She pauses for a second or two, assessing the man walking up the field toward us. Then she screams, "Daddy!" and she begins to run, her sheep abandoned.
I watch her racing down the field, elbows pumping. She is wearing pink shorts and red wellies and her hair trails behind her in a dark cloud. I watch Frank as he opens hisarms, as she flies into them. As he swoops her up and spins her around. I can hear them laughing. I watch as Frank throws his head back and yells at the gray clouds passing overhead. "I am home. I AM HOME." As Grace tries it, resting her neck against her father's shoulder, face upturned to the sky. "I AM HOME. I AM HOME." As they laugh and yell and laugh some more, this father and daughter who are meeting for the first time. Then they turn to me. Frank stretches out his right arm and Grace, cottoning on instantly, holds out her left. A giant man and girl scarecrow.
I glance at my father, who is standing by the tap, pretending to fill a bucket of water for the sheep, but really, openly gazing. He is crying as he watches them, but he's always been like that, my dad. These are joyful tears.
"Run, my darling," he says to me. "Run."
Frank stays rooted to the spot, arms wide open, waiting. Thinner than I'm used to, and older, but still Frank.
"Run, Mama," my girl shouts, still laughing.
So, I do.
For Frank, Love Beth
If the man could hear me, I would tell him this:
It was instant, Dad
It was instant.
No pain
The sorrow was all your own.
Enough now.
I would tell him that.
Lives should be measured in intensity.
Remember mine
For its glory-stretch of furious light and wondrous beauty.
The world we love-lived
Is earth
Is dust
Is me, Dad.