bought blasted through the speakers. I never understood the words, sometimes I could catch a phrase or two I sang along to when my daddy wasn’t home. But when it was just the two of us in the evenings, the tunes, and flutes and harps and other strings and sounds I had never heard of before would surround us ,like a large dome where it was just me and my daddy. I shut my eyes and laid back silently as instructed, as I sneaked peaks at my daddy, he would always be still, I watched his thumb tap gently and rhythmically on the arm of the couch, his chest rising and falling, his face so calm and of peace. 

I waited for him to get home every evening and picked out the Celtic CD to play and we would listen to a whole album, eyes closed, together in our dome, my daddy and me. I learned about calm and peace in meditation. I learned all my ways to the world from this man, he was gigantic in his being, doling out wisdoms I listened to intently with so much intrigue. 

It would always be obscure things like “don’t say ‘just’. It suggests you’re not entirely serious about something. If you open your mouth to say something then make it meaningful. If it’s not, shut up. But don’t say I just wanted you to know. Say “I wanted you to know that…”understand?” he gave eight year old me advice as we washed the car together.

I always thought I was learning all the most important and interesting things because my daddy was so well read and well travelled, all over the continents, Europe, Africa, America and Australia. To me, he was the most interesting man in the world. I always competed for his affection as I had a little brother who was cuter and more charming than my defiant, rebellious self. Still my father loved me fiercely and in our time together I earned wisdom and peace. 

I was always bathed and ready early Sunday morning, because that would be the day daddy and I would go to the music store and I would get to choose any one CD I would like to have. His heavy hand on my head and a soft stroke of my cheek with the back of his hand. The kind that filled me with love, and a connection nothing else would ever compare to. My daddy would have his own stack, but Celtic music would always make the stack. 

Why Celtic? I never found out and now as most of his mind has vacated his being, I am left to safeguard our memories and lessons of mindful silence. I find myself most inspired when I hear Gaelic in tunes. All my senses roused, a pathway lit and scattered with roses for my inner voice to make its way to an audience. The beautiful melodic voices, the vibrations and harmonies bring me immediate peace and calm in my heart.

Since a few year ago, I would stand watching him lie in the hospital bed we set up for him at home as he smiled and thanked me for visiting, for he had no recollection of me. I watched him cry as I hugged him goodbye and memories of me reappear to him but the words wouldn’t follow for the connections are rudely interrupted ever since his heart failure incident. I would hold on to him tighter than my hands would allow, begging for one more moment with my daddy.

I left him a million miles away across the globe for my life here, but the truth is, the father that raised me no longer lived in that body. Sometimes I call him on FaceTime with magical mystical hope that I might be able to confide in him and seek his guidance.

“I love you” he would say followed by a kissing motion.

“I love you daddy,” I would say kissing the phone.

“I love you baby” he would say.

“I love you daddy,” I would say, tears free falling in the reminder that this repeated ping pong ‘I love you’ is confirmation that he will not be able to offer counsel.

I would feel all alone in the world for my protector, my confidante, my home was lost to me.

I miss him dearly, mostly on days I sit to fill pages, with Julie Fowlis and friends playing in my headphones for inspiration. I close my eyes and breathe, allowing the senses into me, my father’s love into my dome, his love and security around me. His wisdom running from our dome, rushing through my veins into my fingers, onto these pages.

My daddy and Celtic music fill these pages.