CHAPTERS THREE & FOUR

Chapter Three

Phoebe married Marc Thorpe the week she graduated from high school in 1967 and moved with him from her family home in Elmira, New York to St. Paul, Minnesota. Phoebe was seventeen and Marc was nineteen and had already finished a year of college at SUNY Cortland but would complete his undergraduate education at Bethel College in St. Paul.

The pair met when Phoebe was in junior high school and they dated steadily in the intervening years before their marriage. Phoebe was number five daughter in a family line up that left her sixteen years younger than her nearest sibling. Her mom was forty-five and her dad fifty-five when she was born. They aged poorly and rapidly and died together in a road accident just outside of Harford Mills, New York in a head on collision with a pick up truck trying to avoid a Guernsey in the middle of the road a year after Phoebe and Marc married.

Phoebe’s parents had seemed more like grand parents to her all along and she was sure she experienced a great deal more independence in growing up than any of her sisters. She was close to Janet who was twenty years her senior and felt she was more like a girlfriend-type mother to her than a sister. Janet was the wild one in the family and Phoebe loved watching her get herself into trouble. Phoebe didn’t want that kind of trouble for herself but by the time she was old enough to even think of emulating Janet her parents were weary beyond caring.

Phoebe was a talented kid with a lot of interests and a good personality. She made friends easily. She took up the alto saxophone in the fifth grade and proved to be a natural. She made good grades in school without even trying and never gave much thought to any kind of career aspirations other than becoming a wife and mother, an occupation she looked forward to with relish. She loved babies and children and suffered the fate of all youngest children, that of having no younger sibling to take under her wing and care for. Perhaps this longing explained her rush to fall in love and get married.

She was an avid reader of novels and poetry and listened to the radio for hours on end living in the romance of the imaginary lives in the novels, the tragedy and passion of the poetry and the lament, as well as frenetic sexual energy of rock and roll, folk, blues and the Motown sound.

Her older sisters were out in the world practically before she was born so she often had the house to herself during her growing up. These times she’d imagined herself the heroine of a novel or a singer in a band. She dabbled in poetry herself, often turning her poems into songs she would sing aloud in front of the mirror to the tune of a current hit by the Shirelles, the Everly Brothers or Sonny and Cher. Sometimes the school band would be given the freedom to cut loose from the traditional football pep rally repertoire and she’d have a chance to blow her brains out on her saxophone like in a sexy Wilson Picket ballad.

She loved the school dances and fell in love over and over again with Marc as they danced to oldies like “Sincerely,” or “Earth Angel,” and later to “The House of the Rising Sun.”

Marc wasn’t able to boast any super great childhood and had been taken under the wing of the youth pastor at Trinity Baptist in Elmira when he was in junior high. His early religious upbringing was in the care of an atheistic, alcoholic father and a lapsed catholic mother who did a lot of hiding out due to the embarrassment she felt at her husband’s alcoholism.

Marc was a good kid. Unusually strong and physically mature and with a talent for football. He played varsity in eighth grade. The youth pastor singled Marc out the first year he played, recognizing a kid whose home circumstances could spell a disastrous future, but whose basic goodness and athletic ability might mean a pretty good life could be his. Ultimately, the youth pastor was so influential in Marc’s life he decided to follow in his footsteps and go into the ministry himself.

Neither Phoebe nor Marc believed there was any reason to wait for marriage once she finished high school. Marc got accepted at Bethel and they didn’t want to suffer the pain of a long distance relationship. She took a six week course in operating a key punch machine, state of the art technology in the late 60’s, landed a job at Plastics Incorporated down by the river in St. Paul and Marc worked part-time so he could finish college and attend seminary.

Of course, such a young marriage looked doomed to failure to both their families, but Phoebe and Marc had long since relied on their wits and each other and discounted their parents fears. As it turned out youth and immaturity played no role whatever in the ultimate end to their marriage.

The two of them had a lot of fun together and threw themselves headlong into the adventure of becoming a successful married couple and the best of their kind among Baptist pastors and their wives. Neither one of them ever took the time to look back and consider what life could have been like if they had waited to become what their parents would consider fully responsible adults.

Once Marc finished seminary and found the pastorate at the church in Hopkins they settled beautifully into the community and all the responsibilities of the church. Phoebe felt fully a part of Marc’s important work. She loved managing their small home and concentrated a good deal of energy on making sure her husband felt loved and fulfilled in their marriage.

Of course, during the years of their marriage her love of rock and roll took a back seat. Her saxophone received only very rare attention when Marc had to be away at some conference or other. She would climb the attic steps and lift the gleaming brass from it’s burgundy velvet lined case, pull the shades in the living room, set the needle on the phonograph record and rehearse distant memories.

When Phoebe became pregnant the first time at age twenty-one she focused every fiber of every cell and nerve on the health and well being of the tiny embryo. At four months she felt the quickening, that flutter that makes a woman so aware she is not alone in her own body — and her whole life changed.

The living room floor, the back of the toilet seat in the bathroom, the bedside tables in their room were stacked high with books on pregnancy, baby and child care. This was the educational opportunity of a lifetime for the career Phoebe saw as her true calling. Two weeks after that first quickening, while reading the final chapter of Ashley Montague’s Touching, in her afternoon bath, her abdomen gave her a jolting cramp, the tub water turned deep pink and the tiny embryo, far too tiny to be recognizable as human, floated to the surface of the water.

Marc came home from the church immediately when he heard Phoebe’s sobs over the phone. The loss was as great for him as for her and they were nearly inconsolable. This wasn’t the way life was supposed to treat two such good, responsible and persevering young people.

It would be more than four years before Phoebe and Marc experienced an entirely successful pregnancy and birth and produced Jade, named for the treasure she was.

Those years of heartbreak deeply tried Phoebe’s faith and she spent an increasing amount of time alone nursing a painful fear she would never have a child. She took long, lonely walks her head plugged into the earphones of a Walkman and listened to songs of love gone wrong, dreams gone bad. Once in awhile, when Marc had to be away for some reason, she would drive to Brainerd, River Falls or Zumbrota, often taking her turn at the Karaoke microphone or participating in the open stage portion of a small live band in this or that small town bar. She kept this part of her life a secret from Marc, but refused to think of it as a betrayal of her husband. She didn’t want to add to his distress and felt this wild side of her was best kept hidden. She’d come home feeling cleansed and ready to try again to have a successful pregnancy.

* * *

Once pregnant with Jade, Phoebe thanked God everyday that baby stayed alive inside her. Jade was born six weeks ahead of schedule on March 8, 1974.

Phoebe and Marc couldn’t take their eyes off their little girl. She was an easy, healthy and happy baby. She was precocious, learning to talk early. She loved music and Marc and Phoebe were often wakened mornings by the sweet sound of her humming from her crib. They’d enter her room and the beautiful little fifteen-month old baldy, her feet straight up in the air, would continue to hum and turn to smile at them, distracted momentarily from playing with the toes of her Oscar the Grouch pajamas.

So, yes, Phoebe guessed it was just slightly possible that she, and Marc too, were overly enthralled with their daughter, and, maybe, just maybe, a tad bit over protective.

Phoebe’s love of singing got plenty of exercise once Jade came along. Each night of her life right up until Marc died, Phoebe would sing a repertoire of at least six songs to Jade after reading her a bed time story. Favorites were “Johnny Angel,” “A Thousand Stars,” “Poetry in Motion,” Travelin’ Man,” “I Told Every Little Star,” and a special rockin’ version of Rock A-Bye Baby called “Cradle of Love.”

Jade grew to love singing and she and her mom would belt out songs in unison to the tunes played on the car radio or tape player. Sometimes Jade sang the lead, sometimes back up to Phoebe’s lead. When Marc was with them the sing-a-long selections were more likely to be hymns, Sunday School songs or child rhymes like “Old MacDonald.”

After her daddy died, though, Jade only acted annoyed when her mom popped a tape in the cassette player and urged her to join her in song.

Chapter Four

“Oh Marc, you look awful! What is it, Honey?” Phoebe set the bag of groceries on the kitchen table and went to her husband who was leaning on one arm over the sink, dousing his flushed face with cold water from the tap.

“I’m probably alright now, Phoeb. I had a killer sick headache and came home early. I was so sick I didn’t know which end to put in the toilet for about an hour there.” He came toward her but felt so weak he had to grab the back of a chair for support. Phoebe put her arms out and helped him sit down. He rested his head on his arms.

“Marc, I am calling the doctor immediately. This is the third time in the last couple of weeks. It’s clearly not some passing bug or the twenty four hour flu.” She reached around him to pick the phone off the wall and the address book from the shelf above his head.

“Phoeb. Phoeb, don’t.”

“Marc, I won’t let you stop me …”

“I already called honey. I’m supposed to go in first thing in the morning for tests.”

Phoebe put the phone on the hook and fell across her frightened and sick husband’s back. It seemed they were frozen in place, shivering and sweating with fear at the same time.

“Mom, that you?” Both Marc and Phoebe sprung to attention, Phoebe landing herself in a chair across from her husband. They feigned a casual nonchalance at the sound of their approaching daughter.

“Sure sweetheart. I’m home. We’re out here.”

“Hi Mom. Dad? You’re home early aren’t you? What’s up?” Jade had come in the front door from school. She still had on her backpack and carried a can of Coke Classic in one hand.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t feel so well Pumpkin, so I came home after lunch. Your mom just got home. We were … uh … just catching up with each other.”

“Oh. Cool and groovy.” She bent to kiss his forehead, then looked with alarm at her mom.

“God Daddy! You feel so clammy. Am I gonna catch it? Mom! What is this? What’s he got? Dad, are you going to be alright?” Now she dropped her pack, set her Coke down and sat in the other chair at the table.

“Well, we were just discussing that when you walked in, as a matter of fact.” Phoebe told her daughter. “You know your dad’s been feeling a little off the last few weeks. He had a ghastly headache today and then vomiting and diarrhea. We called the doctor and he’s going in for some tests tomorrow morning.”

“Jade, I don’t want you to worry.” Marc told her. “It’s probably something stress related. I’ve been pretty busy at the church lately you know. That new community outreach program, the funding and stuff, you know that’s stretched me a bit.”

Jade stood and hugged her dad’s shoulders. “Dad, I’m sorry you don’t feel well. I didn’t mean that selfish thing about ‘am I going to catch it.’”

“Oh honey, I don’t blame you at all. I’d wonder that if I kissed your clammy forehead too! Now don’t you have better things to do than sit in the kitchen with the old folks? Get out of here. Don’t they give homework at that high class school of yours?”

“If you must know, Father-mine, your brainy daughter already finished her homework. When is supper, Mom? I told Jolee I’d call when I got home. Do I have time to talk?”

“Dinner won’t be for another hour or so. Go ahead and give Jolee a call. I’ll call you when I need help with the table.”

“Ta ta then, Elders.” She waved her little finger in farewell and went to use the phone in her bedroom.

Phoebe helped Marc to the bathroom and ran a tub for him. He swooned gratefully as he lowered his body in all the way to his chin. Phoebe urged him up and forward and filling a washcloth squeezed it gently across his shoulders and back. The hot stream of water visibly soothed her husband. He leaned back against the tub again and she repeated her squeezing on his chest and stomach then lathered the cloth and washed him gently from top to toe. She left him there soaking, only his face above the water line, his hair submerged and went to their bedroom to get him his white terry cloth robe. Jade was still safely hidden behind closed doors.

Marc went straight to bed after his bath and Phoebe and Jade shared a silent dinner at the kitchen table, neither knowing what to say that wouldn’t expose their fears for the man they loved.

* * *

The next six weeks were impossibly fleeting and, at the same time eternal. The doctor had no way of knowing how quickly death would take Marc. The cancer that only recently showed signs of its presence had progressed to advanced stages before the first test was done. Predictions of six months to a year, but no hope for full recovery, caused the young family to make plans for the time remaining. Maybe they would travel. Marc had always wanted a trip to the Grand Tetons. Jade could leave school for awhile. They would fulfill, once Marc completed a cycle of radiation and chemotherapy, every wish he’d ever had, except of course, that most precious wish of a long and healthy life.

Nothing went as planned. Phoebe’s husband, Jade’s father, never left the hospital. He went in for tests the day after his wife and daughter’s silent dinner and never came home to share that table, the bathtub or his wife’s bed again.

During the weeks of Marc’s illness Phoebe rarely left his side. Her sister, Janet came for a few days when they first learned Marc was sick but soon had to return home to Wisconsin and her obligations there. After that, Phoebe’s best friend, Karen Kline, essentially moved into Phoebe and Marc’s home to be with Jade before and after school.

The first few weeks Marc was still coherent and his pain was under control for the most part. He and the doctors worked a kind of sensitive collusion on Jade’s behalf to be sure his pain was minimal during his daughter’s visits. Of course, in the early days, they were all still hoping he’d be home again and life would return to normal.

Jade established a ritual. Karen picked her up from school and drove her straight to the hospital then promised to pick her up again later that night when Jade would call and say her dad was going to sleep now. Every day after school Jade sat vigil in the hospital waiting room or on or beside her father’s bed making valiant efforts to keep her dad from dying. On weekends Phoebe insisted Jade make plans with friends and try to keep some semblance of normality in her life, but still Jade made sure to see her father every day.

She entered the hospital as if on a mission. She knew the nurses and doctors by name and greeted them on her way to her father’s room. Phoebe watched her daughter and marveled at her conviction and perseverance.

Every day Jade entered the room and without first taking off her coat or setting aside her backpack, approached her dad, placed her small hand on his forehead and leaned to give him a quick kiss on the lips.

“Hi Dad! You’re much better today, right?” Without waiting for an answer or looking at his eyes where a silent answer might appear, she slid her pack from her shoulder and set it by Marc’s feet at the end of the bed. Next she removed her jacket and hung it on a hook on the back of the door. Still without acknowledging Phoebe’s presence in the room or looking again at her dad, she went to the TV and adjusted the set to CBS where “The Guiding Light” was usually just ending and one of the afternoon talk shows was about to begin.

Phoebe and Marc exchanged glances and smiles but knew not to interrupt the stages of this necessary routine Jade had established.

“How’s the sound Dad? Too loud? Not loud enough?” Now she looked toward her dad for his everyday signal. He made a circle of his thumb and forefinger and held it high and smiled whether or not he felt like it.

“Okay, then.” Jade repeated the hand on his forehead, the quick kiss then usually said hello to her mom.

“Hi honey,” Phoebe would say and make her way to the door. “Why don’t I go get you a Coke? You thirsty?”

“Sounds good Mom. Thanks. Dad, you want Mom to get you anything?” Now she was propping his pillows or pulling his blanket up under his arms. She always asked this, went through all the same motions even when he ceased to recognize her, ceased his ability to talk and was unable to take any substance by mouth. But, in the early days, he always asked for tea.

“Tea for Dad, Mom.” After she got her dad all straightened and settled on the bed she rolled the tray table over and positioned it above her father’s lap. She took from her backpack a spiral assignment notebook, a textbook for math, science, English or social studies, a fresh sharpened pencil and eraser and a loose leaf notebook and stacked them one on top of the other on the bed table. Next she would bend to remove her shoes then, if her hair was not already in a pony tail, remove the fabric scrunchy from her wrist and pull her hair from her face to secure it at the back of her head. Now she climbed onto the bed next to her father and set about doing her homework.

Marc, if well enough, would lift his arm, carefully arranging the IV tubes, and place it behind his daughter to pull her close to him.

“I’m feeling much better,” he would invariably say, “now that you’re here.”

Phoebe always dawdled getting the Coke and tea to allow Marc and Jade the time they needed to settle into each other.

The day Marc died was preceded by more than a week of incoherency and minimal consciousness. The doctors and nurses tried to time medication and other procedures to allow Marc to be as awake and aware as possible during his daughter’s visits. Five days before Marc died Jade arrived as usual at the hospital but was greeted by Dr. Jackson at the nurse’s station outside her dad’s room.

“Jade,” he came to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I need to talk with you just a minute before you go in.”

Jade’s face went white, her eyes opened wide and tears pooled there ready to spill down her face. She looked away from the doctor as if by continuing on as always she could avoid whatever horrible truth he was about to speak. She didn’t say anything.

“Jade, please, let’s sit down over here for a minute.” He steered her toward the gray upholstered chairs lined up against the mauve wall of the waiting room.

“But … no. I don’t want… My dad… he’s expecting …”

“It’s okay. I told your mom and dad I wanted to talk with you. Do you want your mom to join us? I can tell her you’re here now…”

“No. No. That’s all right. I don’t want Daddy to be alone. She’d have to leave him alone, wouldn’t she? I mean, to come out here with me.”

She sat down, her pack still on her back, causing her to balance on the front edge of the chair. She held her right fist in her left hand and looked down at her lap.

Dr. Jackson lifted a chair and brought it around so he could sit facing Jade. He put his hands on hers and spoke, inclining his head close to her face. She couldn’t lift her head.

“Jade, there’s no other way to put this I’m afraid. Your daddy is getting worse.”

Jade didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.

“I’m telling you this because I don’t think he will be able to recognize you or talk to you very much longer…”

Jade lifted her head. Her brow was creased with worry no child should bear. The doctor placed his hand on her hair and continued to speak.

“Jade, sweetie, what I’m saying is — your daddy wants to tell you now, while he still can … He hoped maybe I could help you understand…”

Jade pushed the doctor’s hand from her face, squeezed past his knees that blocked her escape, and ran for her father’s room.

Just outside the door she pulled herself together, prepared to let nothing interfere with her ritual but her mom came to the door and played her part all wrong.

“Daddy needs to talk to you right away, honey.” Phoebe knelt in front of Jade, placing a hand on each of her arms and looking up into eyes filled with confusion and horror. Jade walked around her kneeling mother and into the room where her father waited for her. She proceeded to behave the way she had everyday since her dad became ill. Phoebe followed her into the room and when Jade lifted her head from the daily kiss she gave her dad she turned to her mother and nearly shouted, “Get the Coke and tea, Mom! You’re supposed to get the Coke and tea!”

“Hey, hey, Pumpkin … Come here.” Marc garnered his strength and though he could not lift his body he reached a hand toward Jade. Phoebe left the room as Jade went to Marc and hiding her face in his chest, she cried.

He stroked her hair, murmuring, “I know. I know. Oh, baby. My lovely, lovely Jade. I am so sorry.”

It took all his strength to tell his little girl how very much he loved her and that he hoped one day she would understand whatever purpose there might be to this premature goodbye.

When Phoebe came back with the Coke and tea, the pop was warm and the tea was cold. Marc looked at her through grief stricken eyes, his hand still stroking Jade’s hair. She hadn’t said a word. Only held on tight and cried herself to sleep to the sound of her father’s still beating heart.

In the days that followed Jade refused to notice any change. She carried on her complete ritual without variation as her father continued his decline. He ultimately showed no signs of recognition as his little girl sat next to him doing her homework and upholding both his and her end of every conversation.

Phoebe found it heartbreaking to watch. She spent most evenings wandering between the cafeteria and the family lounge. Sometimes she even visited the chapel and tried to pray to whom and for what she couldn’t say. The final night at the hospital, after Jade left to go home with Karen, Phoebe crawled into bed next to her inert husband.

She wrapped herself around him pushing aside as silly a notion her fear that she might hurt him. She took his face in her hands and moved her nose and lips over his eyelids, cheeks and neck taking in his taste and scent, she realized, for the last time.

Marc must have felt her there beside him. He turned to her, his eyes showing the first look of lucidity Phoebe had seen in three days. Phoebe felt recognized. Felt held in that last look. He didn’t say anything but Phoebe read in his eyes the words, “I love you, Phoebe. Goodbye.”

She stayed close for just a moment after he died, not wanting him to go cold in her arms, then made her way home alone.

It was early, only a little after nine, but Jade was already sleeping. Karen hugged Phoebe and asked if there was anything she could do.

“Oh… no. No. I guess not… Not tonight. I don’t think so.” Phoebe took off her shoes and picked up a blanket from the back of the couch. Karen helped Phoebe wrap it around her shoulders. Phoebe turned and walked away from Karen and down the hall to Jade’s room.

Later Karen went to check and found Phoebe and Jade wrapped together under the white eyelet comforter in Jade’s single bed. Karen closed the door, packed the few items she’d been keeping at Phoebe’s and went home.

* * *

Phoebe was numb. Blind-sided. Her only career had always been wife to Marc, and for the last eleven years, mother to Jade. She was thirty-five years old. The only man she ever loved, a love she built her life around, was gone. The only saving thought in all this was the rightness of their having married so young that she had been blessed to have known and loved this wonderful man for nearly eighteen years. What if she’d waited until she’d grown up to marry him? Think then, what she would have lost. If she’d done the responsible thing and waited to marry until she was in her mid twenties — Marc finished with school — the loss would have been, if anyone can imagine, even greater.

Losing Marc made her feel her orphaned state more keenly too. She needed a mother and a father to tell her how to say goodbye. How funerals work. How estates are settled. This was not supposed to happen for another forty or fifty years. She was supposed to have all that time between then and now to learn about these things.

And, how to comfort Jade?

Phoebe hadn’t a clue where to begin. She didn’t begin to know how to include Marc’s parents in the practicalities or rituals of saying goodbye. His dad was essentially a homebound invalid now and incoherent, whether from the years of alcohol abuse or senile dementia, no one knew for sure. His mother lived in seclusion caring for her husband and was too full of shame, Phoebe guessed, to be much of a mother to her son or a grandmother to Jade.

Through all the years with Marc, though, she’d never felt the need for a parent the way she did now. Her only thought was to reach out to Janet, her sister who’d served as the closest thing Phoebe had to a mom after their parents’ death.

Janet lived just across the Wisconsin border in Upper Michigan on a rare and lovely hobby farm with land that butted up against the shore of Lake Michigan. When Janet and her common-law husband, Tom, bought the property years ago, Phoebe imagined spending lots of time there. It was only a six-hour or so drive from the Twin Cities. Life seemed to have filled to capacity in the intervening years and though Phoebe and Janet did stay in touch, they hadn’t been the easy neighbors they’d hoped to be.

Phoebe’s sister Janet came right away, arriving just after three the day after Marc died. Phoebe answered the door in her bathrobe, her eyes red and swollen and her hair wild around her face. Music Janet recognized as one of Jackson Browne’s early albums greeted her and the words “… let creation reveal its secrets by and by” reached her ears even before she could think what to say to her bereaved sister.

“I’ll get my stuff from the car later, Baby.” She had to raise her voice to be heard and, in spite of feeling very much the intruder, pulled Phoebe against her for a moment and spoke close to her ear.

“I am so, so sorry, Baby.” As she held Phoebe she saw Jade beyond her shoulder, still in her bathrobe too and wearing the same swollen face and red eyes as her mother. Jade sat, bottom on the floor, legs bent backward and out to the sides — a posture Karen recognized as the way Phoebe always sat as a child. Their mom always used to say, “Okay, you want to walk like a cripple when you grow up, you just keep right on sitting on the cold floor like that young lady.”

Janet released Phoebe and walked over to Jade to give her a kiss on the top of her head. Twenty or more photo albums were stacked and scattered around Jade and Karen could tell exactly where Phoebe had been seated among them before rising to answer the door. She noticed a scattering of unbound photos, mostly close-ups of Marc, on the cushions of the couch and on the coffee table.

“Aunt Janet, want to help us?” Jade asked.

Janet looked to Phoebe, having now returned to her seat on the floor next to Jade, then bent to remove her shoes and join her family in the bittersweet task of holding Marc dear while letting him go.

Janet did what was needed. She mothered Phoebe and grand-mothered Jade. She knew all the right questions to ask and helped Phoebe with all the necessary arrangements.

Marc was clear he wanted his organs donated, thinking of life-saving transplants, but in the end they would be used for cancer research and any lifesaving they did would be of the less direct kind. The hospital kept what it needed then returned the rest and Marc’s wish to be cremated was honored.

The sanctuary at Redeemer Baptist had never looked lovelier than on the day of Marc’s memorial service. Parishioners and friends, aware of Marc’s preferences, filled the church nearly to the rafters with the glorious yellow daffodils. Phoebe prayed a quiet prayer that Marc was somehow watching, was truly present in some way, to see, hear, taste and smell the beauty and love that were here in this place, to honor his life.

The church was crowded with people of all ages. Jade’s friends from school came with their parents. Her teachers came too. Phoebe’s friends from the support group where she and Karen first met some fifteen years before; the people she worked with in the community and, of course, Marc’s adoring congregation, were all there.

Karen, a gallery owner and art history librarian, had helped them find a place to make slides from snapshots of Marc and the images of the little boy, the youth and the man he was, were projected continuously on a large screen behind the sanctuary altar. A vibrant cobalt blue jar, holding Marc’s ashes, and surrounded by daffodils, was positioned on the altar.

Marc’s mentor and father figure talked about the years of Marc’s blossoming in his faith and read a few of Marc’s favorite passages from the Bible.

Phoebe and Jade sang Jackson Browne’s “For a Dancer.” They were accompanied by violin and piano from the small church orchestra Marc had been so proud of. It was a flawless and touching performance and Phoebe and Jade agreed they’d managed to get through it all because Marc really was there with them.

When the service ended, Phoebe and Jade carried their beloved husband, beloved father’s ashes in the covered blue jar Marc had loved for its color and sheen. They packed their Escort station wagon and took the two weeks journey out and back to the Grand Teton Mountains. Once there, standing on the wooded mountain path, Jade held the jar while Phoebe lifted the cover and, together, they let Marc’s ashes fly free in the wind.

It was a sad and silent journey. They didn’t play the radio and they didn’t sing. They tried to talk. They tried to play some car games like they had on earlier trips with Marc, but everything reminded them of him and choked them with sorrow.