When I was a child, I loved to spend time with my father. Being the youngest girl in a large family, I learned early in life that if I wanted his undivided attention, it was up to me to be with him when he was alone. One misty morning as I tagged beside him on his walk to the far pasture, I heard my first echo. As my dad called to the cattle, his words returned. Fascinated, I tried. What I sent, I received.
Numerous times throughout my life I have pondered the Law of the Echo. What we send out returns to us. When we holler “hello” into a rain barrel, “hello/; comes back. When we holler “love” into the rain barrel “love,” comes back. The universe is a giant rain barrel from which the echo returns in the form that it is sent forth from us.
I was again privileged to witness the effects of the Law of the Echo during my father’s dying. My last visit with him began three days before his passing. I had known him as a man of few words, so the intensity and depth of the conversation we shared about the life we had spent together marked me indelibly. My father stressed that he wished he had been able to do more for me, to give me more. My simple response, “Daddy, you gave me life; you gave me love; you gave me my education. I could ask for nothing more,” affirmed the roles that he had played in my life.
Little more needed saying. My father was able to rest, knowing that he could now bless the aspects of life that he had shared with me. I, in turn, was able to bless those pieces of life that I had shared with him.
During my mother’s dying, I became aware that the effects of the Law of the Echo are eternal. Her frequent comments about seeing departed loved ones, including my son, and about how she was receiving guidance from my father, helped me to understand that love continues beyond the grave. In those precious moments, I learned that what we send from us in thoughts and in actions not only returns to us in like-manner during our life time but that the energy created also crosses the dimensions of time and space.
The assurance that my son and father were present and offering assistance helped me to allow my mother to be fully engaged in preparing for her time of transition. They were there to meet her needs, but their presence added another dimension to my own healing. After my son’s death, I had an intense longing to mend my family circle. For years, my life felt broken, and my family seemed incomplete. Someone was always missing; nothing, it seemed, could fill the void. My father’s and son’s presence at my mother’s side proved to be the glue that my soul needed to weld generational bonds and mend our family circle.
It is my hope that the sharing of these intimate memories of my relationship with my father during his life, his dying and since his death has helped to stimulate rich thoughts and memories of your relationship with your own father. I also hope that by describing the impact of my father’s teachings, I have affirmed for all fathers the far-reaching effects of their positive role modeling and fathering efforts.
