Free When I Look to the Sky by Barbara S Stewart Page B

She ’d been gone a while, and he wanted to make sure she was OK. She was on her bed, facing away from the door, he thought she was asleep, but she heard him and turned. She was crying. He went and sat on the side of the bed. She sat up and he held her close.
    “ Something between us was just never right,” she said between the tears. “For as long as I can remember, I think he was angry at me.” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “I didn’t ever tell him I was sorry…” she mumbled.
    “ You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Carlee,” Andy told her as he pulled her closer. “Your dad knew you loved him, and he loved you, you know that. Sometimes people just go off on different courses. They get lost, and sometimes they get so lost that it’s hard to find their way back. You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said again, as he placed a loving kiss on the top of her head. As he did, he remembered a time when he’d been lost, and thanked God he found his way back.
    “ I know you two had your moments, but I know there were good times along with your trials. I don’t think he ever meant to push you away, or hurt you, Carlee. I think he just never got past being hurt by your mama’s illness,” he told her. “And me,” he added.
    Jenna arrived, and she and Kimmy came into the room. Kimmy sat on the other side of Carlee as Jenna crawled on the bed behind Carlee and wrapped her arms around her neck. Carlee leaned to Kimmy and hugged her.
    “ What do we need to do?” Carlee asked, finally.
    “ It’s all done, basically,” Kimmy told her and handed her an envelope. “Your dad left this with me a while ago,” she told her.
    Carlee opened the envelope. It was John ’s Will, dated January 13, 2010. She read that he wished to be cremated. It named her as his sole heir. There was also an envelope with her name on it in his handwriting.
    “ I can’t read this just now,” she said and put it aside.
     
    After a while they all went to the kitchen and sat at the table. Carlee looked around, three of the people she loved most in the world were sitting there with her, and she felt the tears trickle down her cheeks.
    “ We’ll have a memorial, right?” Carlee asked.
    “ We will do whatever you want,” Andy told her.
    Together they planned. Kimmy was on the phone with the funeral home once Carlee knew what she wanted. They planned it for Saturday morning.
     
    Later that evening, Nanny and Pops came. Nanny had been cooking since Kimmy called to tell her about John, and brought dinner for them. Kimmy’s husband, Lane, came too. They ate and talked, and remembered John Oliver.   
    “ Do you want to go see him,” Andy asked after everyone was gone, when it was just the two of them.
    “ No, I don’t want to think of him that way.”
     
    Later, Carlee said good night and went to her room. She still had not opened the envelope from her dad, and she needed a few minutes alone.
     
    My Dear Sweet Carlee,
    I hope and pray that it is many years after I write this that you are reading it. I want you to know how very much I love you. Before you were born I loved you, and through every experience in your life, through every up and down we shared, I loved you more. I am so proud of the person you’ve become.
    You ’ve had many good examples to follow, your mama, Kimmy, Jenna as she got older, Nanny and Pops, and Grammie and Gramps before they passed away. And yes, Andy… as hard as that is for me to say. He loves you, Carlee. I know that. You’re surrounded by love.
    I ’m sorry if I hurt you. I never meant to. I have to confess, I know I haven’t done things right. I’ve struggled. I tried to give you what you needed. I tried hard to open my heart, but after everything with your mama, there was this big hole, and a wall that I couldn’t break through myself. It was a security tool.
    I saw a poem once that said something like; ‘I wish you enough happiness that your spirit stays alive,