Page 7 of Echoes of Eternity

Hurrying back over to the restrooms, he went in and looked around. Again, no dad. Dropping to his knees, he looked under each of the stalls. He didn’t recognize any of the shoes.

Panic began to fill him as he exited and went searching for his dad once again in the truck stop. Anxiety rose within his little heart with each moment that passed.

The car! he thought. Tossing his candy on a random shelf, he headed out of the truck stop and into the parking lot.

The car was no longer at the gas pump.

He began to cry as he sat down on the curb. He was sure his father left without him.

“Ryan?”

Lifting his gaze, he turned to see his dad standing beside him.

“Dad!” Jumping up, he wrapped his arms around him. “Where’d you go?”

“Around the corner to get a little air in a tire. Why are you crying?”

“I thought I lost you forever.”

Frank smoothed a hand over his head and then bent at his knees. Looking into his eyes, he shook his head. “You didn’t lose me. I’m right here.”

CHAPTER 2

As the wheels of the plane touched down on the tarmac in San Diego the next morning, Ryan fought against the most intense wave of grief since his father had passed. Shielding his eyes from his wife in the seat beside him, he focused on the runway outside the little airplane window as his mind pelted him with reminders of the past and plans for the future scattered and blown away forever with the sudden death of his father. He had always thought he had more time with his dad. Biting his lip as his heart betrayed him with threats of breaking, he felt the hot tears spill out onto his cheeks.

The touch of Emily’s hand on his shoulder brought the pain even deeper into his soul. Then those three words he hated to hear. “Ryan, what’s wrong?”

He’d speak if he could, but the grief had him in a chokehold, like it often did in these moments. Within a few seconds, he pushed out a rude but truthful statement. It was barely intelligible. “Stupid question, Em . . .”

After grabbing their luggage and getting their car from the parking garage at the airport, they made the journey to their home in La Jolla, California. Ryan had been able to recompose himself for most of the ride home, but once they turned off La Jolla Parkway and onto Hidden Valley Road, a memory of his father flashed through his mind like a surprise lightning strike in his heart.

Three years ago, after Ryan had called off the annual family summer trip to Cedarwood Creek because he was too busy with his website business, Frank called from the San Diego airport needing a ride. It was the day before Ryan’s birthday. He picked his father up from the curb of the airport and was mostly silent in the car, preoccupied with his work. Then as Ryan and his father turned onto Hidden Valley Road, and as the tree branch shadows played across the windshield, every muscle was tight and tense with frustration as he finally let his words flow from his heart.

“I don’t get why you came here, Dad.”

A long moment of silence passed. Then his father said, “Because I missed you, Son. Plus, your mother is in Buffalo visiting her crazy sister, Carol. Do you not want me here?”

Ryan gripped the steering wheel tighter. “No, I don’t mind that you are here. I’m just a little tied up with work.”

His dad playfully hit his shoulder and smiled as he tilted his head. “You’re always so worried about work, Son. Didn’t I teach you to enjoy life? This is your lot that God has given you. Remember what it says in Ecclesiastes . . .”

The memory of that day faded into the background of Ryan’s mind, and suddenly, he was back in the moment, in the car with his family. Ryan wiped his cheeks of the fresh pain as the Bible passage reverberated in his heart, spoken in his father’s voice, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.” Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

Pulling into his driveway at home, the kids piled out and ran up the walkway to go inside. Emily stayed back with Ryan in the car. She placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You okay?”

With his eyes locked on the closed garage door in front of the vehicle, he shook his head and dipped his chin. He sighed, letting his defenses down for a moment. “I’m not okay, Em.”

Pausing, he wiped his cheeks as tears spilled onto them.

“I’m not okay at all. You know . . . I just don’t feel like a man who just lost his father.”

“What do you mean?” Emily adjusted in her seat, her expression growing more concerned by the moment.

Wiping his eyes again, he fought the feeling of his throat closing to speak a fraction more. “I don’t feel like a man who lost his father, but rather, a little boy who lost his hero.”

As Emily hugged him, it only drove the pain deeper. After a moment, he continued. “I feel like I lost my guiding light in this dark world. I mean, I know I have God, and I still believe . . . But my dad was always this guiding wisdom that spoke into my life every day, and now he’s just gone . . . He’s gone, and I just have to figure life out on my own.”

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