Encounter with the Bifrost

In Norse mythology, Bifröst, anglicized as Bifrost, is a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard (Earth) and Asgard, the realm of the gods. I recently had a close encounter with the Bifrost itself. At least that is the way I like to think of what recently happened to me.

My father’s health had been waning for some time, and he was not expected to live a great deal longer. We had heard this story before; he was 92 years old, and had survived a mild heart attack, a stroke, a broken hip, and had been fending off a number of other ailments for some time. Of course, though we knew his time was coming, there was no way to be sure exactly how long he had left. My mother’s birthday was coming up, so I decided to make arrangements for the seven hour drive back home to visit them. Every time I had seen them over the course of the last decade, I had always wondered if it would be for the last time. This time, something told me it might be, at least for my dad. 

The plan was to leave on Wednesday, enjoy mom’s birthday with her on Thursday, and head back home on Friday. On Tuesday afternoon, I received a text message from my sister relating to me that dad might not make it to Thursday, according to the hospice nurses. As I was already largely packed, I threw the last few items I needed for the trip into the car and started for home, hoping to get there in time. 

About six hours into the seven hour drive, a strikingly beautiful sight caught my eye; in the distance to the north was what I could only describe as a broken rainbow. The two ends that appeared to touch the ground were visible, angling toward one another until suddenly disappearing in the middle of the sky, never joining. I had never seen a rainbow like that. I smiled, not thinking much more of it at the time, other than filing it away to describe to my wife when I got home as the “moment of beauty” for the day. About five minutes later, the encounter took place, perhaps heralded by the earlier rainbow vision.

I noticed a crop sprinkler, parked just off the right side of the highway, venting water into the sky. The light of the descending sun passed through the moving droplets expelled by the sprinkler to create what to me looked like a large moving rainbow, heading right for my car. My rational mind wanted me to swerve away for whatever reason; when something is headed for your car, you usually want to avoid it. Something deep inside me wouldn’t allow it. I watched it grow closer until the moment of contact, when I passed effortlessly through it, feeling something wash over me not unlike a head rush. “Now just what was that?” I asked aloud, gripping the steering wheel a bit harder until the sensation fully passed. Moments later, my phone chimed. I pulled over to see why. It was my sister. Dad was gone.

 I sat there numbly for a time, calculating that the encounter with the traveling “Bifrost” had occurred at what must have been almost the same general time as dad’s passing. Just a ridiculously odd coincidence, right? Maybe. We search for meaning in such times, our minds drawing connections between events, perhaps attributing significance to correlated occurrences that really isn’t rationally warranted. I didn’t care. I still don’t. That was my dad, traveling the Bifrost to whatever Asgard awaited him. 

I got home an hour later. My sister, bless her eternal soul, had told the memory unit staff at the facility where mom and dad were living that her brother was inbound, and not to move him just yet. I met her in the lobby, and she told me that mom had been treated for anxiety and escorted down to the dining area where she would stay for a time. She had dementia, and was not really aware of what had happened. 

I entered the room with my sister, and she gestured toward an open doorway leading to the adjoining bedroom. “He’s in there,” she said softly, stepping back to give me what time I might need.

Before leaving home, I had instinctively grabbed a small, hand-carved, wooden oval football. My dad had made it for me when I was 18 and had presented it to me attached to the top of a small wooden chest, which he had also made. The ball had come off, but I still had both items. I would often pick up that ball and just hold it, feeling a connection with my dad whenever doing so; that football is one of a kind. There is not another exactly like it in the world, and there never will be–now. The hands that crafted it won’t ever bring another piece of art into the world. 

He seemed relaxed and at peace in that moment; the pain was gone, and he could rest at last after a life of hard work, nurturance, and unrelenting love for his family. He rarely verbalized his love for us, but showed it through actions, such as the crafting of my football, and I never doubted how strong it was. The emotions came then as I perused his calm, relaxed features. I started humming “The Old Man,” as song performed by the Irish Tenors that had been able to make me openly weep on the best of days, just in anticipation of the day when the song’s chorus would inevitably apply to my life too:

I never will forget him,
For he made me what I am.
Though he may be gone, memory lingers on,
And I miss him–the old man. 

I cried then, (much as I am doing now) pressing the football into his still warm hand, the hand that had originally shaped it all those long decades ago. I held my hand over his, channeling every thought and feeling of love and remembrance accrued over a lifetime into him. Perhaps they followed him across the Bifrost. I hadn’t had the chance to speak to him one last time. Fortunately, I did not have any regrets or feel that something had gone unsaid. All the same, no matter how prepared we think we are, even if we know such a moment is inevitable, there is nothing that can actually prepare us for the irreversible reality of it when it comes. We must each process it in our own way. My processing included the song, the football, a gentle kiss on his head…and I left the room.  To this day, the processing continues. 

I spent the next day walking around the streets of my childhood home, letting the memories accumulated there wash over me, the tears flowing as they needed to.  I was able to spend much of the following day with my mother, celebrating her 93rd birthday. She never asked about dad. 

Mom died just under a week ago, three and a half weeks after dad did. She had been doing well for a time, even seeming happy, until falling and breaking her leg. Given her age, and the nature of her injury, there just wasn’t much they could do save for keeping her immobilized and controlling the pain. Unfortunately, she went downhill fast. 

My sister texted me and said mom probably had only about 24 hours left in her according to the nurses. I called immediately, and was able to say goodbye to her over the phone. I told her how much I loved her, how proud I was to be her son, and that if she was ready to go, she could go. Not twenty minutes after that phone call, she was gone too. 

Friends have asked me things like “Do you think she knew?” I told them that, according to my sister, she only mentioned my dad once in the three weeks after his death and before her own, inquiring about whether or not dad had received his lunch on some random day. “She knew,” my friends responded. “Her soul knew.” Some even suggested that the fall that broke her leg was something that on some level she wanted, or even willed, to happen, some part of her wanting to be with him, even though all outward appearances gave no impression she even knew he was gone. My rational mind struggles with that one. At the same time, “there are more things in heaven and Earth that are dreamt of in our philosophy,” to loosely paraphrase Hamlet. My parents have crossed the Bifrost into Hamlet’s “undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.” They live in my memory, now and forever, and in all the lives they touched. 

Now go and call your parents (if you have them; if not, call or hug who means the most to you) and tell them you love them. Seize the present moment. Make now the most precious time, for now will never come again.

 Goodbye, mom and dad. I love you.  

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