This past month, I’ve been staring at the clouds every chance I look out the window. We are in the thick of winter in North Alabama, but this past month has brought us warm air, rain, thunderstorms and even a tornado. All of this came on the heels of an intensely cold week of teen and single digit temperatures. However, we live in the southeast where our winters are mild compared to the northern part of our country.
I stare at the clouds amid a backdrop of deep clear blue sky. Cotton ball puffy clouds pass beneath the fuzzy wiffs of white smokey mists billowed by high altitude currents. My eyes affix to this changing beauty above me and I freeze in place. Tears swell in my eyes as an aching hole returns to memories of my good friend Mike Williams. Mike would enjoy watching these clouds. There is something about them that lift me from the present place me in the past to the deck of an aluminum boat floating on the reflective yet absorbing lake water. There, in the past, I am reunited with my friend, my fishing buddy, my ministerial colleague. Mike is on the front deck and I am on the rear deck. With fishing rods in our hands, we stop our casting of lures to look at the clouds that lay in front of us as they reach from lake surface toward heaven.
“Wow!” I say. “Look at those beautiful clouds, Mike.”
Without words, Mike responds with a noise of acknowledgement and appreciation.
“MMM-mm. Gorgeous, aren’t they?”
"Yep!” I answer. Our words to each other end there as we soak in the experience of being there.
Heavy sky bound water vapor separates and moves within and throughout other clouds and I am ripped back to the present.
"He’s gone! Fishing days with Mike are gone!”
Pains of absence grip me as a daily reminder that I can’t shake this. I’m having trouble moving on because I don’t understand what happened on November 4, 2008. It would be easy for me to be frozen in place staring at the clouds unaware of time’s passage. The grief of loss continues to grip me. The hole will never be replaced and I wish it wasn’t there at all. I want today to be a time of looking forward to the next fishing trip with Mike, but nothing I do turns back the clock. We move forward to the next Monday which turns into Tuesday turning into Wednesday turning into another day off followed by another workday. Winter turns to Spring becoming Summer drying into Fall returning to Winter. With each passing day, month, and season, life goes on and I have to learn to live with the changes, sameness and absence of those that used to be here. Daddy is gone and I have learned to understand what led to his departure. Granddaddy is gone and we lived a full life with him. Leigh Anna is tragically gone leaving its own hole upon my life and ministry, but Mike’s departure has been hard for me to grasp and accept. I teeter on moments of anger - due to lack of understanding – and absolute gut wrenching tear driven stains of sorrow followed by joyous thanksgiving for over 20 years of creating friendship.
The clouds draw me in. It reminds me of watching Flip Pallot’s fishing show, The Walker’s Cay Chronicles and seeing Flip guiding his boat across the glassy surface of the intercoastal waterways of Florida. His fishing day ends with an escape from the oncoming battleship summer thunderstorm clouds. The feeling of fishing – the way it feels to me and was shared by Mike – is captured on the film and in Pallot’s narration. Watching the clouds pass returns me to the wonderful adventures shared with the best fishing buddy of my adult years. After Daddy died, my granddaddy – Bruce Gilbert – was my primary fishing partner. As he got older and less able to get in and out of a boat - and I moved away from Huntsville to Birmingham - Mike became a regular fishing companion.
The clouds represent how I view heaven – the kingdom of God surrounding us. The clouds spread from the high altitudes coming down to earth through foggy mornings and reaching us where we are. The dense air cannot be contained by shapes, metal boxes, or brick houses. It just surrounds them with beautiful white warmth.
For now, I’ll continue to look at the clouds and in time I will stare beneath them to find a better understanding of where I am now and how to move forward in absence of my dear friend. Amid the clouds we will laugh and stories will be shared. Mike remains with the clouds, in my boat, watching as I carry on our passion of fishing. His present voice is silenced, but his voice from the past guides me and lifts me as it always did. Encouraged by his spirit, comforted and led by the Spirit of God, I carry on as a minister to the people of God and one minuscule care taker of God’s creation.
I miss you Mike!
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