The numinous

I have felt it intimately. The numinous.

On Belle Isle, in 1963, my earliest memory. My brother Patrick was maybe two months old. I see me Mother on the beach holding him in blankets though it was July, and warm. Susan was somewhere I'm sure. Me Pops was showing me older brother and me how to skip stones, flinging them with a turn of the wrist into the south channel of the Detroit River. He was in his work clothes, and I don't recall why. We were skipping stones towards my beloved Canada, being on the south side of the island. It was like yesterday, as cloying as that is.

I remember.

Talking to my brother Donald from my bottom bunk in the bedroom I shared with my brother Ferlin, in the dark night while watching Night Gallery, and feeling that everything was okay.

Seeing my wife for the first time.

Watching my sons together serve Mass at St. Dominic. Listening to my daughter sign a solo as an angel on the stage at St. Alphonsus.

I felt it the last time I was alone with my father. Alone on that early Saturday morning, about 4:30. I stood in the dark, looking at you, the nurses having giving us a moment.

And I stood there. And you were there too. And we were all right with each other.

I know it. The numinous.

I know.