Acorns

I stopped calling Dad God the night I learned my brother was sick. If Dad was God he should have been able to heal Jesus. If Jesus N.T. could heal all those strangers throughout the Gospels, God should have had the power to cure his own son. I knew my father and I knew his heart. If my father was God, he never would have let cancer invade Jesus’ body in the first place or even this world. I realized as I lay in the damp grass that my father was just a man with the same weaknesses of other men. He was a victim of this world.

Jesus spent most days in the hospital and Mom and Dad took turns staying there with him. Little Mary and I were brought to visit with him a couple times each week. Most of time, however, when we arrived home from school Grand Mary greeted us at the door and watched over us until one of our parents came home. We were only able to spend the evening with Jesus in the hospital on Saturdays. One day I arrived home from school with a runny nose and wasn’t allowed to see Jesus for a week. It was awful.

I think Mom and Dad used up all their strength with Jesus in the hospital because when they arrived home they appeared as though all life had been drained from their bodies. Mom often hid away in her room. We had frozen meals alternating with pizza or a precooked chicken for dinner. With little Mary and I still finishing our vegetables Mom would disappear to her room leaving most of her food still on the plate. After clearing the table, I ushered Little Mary to the bathroom and helped her wash up. We shared a bedtime story and finished with a kiss goodnight. Some nights before going to sleep, I would sit outside my parents’ bedroom door and listen to my mother weep. It was a mournful song and I wished she could stop singing it. I longed for the days when she tucked me in bed and sang of the wonderful day that would arrive in the morning. I longed to have my mother back.

Dad kept busy and filled any quiet moments with pressured thoughts on creation, making birdhouses, movies...anything that would wash away the silence. He might ask me how school was going and then not ten minutes later he would ask me again. I answered him each time. Little Mary would look at me and make her eyes roll up in her head indicating that she thought he was crazy.

A couple of times each week after dinner, Dad made it a point to help us get ready for bed. Standing around the bathroom as we brushed our teeth and hair, Dad talked about work, Principal Ned’s latest failure and the news. Little Mary wondered why he was always talking to us about grownup things but I was just happy that he was near. When Dad thought we were both asleep he often poured himself a drink and fell asleep in front of the television. He said he couldn’t sleep in his bed without our Mom.

“Dad,” I approached him one night when Mom was at the hospital. Dad sat on the sofa cradling his drink. The glass still appeared full and I think he poured the drink more out of habit than necessity.

“Oh, Jellybean.” Dad looked at me and smiled, “What are you doing up? I would have guest you fast asleep dreaming about porcupine quills by now.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Want to sit up with me?” Dad padded the sofa next to him.

I jumped up and rested my head against his side. He felt warm. The television was turned to a news channel and some old man in a suit was saying something but I didn't listen. We sat for a few minutes and it was the first time in a while that I heard Dad let the world be still. I could hear his slow, heavy breaths and I was reminded of the times he used to sit me on his lap and tell me the stories of how he became man.

“Dad, why can’t you fix Jesus?” I asked.

There was a long pause and for a while I thought maybe that Dad had fallen asleep. I waited, my head pressed firmly against his chest and heard a soft cry. I was a little afraid to look up at him. I don’t know why, but I thought maybe if we looked into each other’s eyes we both might just fall apart. The house had become too heavy and at any moment it might collapse down all around us. I felt like we were all slowly suffocating under its weight. “Well Jellybean,” Dad eventually said, “I guess it is because Jesus is not broken.”

“But he is sick,” I said. “He has cancer.”

“Jesus is not sick. His spirit, his soul, is as strong as ever. It is the vessel in which he is traveling that has become ill.” My father placed his drink down and I watched the ice shift in the brown water. They clinked together without effort or complaint.

“I don’t understand, Dad,” I said, confused by his answer.

“I know Jellybean; it is a difficult question that you ask and an even more difficult one to answer.” Dad looked at me and forced a smile for lack of a better expression. He reached up and dabbed at the corners of his eyes. I pretended not to notice. “Let me try to explain it this way,” Dad let out a sigh and began collecting some thoughts.

“Jesus’ body is like that of an acorn. It starts from a bud on a tree, one among many. In the autumn the acorn will eventually drop to the ground. Over time it becomes weathered and disappears into the dirt. If you go looking for the acorn during the spring after winter, you will not find it, Jellybean. The vessel is gone. But the spirit or soul lives on. If you watch the ground where the acorn had fallen, you will eventually see a stem with a leaf peaking out of the dirt. That sprout will become a tree. That tree will grow big and tall and ultimately produce hundreds of acorns, all of which will then do the same. The spirit continues to grow and give life, even if the form has changed. That spirit is passed to the tree and then on to each and every acorn. It is what makes all of us a part of God.”

I began to understand a little, but still remained a little confused. I asked Dad why the acorn must fall to the ground. Why can’t there be one tree that stands tall forever full of acorns?

“That is the nature of life. It does not conform to our expectations; it follows its own soul and the course that spirit dictates. Each acorn holds on to the tree for exactly the amount of time that is supposed to. The acorns all came from one tree and since all acorns can produce trees whose to say which one the creator is and which is created. God and all of creation are one. It does not matter which acorn grows into a tree because all of them carry the same spirit from the original tree within them.”

“Mary, these are simple words used to create a simple story, but I am using them to define thoughts that fall way beyond description. They can only give you a hint, a taste of the true message.” My father shook his head, possibly confusing himself. “Do you understand any of this?” he asked. He could have just as easy asked if I believed any of it. As he spoke I think he was trying to convince himself of its truth

“Sort of,” I replied trying to get my thoughts together. “If we are like the acorns and we all came from the same tree, which also came from a single acorn, then part of Jesus is already within each of us. As long as we live, then Jesus lives.”

“Jellybean, you understand ten times more than most people.” God kissed my forehead.

“Dad, if Jesus is not dying, only his vessel, then why does it hurt so much?”

“I don’t know, Jellybean,” Dad said, “but it hurts more than any pain that I have ever felt before.”

The hum of the television created a lullaby that tempted me to fall to sleep. “I wish Jesus’ acorn could hold on to the tree a little longer,” I whispered. There was a longer silence than before, and when I looked up I noticed that my father was crying. His tears fell from the corners of his eyes like pieces of glass.

“So do I,” he said. “So do I.”