the healing magic of pie

Whoops! Long post:

This one is about my dad and my husband finding a bond through pie.

February 8th is now “Pie Day”. It was also the birth-day of my dad, Robert Joseph Boese who would have been celebrating his 84th birthday. He died just before his 47th = 37 years of missing my dad.

Growing up we never ate desert. Except for when we did. On those days, my dad would bake all day long until our kitchen table was covered in pies. And dinner would only be pie. My dad’s motto (for life), if you’re gonna eat pie. EAT PIE!

I just came across a post that I wrote on my first Pie Day without Daniel and thought I would share it here. I had forgotten how Daniel had helped me transform the grief I had around my dad’s death, when he recognized that I needed to let go of the ashes I had been clinging to in order to free up my connection with my dad. How did he know?

(by the way, I am in no way suggesting that anyone needs to scatter the ashes of their loved one!)  

The years following my dad’s death, I had an impossible time letting go of him, because that is what I thought I was supposed to do.

When I was 19, he died of non-hodgkins lymphoma, only one of the many similarities that he and Daniel share. I know it is common for daughters to marry their fathers, but I had not seen the resemblance until recently. Luckily, most of the similarities, other than the fucking cancer part, are things I admire. Like the boldness with which each plunged into life, often naked, with style, squealing with glee, headfirst. Or the huge accomplishments that seemed effortless as they glided through their days - even the days and years with fucking cancer. Diving into the centre of it and embracing it. Surrendering to it, learning and growing from it. All while living all-in, planning only for a long future on this planet. Each yearning for so much more to do and experience.

So, Pie Day.

When I first met Daniel, I was still carrying around the weight of not being able to let go of my dad. Or thinking that I had to. It was especially a burden because my dad had let me know how much he wanted me to move on with life if he didn’t survive. He wanted that for me, but also so he could be freed up for whatever came next. And the tangible representation of how I was still clinging to him was glaring back at me from a container holding some ashes I had held back when scattering him in the forest on Galiano Island. “Someday” I thought, when I was ready, I would take his ashes trekking deep into the snowy mountains and say goodbye in some gloriously-proper send-off. But year after year I was never ready. And the weight of that on my soul was getting heavier.

Daniel immediately recognized my burden and encouraged me to make this happen. What could it look like if not the mountains? he would ask. When could it be? he would ask while having me open my calendar, pressing me to pick a date (another common trait as papa bear). I always had focused more on March 10th, the date of my dad’s death, so I thought why not shift the energy to the date of his birth. February 8th. Celebrate that instead. And what better way to celebrate my dad but with pie.. Great. A date set to scatter the rest of my dad’s ashes now resided in my calendar. Gulp. This was happening. Ready or not. After talking about the ‘where’ I decided I would like it to be close. Somewhere I could visit easily. We settled upon the coast at Lighthouse Park. There is now an extremely magical and auspicious place there “Robert’s Rock” where the eagles love to sing.

As February 8th drew close, I had a tooth flare up, and as luck would have it, February 8th came and I found myself in a dentist chair having a root canal. Afterward when I was driving home with a fully frozen mouth, I thought this obviously meant our plan to drive to Lighthouse Park to scatter the remaining ashes and eat pie was canceled.

Instead, Daniel sent me a text to say he was on his way over to pick me up. Yesiree, this was happening, even with a throbbing jaw, and even though we were now at risk of being there at dark given the short days of February. But boy-scout-of-all-boy-scout-Daniel had packed headlamps and blankets and a thermos of hot tea. No excuses now. After collecting me and the ashes, we stopped to pick up a whole pie and a tub of ice cream. We were doing this alright.

Arriving at the park, we set off on foot walking down the trail toward the ocean in silence. Totally present to what we were really doing. Daniel held my hand tight as we walked. I wasn’t that familiar with the park, so we didn’t have a specific point in mind. We walked along the trail, peeking out to the various lookout spots until the 4th or 5th lookout. It was so clearly the right spot. This beautiful point of rock that is a bit challenging to get to. Smooth, gently sloping to the water’s edge, where you can see the Lighthouse off to the left. Roberts Rock is faintly pink, casting an alpenglow hue to the light. And looking straight across the water you can see Galiano Island, where the rest of my dad’s ashes are scattered, and where his spirit touches down from time to time, I am sure.

I could feel a resistance rising inside my chest. But Daniel gently nudged me along. We opened the box to witness a glorious apple pie sitting there. He then cracked open the ice cream and scooped a mountain of it on top of the still-warm pie.

One of the ways Daniel initially disarmed me and my intensely guarded heart was by somehow bridging the gap between here and ‘there’ and connecting with Robert, my dad. He miraculously (to me) had found a way to forge a relationship and genuinely connect and love him. It was amazing and magical to witness. I didn’t know it was possible to do that. But I could see that the two of them had managed to connect and have a relationship that was theirs and theirs alone.

And so of course there was Daniel, on Roberts Rock talking to my dad. Ripping off a piece of the pie box lid and placing a giant piece of pie with an enormous scoop of ice cream for Robert to enjoy. He went down to the water’s edge, him holding the pie, me holding the ashes, and together we flung ashes out onto the water while he rested the pie on the edge of the seaweed covered rock. And just as he did, a big wave came and flung the pie out to sea too. We watched it floating and bobbing along the waves toward Galiano and followed it as long as we could. And finally, the pie-speck vanished from view.

What a gift that day was. So perfect. So much joy and celebration of a beauty of a dad of a man. I could imagine Robert orchestrating this event in the same way. With so much style. And grace. And fun. I’m not sure what I was afraid would happen if I loosened my grip on those ashes, but what I discovered in its place was peace. And so much freedom and space to be scooched up close to my dad again.

Each year after that, Daniel and I went to Robert’s Rock on February 8th to eat pie. Lots of pie. And each year we would take someone with us. One year, 2007, we went with Paul Haden. Daniel’s best friend. Soul mate really. The three of us went and ate pie. Two men that held similar qualities to my dad that I so cherish. What none of us knew at the time, was that it was the last year Paul would be with us on this planet.

The last year I was on Roberts Rock, with Daniel, was 2008. A few months later, Daniel was diagnosed with advanced, non-curable non-hodgkins lymphoma.

The following February, I noticed I was dreading Pie Day. I didn’t bring it up, and I noticed neither did Daniel. The morning arrived and he was packing to go to Whistler for a few days and as he was leaving, I mentioned (casually) that it was pie day. He looked surprised and offered to stay and go with me, but I encouraged him to go, secretly breathing a huge sigh of relief when he agreed to continue on his mountain journey.

I just couldn’t imagine being out on Roberts Rock now that Daniel had cancer without the fear of Daniel possibly meeting the same fate completely overshadowing the celebration of my dad. I had to keep pushing away the somewhat irrational idea that Daniel had connected with my dad too successfully, and somehow connected with the exact same cancer in the process, and now faced the exact same fate.

Every year after that we still celebrated pie day. But only at home or on Galiano. Neither of us ever suggesting pie day on Roberts Rock again. I had imagined that we would go there after a successful stem cell transplant. And I’m guessing so did Daniel. Neither of us able to bear the idea of being there otherwise. But that day never came.

So, this year. February 8th, 2015 - my first pie day after Daniel’s death, I thought maybe I would have a huge pie day party at home with tables full of home-baked pie. Everyone invited. Instead, I knew that the perfect way to spend pie day was to take Daniel’s ashes, Chili Pepper Lane, and a big chocolate pecan pie from The Pie Shoppe out to Roberts Rock and spend the day with him there.

It was perfect in a weird way. Daniel’s ashes were a grounding weight in my backpack. It was the first time Chili had been to Lighthouse Park or Roberts Rock to hang out with ‘grandpa’ and ‘daddy fish’. We settled out on the point of Robert’s Rock, basking in the yellow-pink hue of the late afternoon light while I cut a big piece of pie for my dad and placed it in a paper box. I wrote a message to him and sent it out to sea. As we watched it float away a big wave scooped it up, and Chili yowled at it, not taking his eyes off it until it disappeared on its way to Galiano and beyond. Note to self: next year don’t get chocolate pie so Chili can enjoy some too :-)

We hung out there for a couple hours, sharing pie with people as they came by. And the entire time, a bald eagle held its perch on the lighthouse peak. singing away.

As I walked back up the hill, feeling the comforting weight of Daniel's ashes in my backpack, Chili leading the way, I felt soooooooooo blessed to have been truly seen and unconditionally loved by such profoundly beautiful men, and I imagined Robert and Daniel, and Paul too, in the heavens. A posse of the coolest of cowboys making universal magic and mischief together beyond my wildest imagination.

And of course, eating pie in the sky.