Live Like You Were Dying (16 page)

“Just give him a minute,” I whispered to Malley.

“That's the picture that was in the hope chest. The one Malley pulled out that day during lunch,” Heather said. “We took it to a studio in Valdosta. They enlarged it and tinted it with color.”

Evidently the color was too close to the real thing, because I never saw the photo that afternoon. My father kept it tucked safely inside his truck. Then, once again I recalled his words, “Some things just need to stay between a man and his wife.”

A lifetime of plans can change in a matter of weeks. After the photos from our trip to the Grand Canyon had been tucked into Malley's photo album, Heather and I made several trips back to Atlanta to visit with doctors and real estate agents interested in listing our house. Whether we would ever admit it or not, Choctaw was drawing us back to a world we thought we'd left far behind.

During our trips back to Atlanta, Malley stayed at Grand Vestal's. At first we thought that her desire to stay was on account of her not wanting to make the trip in the car. But the truth was, my father and Grand Vestal were spoiling her rotten, and she loved every minute of it. My mother would have been proud of my father: even without her guidance he had become a good grandpa.

One Sunday afternoon after we'd gotten back from Atlanta, I leaned back in a chair as my father told our skydiving story again on Grand Vestal's back porch. I listened while watching Malley move closer to the garden. She ran her hands lightly across a stalk of corn and dug her toes into the edge of the soil. An image crossed my mind of the same scene being played out fifty years ago with my own mother, milling about the garden on a lazy Sunday afternoon. In my mind she is laughing and kicking the dirt high in the air. Suddenly an urge overtook me, and I never stopped to second-guess myself.

Never looking away or answering my wife's question as to why I was pulling off my shoes, I took off running like something gone wild. Feeling the weight of the arrowhead against my chest, I reached my hand out to Malley. Her laughter rolled out in front of me as the tips of her fingers brushed against my palm. Hot dirt from the garden molded against my feet, and the edge of the plants tickled my ankles, teasing me to stay. Breathing echoed inside my ears, and the beat of my heart pounded like a drum calling the untamed.

Open green pastures with a backdrop of thick trees were before me, and the grass was soft against my feet. Running through the earth that was tilled by my past and my future, I looked into the face of the unknown and laughed right out loud. There were no longer any endings, just beginnings.

Running past the clothesline and deeper into the pasture that lined the edge of the barn, I felt myself becoming lighter, until nothing, not even a white spot, could keep me from soaring on the eagle's wing. One with the earth and my people, the arrowhead slapped against my skin. Childhood memories lined the length of my journey, and I pictured my mother laughing and clapping with the rest of my family, cheering me on to victory.

I am home. I am loved, and now I am free.