This morning, as we took our slow walk around the neighborhood, Ken mentioned that he thinks he can make it to our anniversary later this week. He has been a warrior for ten years in a battle with Parkinson’s, a movement disorder that takes his mobility away piece by piece. He is doing a heroic job of staving off the predicted progression, or should I say regression, of the disorder. We celebrate each and every milestone.
This week will be our 122nd anniversary. Yes. We have had 121 anniversaries so far. We were married sixty-one years ago – twice. Our first marriage, in January, was an elopement before Ken left for spring training in Lakeland, Florida, as a Detroit Tiger rookie. Then, eight months later, in September, when he returned from the baseball season, we were married in church with friends and family as witnesses. We have celebrated twice a year since; thus, it will be our 122nd anniversary. We kept our first wedding a secret until twenty years ago, and that’s another story.
Of course, we went through years of thick and thin, bounty and scarcity, as all long-term relationships do. We raised three kids and countless pets. We were on the brink of divorce at one point, separated for several months. The divorce was unsuccessful; we stayed married another forty-eight years (96 anniversaries) so far.
Chocolate cake with butter cream frosting and peanut butter roses
When first married, we lived simply. I remember peanut butter sandwiches (no jelly) were my lunches at work, sometimes they were dinner too. We lived in apartments in Washington, Florida, and California. Between baseball seasons, we took whatever jobs we could find. Minor league baseball players were only paid during the season, and it was a minimal wage not meant to get one through a year until the next season.
One apartment had a bedroom so small that only a twin-size bed fit. We both slept in that bed, me in the crack next to the wall. Ken was a 200 lb., six-foot-one strapping young fella whose feet hung over the end. He barely fit the bed at all, but we couldn’t imagine sleeping separately. At one time, we lived in a trailer in Florida that had been modified to add bathroom fixtures with a toilet in the living room and a shower in the kitchen. Oh, well – young love doesn’t make note of such inconveniences. We were happy to be together.
In 1966, we would walk with our new baby in a stroller down the hill into town from our suburban apartment to spend $.50 for two ice cream cones. It was an extravagance. We couldn’t drive to town because we couldn’t afford to use the gas in the car that Ken needed to go to work. At that time, gasoline cost less than $.50/gallon. Our two cones were the price of a whole gallon of gas. (Today, gas costs around $3.00/gal, and so does just one ice cream cone – inflation?)
We continued in the American dream to acquire a house with a mortgage and two cars – actually moving in the same city five times. Over the years, the houses became bigger and the cars nicer. Our kids thrived through school and sports, left home for college and lives of their own, and we became empty nesters. During those years, we lived in Bellevue, Washington.
Ken had a career in the home building industry, and after the kids were all in school, I took jobs doing admin work in a variety of companies, including our own. My jobs were mostly time fillers with no career aspirations – a way to make extra money for fun stuff.
One year, we left our jobs, sold our house and furniture, took our kids out of school, and went on a road trip through forty-eight states as well as a few provinces of Canada and Mexican states near the border of the United States. A challenge full of memories I wouldn’t trade for any amount of money.
We had friends, threw great parties, traveled extensively, and did everything we wanted to do. We had a sailboat and cruised the waters and islands of the Pacific Northwest alone together and with friends. We led a very privileged life and still do, but in a more modest way. We are back to simplicity, not quite the peanut butter lunches variety. We moved to Arizona nearly thirty years ago. Our lives are circumscribed by age and lesser abilities, but still full of friends and family. We have an abundance of gratitude for the abundance of our memories and each day we are given.
Happy One-Hundred-Twenty-Second Anniversary, Ken. I love you.
One of my favorite philosophers, Jimmy Buffett, titled one of his early albums, Living and Dying in ¾ Time. There is a rhythm to life and there a rhythm to death. This is the chorus of his song Nautical Wheelers sung in ¾ time.
And it’s dance with me, dance with me, Nautical Wheelers
Take me to stars that you know
Come on and dance with me, dance with me, Nautical Wheelers
I want so badly to go.
In the 1970s, the Nautical Wheelers were a square dance group in the Florida Keys who danced the nights away under a tent. The song is about living life to the fullest, embracing the present with spontaneity, celebrating with people who live in joy.
These days, with news of friends and family dying, I’ve been thinking a lot about death. I am in the time of life when expiration dates are imminent. Baby Boomers are at the edge of eternity, and even those much younger reached the finish line ahead of me. The number of goodbyes has increased at a startling rate lately.
The first death I recall was my grandfather, Jesse Pottle Davis, 1888-1952, at the age of sixty-four, when I was six. I knew him, spent time with him, and loved him but was too young to understand death. It wasn’t until my father got down on his knees to hug me as close and hard as he could, crying, that I understood the depth and meaning of grandpa’s loss. My dad was my strength, and to see him so wretched was a life lesson. Dad died eleven years later at the age of fifty-two and my heartbroken reaction was much the same as his had been. The deepest sense of loss and agony. After several years of cardiac illness, his death from a massive heart attack was sudden and, I’m sure, painful
We are all living and dying. It is a fact. I recently started a journal titled 4,000 Days, not about counting forward days but counting backward from 4,000. I gave myself four thousand days to live, with a caveat for bonus days should I live past ninety-one, which is entirely possible. I did it after reading a poem by a friend titled Happy Birthday in which he comments that birthdays are not about accumulating years, but ticking them off toward the inevitable. Some people I shared the poem with found it a depressing thought. I found it to be funny and comforting in an odd way. The point is to make the most of each day as you count them down. A reminder to live each day. No one is given a timeline, a date certain. Even cancer patients are given hope and a range of time to look ahead. Our appointment to meet the hereafter remains a mystery to us. Thank heaven.
Many years ago, a psychic told me I’d live to be one hundred thirteen. At the time, I thought that sounded great. There is a definite difference between being alive and living. As I age, I’m experiencing losses I didn’t anticipate then. The loss of friends and loved ones. The loss of physical stamina. The lessening of my senses. I’m wearing out. If I lived to be one hundred thirteen with all the pieces and parts intact and all the energy of a forty-year-old, that would be great. But I discovered that isn’t in the plan. An old saying I read once said, “I prayed to live a long life, but I forgot to pray for good knees and a sound mind”. My full-time job now is to stay as healthy and active as possible so my long life (it is already pretty long) is not as a suffering, doddering vegetable in a wheelchair, but as a lively, engaged human who still enjoys each day.
My grandmother, Mabel, 1891-1977, lived to be eighty-six. The day she died she had driven one of her “old people” to their doctor appointment and to run errands. Her “old people” were ten or so years younger than she, but needed help. Grandma was there to help church friends and neighbors whenever she could. After Grandma was widowed, she lived with and cared for her parents until their deaths. When her two sisters and brother were widowed or divorced, they returned home, one by one, to all live together once again. It was a circus of the elderly who acted like teenage siblings most of the time. Grandma went home that day after taking her friend out and told her sisters she didn’t want dinner. She was feeling punk. She went to her room, laid on her bed, and died. Death came in its own time with no announcement.
My great aunt Molly, 1902-1999, told me something shocking on her 90th birthday. I was at her birthday party in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The house was full of friends and neighbors who came to celebrate her. She was very active in her church and community and in good health. She was on a bowling team and enjoyed going out for beer and pizza. As I was leaving, I told her I’d try to be there to celebrate her ninety-first.
She took my hand in both of hers, looked into my eyes, and said, “I hope I’m not here.”
I was astonished. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Everyone I care about is gone. I have been left behind, and I want to go,” she said.
Here she was surrounded by people who cared about her, and she didn’t want to live. Her husband had died. Her only child had died, and all of her lifelong friends had died. Even in the midst of a loving community, she felt alone. She didn’t get her wish; she lived to be ninety-seven.
Now that eighty is upon me, I understand what she meant. Not that I’m anxious to die. I have lots of things I want to do yet, and I have the health to keep going. But I understand her perspective. It seems that every month I hear of another one, two, or three friends or acquaintances who passed over. I have no fear of death but a little of dying. I don’t want pain to be part of the process, and I know that is possible.
I’ve come to equate dying with being born. Both are struggles, voyages into the unknown. Both make major changes in existence. First you are in your mother’s warm dark comfortable womb with all your needs met instantly. Then you are pushed and shoved through a narrow opening into the light, bright, noisy, world with strangers around you, hands moving over you and a sense of loss of your warm safe world. It is a violent change. There is nothing smooth or easy about birth either from the baby’s or the mother’s perspective. It is a struggle to become a physical human. Slowly your soul must learn how to inhabit this new form with its new demands. Your brain must reach for new understanding. Your body needs to learn to be autonomous.
Touch can be painful, sound can be painful, sight can be painful at first. It takes some getting used to. Then you live a life of ups and downs as you learn to navigate our world and stretch to learn what “being” means. It takes a while. For some more time than others. We all learn through experiences, the trauma, the pitfalls, physically as well as emotionally of being a person. That is balanced by the highs, the joys, and the pleasures of our body’s sensual life, along with the spiritual and intellectual journey our worldly life demands – it’s a big undertaking.
The body contracts illness or is broken, there is heartbreak, your spirit suffers on your journey through life. If you are lucky, plucky, and resilient, your life is relatively smooth. Then there are those who go through agony in their earthly existence. Who is to say which path you will be on? Which tune will lead your dance?
And then we die. We all die, no matter if we’ve enjoyed the journey or experienced hell along the way. I’ve heard firsthand stories of those who died and returned to the living. I’ve read stories of people who are pulled toward the hereafter and are given the choice to come back to our world. All the descriptions I’ve heard or read make the passage into death seem a lot like the passage into life. Being drawn into an unknown world.
My mother told me that she experienced something like that shortly after I was born. Her appendix ruptured, and they rushed her into emergency for an appendectomy. She was given an anesthetic and left her body. She said she floated above the doctors, looked down at her body and watched them operate. Then all went quiet again, and she knew she had to come back to her life, so she returned to her body and her brand-new baby girl.
Before she died at the age of eighty-four, Mom expressed to me on more than one occasion that she had a beautiful life, a fulfilling life. I was with her when she received her diagnosis of colon cancer. She chose not to take treatment. The doctors said she would live four to six months without it.
She thanked them and said, “I’ve been given my ticket home and I’m ready to go. All I ask is to be kept as comfortable as possible until the end.”
My mouth was dry. My eyes were dry. My heart overflowed with love and the painful knowledge of her impending death. When we got back to the car, it was hard to speak, but I had to acknowledge Mom’s courage. I told her I was grateful to her for making the decision so willingly and quickly. Then the tears began to flow. I said I believed she saved herself and the entire family the stress, the anxiety of watching her go through painful treatments. She was always gracious, thoughtful, and above all, decisive in her life, and she continued that to the end.
She lived four months. She made a list of “last things to do” (Mom was a list maker). The list included going to her favorite restaurant for a margarita, having a ham sandwich from Honeybaked Ham, seeing the movie “Chicago”, and spending time with her granddaughter, who flew in from Seattle. She wanted to see the new office my husband and I moved our company into (even if it meant going upstairs, which was very hard for her), and about ten more things I’ve forgotten.
Mom resided in an assisted living complex, in a one-bedroom apartment about one mile from our house. I went there every morning before work and in the evening after work to visit and comfort her. I spent more time on weekends. She didn’t want to come to our house, but wanted me to stay with her and talk, mostly about my life. I had a friend interview her and write some of Mom’s memories down. We had talked a lot about her life and memories, but I wanted her to speak without me in the room to see if any new memories were triggered by new questions from a stranger. My friend, Linda, gave me a lovely transcript of their two meetings.
I have a friend, had a friend, Diane, who died with ALS. I cannot think of a crueler way to die, inch by bodily inch, with your mind and will still intact, watching yourself diminish. Diane took tap dance lessons at forty. She learned to play the piano at the age of fifty. She played everything from classical masterpieces to show tunes to Christmas carols. She hiked, traveled the world, and threw wonderful parties. Her annual Christmas party had a guest list that grew each year because people she knew clambered to listen to her play carols and sing along. For two years after her diagnosis, she made every effort to continue all that until her body no longer responded to her will. She put everything she had into those last years. Her greatest pleasure, she said, toward the end, was being with her friends.
She embodied the joyful rhythms of life for seventy years. Eventually, every part of her body was disabled, only her eyes moved. Her mind never dimmed. She communicated by a computer that she directed with her eyes. She was loved by many. A four-foot-ten dynamo, she was engaged in living and loving life until she was stopped by the ugly shadow of ALS threw its shade over her. Finally, she made the decision to pull the plug on her oxygen machine and gave her husband the day and time. Family gathered around her at home to say goodbye and express their love. Her beloved chocolate lab, Diamond, was there.
I miss her, her energy, her laugh, her brightness. I mourn that her light was extinguished too soon. She is with me in memory. Photos of us on trips, golfing, rooting on the UW Huskie football team at stadiums across the country, spa vacations, and things we bought on shopping trips together are part of my everyday life. The big copper coyote she bought as a housewarming gift when we moved to Arizona hangs on the guestroom wall; the crazy Christmas tree that sits on high-heel shoes that I decorate each year; the matching raincoats we bought in San Francisco (hers was hunter green, mine red). We were supposed to go to the football game in the rain, but decided to stay in the hotel to watch it on TV, and didn’t wear the coats at all on the trip. (Our husbands braved the game wearing big green trash bags.) So many reminders of her and our friendship are sprinkled like glowing stardust through my life.
Everyone has a different reason for wanting to be alive or allowing death to come on its own terms. I want to live with as much umphh as my friend, Diane, and with as much purpose as my grandmother, Mabel; then I’ll die with no regrets, and hopefully, with as much grace as my mother.
“Please, please let’s go for a walk”. Her eyes fixed on mine, never wavered.
“But Sable, it’s nearly 90 degrees outside and the humidity is hovering around 70 percent. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Please,” she repeated with those expressive eyes.
“Ok, a short walk. Go get your leash.” I gave in. It was early enough on a July Saturday that the pavement hadn’t become too hot for her paws. I pulled out of the drawer her soft, protective paw boots, which she doesn’t like but will accept if that is the price for a summer walk.
Sable pirouetted and ran to the laundry room, where her harness and leash are kept on a blue wooden peg, two feet from the floor, just the right height for her to reach.
Sable is a dog of indeterminate ancestry. She is neither wolf nor shepherd, hound nor terrier. She is approximately 20 inches tall and weighs 25 pounds, with short fur of a rich, deep brown hue, hence her name. She has a narrow white collar that dips onto her chest like a small white pendant, and a short black velvet muzzle. Her small black ears stand at attention as if waiting for a signal. The mold was definitely broken when she was born. I don’t think there can be a duplicate. I wish I could have her cloned because she is the most perfect companion ever, and I know she has an expiration date.
Her golden eyes are alive with the vocabulary of a college professor. They communicate very effectively, and what she can’t convey with her eyes she passes to her tail. If her tail can’t make you understand, then her whole body gets into the act, quivering, pointing, circling, or hopping foot to foot. Sable is an active listener and patiently absorbs any manner of conversation from religion to geology, movies to politics. She puts her paw on your leg in affirmation or her chin on your lap if you are sitting. She rarely disagrees, but can let you know if she is unhappy with a low guttural sound or quiet mewling.
Sable is a rescue. A real rescue. Three years ago, on my way home from a meeting across town, I drove past her little form sitting in a puddle in a vacant lot on the side of Tanque Verde Road during a monsoon. Abandoned. She couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old, too young to have run away from home on stubby little legs and too plump to have been a feral dog. She had been living in someone’s home, fed regularly, and then disposed of for an unknown reason. How does a person abandon a helpless puppy near a busy street in a storm? She looked confused. I pulled over in the nearest safe spot, got out of the car, and walked back to her through the downpour. She was shivering, not from cold but from fright. Back in my car, I sat with her in my lap, giving her sips of water poured into my palm from a water bottle. She lapped it up little by little until nearly half the bottle was empty. She stopped shivering. I put her in the passenger seat on an old towel that I had thrown into the car in case I was caught in the predicted downpour. She immediately curled up and went to sleep. She didn’t move for the thirty-minute trip home to a suburban community outside Tucson. Once in the house, she explored each nook and cranny and pronounced that she was indeed home by jumping into my lap, reaching up to lick my face, then jumping down and peeing on the floor in front of me. The deal was sealed.
As all pet parents know, the creatures have a way of creeping into our hearts and taking residence in our minds. They become a priority, especially for a single person. I know Sable will be there to greet me with enthusiasm each day when I return from work. She doesn’t care if it was a good day or not because, for her, my presence makes her day great. She doesn’t withdraw with silent moodiness like my ex-husband if I don’t read her mind. She accepts the attention I give her with total love. Sometimes, I become absorbed in the day-to-day demands of my job or social relationships. She is always there when I resurface to the moment, waiting patiently with full devotion.
Sable is small enough that I can take her with me when I run errands. She loves car rides. She hops into her booster seat and waits to be snapped into the harness. I am able to take her into most of the stores where I shop. She sits obediently in a cart or walks quietly by my side. She ignores entreaties to leave my side, but accepts friendly pats as her due. I can’t take her grocery shopping in the store, but I can do pick-up. She knows the delivery girls at Fry’s, eagerly anticipating their friendly greeting. She loves a stop at the bank, knowing as we approach the drive-up window that she will get a treat. She delights in her puppucino at Starbucks. She appreciates my Sirius XM music, especially the Elvis channel. Sometimes we go for a longer ride to the mountains or to visit friends in Carefree. She passively watches the scenery, but when she hears a big rig eighteen-wheeler approach, she gets all excited, stands up in her seat, and watches for it to pass, ears pricked forward and tail waving ninety knots to nothing. I think in a former life she was a long-haul trucker.
Recently, she has learned to tolerate my friend, Colin. He has become a regular visitor, and she was very stand-offish at first. Now she grudgingly makes a space for him next to me on the sofa if he stays after dinner. He knows she has first dibs on wherever she wants to lie. He learned very quickly that he needed to accommodate her preferences.
Luckily, he has Marcus, a big yellow tabby cat, at home, so he understands the pecking order for guests in an animal’s domain. I’ve met Marcus. He is very sweet in his catty way. His green eyes pierced me, searching the depths of my reliability. He sat out of arm’s length, assessing me and, I’m sure, questioning my motives for being in his house. He allowed me to stroke him on his terms. He walked away with a tail held high as if to say, “You’re ok, but don’t let this go to your head. It is a temporary situation.” He is the product of a broken home and a custody battle. He was shuffled from home to home for about six months until Colin’s ex decided she didn’t want the responsibility. According to Colin, Marcus is shy of any other commitment.
We anticipate the day when we might introduce Sable to Marcus. Sable loves everyone unless they demonstrate by action or harsh words that they are untrustworthy. I insist Sable is open to any relationship, and he claims Marcus would be okay when he gets to know me a little better. There is a hesitation about the right moment to make the introduction. If it doesn’t go well, what will it mean to OUR relationship? We are taking our friendship slowly toward a deeper connection out of deference to our four-legged roommates. It is probably a very good thing to move slowly since both of us were burned in the past. Basing a romantic life on the acceptance of our pets, maybe, not so much.
The secret sauce of a long marriage is the memories that connect two hearts and minds. Such is the case when Ken and I watched a TV show last evening. We mostly watch British TV because we find the stories and series more interesting. Less about shoot-em-ups and car chases – more about relationship building among characters and good writing. BBC, Acorn, and BritBox are our go-to platforms. Ken mentioned that we don’t have to visit England because it is in our home every day. It feels so familiar.
The title of one episode in the series, Professor T., was A Fish Named Walter. When the name came up on the TV, we looked at each other and started laughing. Not because it is a funny name, which it is, but because it relates to a dog who once upon a time adopted us. Is that a stretch? Not really. This is the story.
In 1982, we went to see the movie On Golden Pond. Norman Thayer, played by Henry Fonda, fished the pond near their summer home in search of the large fish he named Walter, that evaded being caught by him for years. One summer, he took a young boy, Billy, with him fishing, and they finally caught Walter. Norman insisted they throw him back.
The day after we saw the movie, we took a walk to our Medina neighborhood park and were talking about the film as we walked around its shallow pond. Engrossed in conversation, we were surprised when a small golden retriever popped up from the middle of the pond, swam toward us, shook itself off, and followed us around the path. We hadn’t seen the dog enter the pond, just pop up and swim out of it. We looked at each other and, laughing, said, “That must be Walter.”
We tried to discourage the dog, thinking it must belong to someone near the park, but it followed us all the way home. It didn’t have an identity tag or collar, so we couldn’t contact an owner. At that time, we had a six-year-old black lab, Quincey, but decided to allow the dog to stay with us, half expecting it would return to its home. Quincey and the new dog managed a friendly connection.
We continued to call her Walter even after we realized she was a she. Her name probably should have been Zsa Zsa or Marilyn. She was a stereotypical ditsy blonde, sweet and friendly, with soft brown eyes, golden locks, and a constant wag. The vet said she was a mature two or three-year-old mixed breed, mostly retriever, with no evidence of abuse or starvation, and she had been spayed. Someone had taken care of her. She had good manners. She didn’t jump on people, bark, or bite. She was house-trained. Our three kids instantly loved her, and she returned their affection.
She hung around the house, never leaving the yard, for weeks. Our yard wasn’t fenced. Our lab never left the property, and Walter seemed to like being there. We thought that if she had another home, she would eventually go back to it. After a couple of months, I bought a collar for her with a tag that read,’ Hi I’m Walter. If I am lost, please call Diana or Ken at 744-3374′.
Walter began to explore the neighborhood, always returning by dinnertime. I received calls occasionally from nearby people and some as far away as two miles, asking me to pick up our Walter. They usually had a chuckle in their voice when they said her name. We were trying to figure out how to keep her home. Our property was fairly large, and we didn’t like the idea of a fence, but we thought about making a dog run.
One Saturday afternoon, as I was getting ready for a party we were hosting, I received a call from a neighbor who lived around the corner. “Come get Walter,” she said. “She was hit by a car.” Ken went to pick her up to take her to the vet, but she had died. The end of our sweet Walter.
A sad story, but one that nonetheless makes us smile. Walter adopted us, lived with us, and loved us for a little over a year, until her wanderlust took her into danger.
As it happens, we watched On Golden Pond for the second time on TV just a few weeks ago. Seeing the title of the Britbox series’ episode made it all fresh in our minds. It was an emotional movie that had a very different meaning for us as 80-year-olds than it did as 30-somethings. We are both older now than the actors were when they played the old couple. Katharine Hepburn was 75 and Henry Fonda, 77.
Swallowtail: “In the East, adults fly primarily in late spring and summer, but this butterfly is more common in late summer and fall in the South and Southwest. Where lack of freezing temperatures permit, the female adult may fly continuously. In lowland tropical Mexico, they may be found in any month.” – Encarta
Emerging abruptly from a deep sleep to respond to the insistent tone of his phone, Michael heard, “I miss you, Michael. I’m lonely for you. I’m lonely for Moses.” Her voice, a low purr, curled into his ear and sent blue electric currents crackling through his body.
“No, Janie, not again,” Michael struggled to keep the groan out of his voice. He got up in the dark from the rumpled king-sized bed and walked into the living room, his phone to his ear. He couldn’t bear to have her in his bedroom again, even on the phone. He turned on the lamp and slumped onto the couch. The cat followed him, stretching and yawning.
“What? Not again, what?” she asked.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I don’t know what your clock says, but I know it’s time for me to hear your voice, smell your sweet sweat, touch your warm skin, and roll up next to you in bed.”
“It’s 5 AM.”
“I want you here with me. I need to be close to you. Everything is good, but with you it would be great.”
“Funny, Moses and I had a long talk just last Sunday, and we decided to move on. We took every trace of you to the dump.” He reached across the coffee table and turned her smiling photograph onto its face.
“We can start over. I’m ready now. I found the right place.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in San Diego this week, but the place is Santa Lucia. It’s a few kilometers south of Puerto Vallarta.
“You must be some kind of witch. You call just when I’ve reclaimed my life; when I finally decided I can live without you.”
“Oh baby, that’s….”
“No, Janie, I mean it. I’m not following you anywhere again. You left Memphis for Canyon, Texas, and I followed. When you suddenly up and left Texas, I followed you to McCall. When the tall pines of the Idaho woods smothered you, you took off again. I followed you here to Tucson, and this is where I’m staying. Trying to keep hold of you is like trying to catch mercury between your fingers. It’s impossible not to mention dangerous. I’m done.”
“Do you still have my paintings?”
Michael looked to both sides of the new tin mirror at the intensely colored acrylics. One was of a woman looking through an archway toward distant purple and rose-colored hills, stroking a green cat. The other showed a naked woman with long black hair astride a vivid scarlet horse galloping across a field of bright orange and blue poppies.
“No,” Michael said. “I replaced them with seascapes, the calm of crashing blue and gray waves.”
“My pictures might be worth something someday. I wouldn’t throw them out just yet. I’m in California for a one-woman show at the Smithson gallery in La Jolla. I have an agent. I’m selling prints to tourists in Mexico. I mean, really selling. I finally found the place I imagined and have been painting since I was twelve.”
“You found the place with purple mountains, red horses, and green cats?”
“Don’t be obtuse. Mexico is bursting with colors. And smells and laughter and…I’m home now. This is what I’ve searched for. Now all I need is you. You and Moses.”
Michael looked down at the big gray-striped tomcat that had been weaving in and out of his legs. Moses sensed he was the topic and flopped down on the top of Michael’s bare feet, his white mittened paws around his ankle, looking up at Michael.
“Moses isn’t interested in more travel. He told me he likes Tucson. I like Tucson. I’ve got a good job here.”
“You’re a poet, Michael. You are a poet who writes stupid technical manuals for a company that produces war machines for an oversized, out-of-control fascist government.”
“How do you know I still work at Raytheon?”
“Did you quit?”
“No.”
“There. Come to Santa Lucia with me. Poetry will fair drip from your pen. It’s magical. It’s cheap to live. And I’m making money now. Bring the trailer down. We’ll park it on the beach. We’ll eat mangos and shrimp. We’ll make love on the beach in the afternoon. We’ll play in the surf. We will…”
A momentary image of Jane, naked on a beach, nearly scuttled his resolve. He pulled back with a snap. “I don’t live in the trailer anymore. I sold it. I live in a real house.”
“You bought a house?”
“Well…lease-purchase.” He squinted out the window to the backyard, where dawn was beginning to streak the sky with pink and gray. “I have a yard, a saguaro, a lemon tree, and a brick wall.”
“Brick walls enclose tiny brick minds.”
Michael cringed a little. “If just once you had told me you wanted to move, we could have discussed it.”
“I didn’t need a discussion. I needed to leave. You would have planned and plotted. You are so anal. No sense of adventure. That’s what’s wrong with your poetry, too. You need Santa Lucia. It will break down all that shit in you and set you free. I was suffocating. By the time you made an analysis of our situation, I would have been dead. I didn’t know where I wanted to go…just away. It took me a while to find Santa Lucia.”
“Two years. Why did you call now?”
“It’s not two years.”
“Yes, Janie, it is. You left three Augusts ago, and it’s now September.”
“Clocks and calendars, calendars and clocks, tick tock, tick tock,” she chanted.
“Real world stuff,” he replied.
“Please, please come see me in San Diego, just for a day or two. I’ll be here this whole week and next weekend. It’s only a few hours’ drive, or I could pick you up at the airport.”
“Are you still living in the goddess-mobile?”
“Umm-hmm, mostly. But I have a studio on the second floor of a building in Santa Lucia. Its balcony overlooks the street, and I can see the ocean. Some days I paint outside, sometimes inside, depending on the light. I walk everywhere, so my rig stays parked by the beach. I’m sorry you sold the trailer. It worked so well in my daydream. We won’t both fit in the goddess-mobile long-term. We need more room than that. There’s a house not far up the beach from where I park that’s for sale. I’ll look into it.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not coming to Mexico.”
“I think you’re being too hasty. You should at least come for a visit. A teeny short visit. Then if you loathe it, you…”
“Hear me out. I’m not going to Mexico for a week, a day, or a minute. You can sell any dream to me if I give you enough time. Your time is up. I’m staying here. I’m happy, even proud, that you are selling your paintings. But you broke that last little piece of my heart when you left this time. I don’t have one to give you anymore.”
“There’s a marina too. We could buy another sailboat like we had on Payette Lake. Only we’d be warm all the time and could sail every day.”
“You’re not listening. I don’t care how beautiful it is. I don’t care how much you want to be with me. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I’ve broken the habit.”
“What happened to soulmates and undying love?” Jane asked. “You promised me you would forever be my family. Remember all those nights when I had the nightmares without end about when my parents died. You held me and told me you would never turn away.”
“You left me, remember? More than once.” Michael started to pace the kitchen, dining room, and living room with the phone to his ear.
“I didn’t leave you. I went looking for me, and unfortunately, I was always out of town,” Jane said. “But now I’m found. I promise I can stay put now.”
“Your promises aren’t worth much anymore. You promised that the desert would be your eternal home when you came to Tucson. Now you’re by the ocean for Christ’s sake,” Michael paused. “And I don’t speak Spanish.”
“You’ll pick it up. I did. It’s so musical, it’s easy.”
“The answer is still no,” Michael said. “I’m going to hang up now. Please don’t call me again. Have a nice life and congratulations on your success.”
Michael ended the call. He didn’t want it to ring again and, in his heart, prayed it would.
He couldn’t go back to sleep. It was Saturday, and he planned to play golf with Keith at 10:00. He fed Moses and let him out for his morning prowl. He shaved, got into the shower, and washed his hair. As hot water ran full force over his scalp down his back and legs, he let himself imagine lying beside Jane in the warm white sand with salty waves lapping over them, making love to her in the sunshine. He thought he heard the phone ring but when he turned off the water, he heard silence.
“Get yourself together, man,” he said aloud. She’s a figment of your imagination, a phantom. Just when you think she’s there, she’s gone again. It’s never going to work out.
Swallowtail Butterfly: “In the East, adults fly primarily in late spring and summer, but this butterfly is more common in late summer and fall in the South and Southwest. Where lack of freezing temperatures permit, the female adult may fly continuously. In lowland tropical Mexico, they may be found in any month.” – Encarta
Michael remembered when he met Janie at a diner on a Memphis spring morning ten years ago. She was 18 and he had just celebrated his 21st birthday the night before. His head felt a little thick, and his eyesight and hearing were not too dependable. She offered him coffee, but he didn’t hear her the first time.
“Hi, I’m Janie. I say, you look like you could use a whole pot instead of a cup,” she said, bending down a little into his line of sight, her scoop-necked tee-shirt allowed a peek of her breasts.
“What?” Oh, yeah. Give me some coffee, please.” There was a caring look in her gray-green eyes.
“I hope it was a good time you had, not a bad one,” she said over her shoulder as she went back to the kitchen.
He watched her sashay away, swinging her tightly jeaned bottom in a deliberate invitation. His head hurt, but not too much to read the proposition. It was 4 AM, and he hadn’t been to sleep all night. His friend, Tim, brought him to Jim Bob’s All-Night Diner for a birthday breakfast, then left him in a booth while he sought out the facilities to relieve a churning stomach. Tim, the sober one, the designated driver, had eaten something during their all-nighter that sent him into the bathroom every twenty minutes. The other partygoers had been dropped at their homes to sleep off the celebration. All five planned to meet again at the racetrack later that day.
“Here you go,” she said when she came back with a pot of coffee, two cups, and a bottle of aspirin.
“How do you want your eggs? With eyes or without?”
“No eggs, just toast.”
“You need protein to sop up some of that barley pop. How about scrambled and a side of country ham?”
“No, I really don’t want eggs. Thanks for the aspirin, though.” He took two pills and swallowed them with some coffee.
“Is your friend coming back?”
“He’s feeling a little rough, but he’ll be back.”
“Shall I bring him eggs, too?”
“Just the toast, toast only.” Michael looked around the restaurant. He was the only customer. He could see the cook through the pass-thru window at the kitchen. A few minutes later, she was back with a plate of scrambled eggs, hash browns, ham, and two plates of toast. She put them down in front of Michael and stood with her hands on her hips.
“Now, you eat as much as you can. The sooner you get something in your tummy, the faster you’ll feel human again.”
“What is your problem? I said I just wanted toast. Take the rest of this back. I’m not paying for what I didn’t order.” His head throbbed at the exertion of making this statement.
The girl slid into the booth across from him. “It’s okay. I paid for it. Just eat what you can, I’ll eat the rest. What’s your name? I’m Janie. I don’t think you heard me when I told you the first time.”
She sat and watched him eat, taking bites off the hash browns herself. The cook yelled at her once to get back to work, and she ignored him. He said he’d call the manager, and she said that was fine.
“You don’t want to lose your job, do you?” Michael asked.
“Not much of a job. I was just doing this until something better came along, and it has.” She looked directly into his eyes and smiled.
Tim came out of the restroom, looking pale green, glistening with sick sweat.
“I can’t drive, old buddy. I’m too fucked up. Can you get us both home?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take you home,” Janie said, taking the car keys Tim held out to Michael. “Hey, Howie. I quit. See ya in the movies.” She undid the apron and laid it on the counter.
The cook came out sputtering oaths. “Damn it! You can’t just quit like that. The breakfast crowd will be starting in a few minutes.”
“Call Shirley. She likes the overtime. Bye.”
She dropped Tim off at his apartment, then took Michael home to sleep off the beer. She sent him out with his friends for the afternoon while she stayed at his apartment. He figured she’d be gone when he got home and was surprised to find a birthday cake, ice cream, and a tiny gray and white kitten when he returned at 9:00 that night.
“What’s with the cat?” asked Michael.
“He was hanging out in the parking lot at the grocery store when I walked over to get the cake mix and ice cream. He said his name was Moses and he was wandering in the wilderness. I decided to bring him home for your birthday. He might not want to stay, but he’ll let us know later.”
They made first time love for hours that night, discovering the pleasures of each other’s bodies.
“Are you homeless?” he asked the next morning.
“Not entirely. I could go back to my Uncle Bill’s, but I’d rather not. His job is done now that I’ve graduated from high school. He is the school drama teacher and a sweet old queen, who loves everything Elvis. But I’m tired of hanging out in fairy land. You will find I’m very useful around the house, I can cook, and I don’t eat much. I do think Moses is homeless, though, so why don’t we offer him a permanent gig?”
She and Moses stayed with him for the next year. She exaggerated the ‘I can cook’ part of her resume. She was good at boxed cakes and boiled hot dogs, but Michael decided to do most of the real cooking. Nevertheless, she didn’t eat much, and she was handy around the house. She could fix any appliance that got sideways, and she was fun between the sheets.
Janie had no end of interesting stories to tell of her adventures as an orphan in the custody of various relatives and near-relatives. She was born in Texas but lived all over the U.S. Her parents were murdered in a home invasion when she was six. She witnessed it from a hiding place in a closet through the louvers on the door. The effects of that trauma were still showing up in her life, even though she had been cared for by a loving family.
“They all tell family stories from a different point of view, and the heroes and villains change depending on the narrator. I’ve been shuffled around several states. I have a very complex view of my family.”
Janie got a job at a craft store while he continued working at the local newspaper and finished his degree in creative writing. She bought materials for painting and showed him on canvas the colorful world that was in her head. She said she had painted since she was a little girl, and it was as important to her as breathing. He read her his poetry and introduced her to his parents.
Then one day, he came home from work to find a note.
Gone Greyhound back to Texas, maybe, it read. I’ll call when I find out where I am. Moses will keep you company until then. Love, Janie
That was the first of her escapes.
“I wasn’t abused or a sex slave or anything exotic,” she once told him. “My relatives were good to me, but because of one circumstance or another, no one could give me a permanent home, so I was passed around. I lived with five families until I stayed with Uncle Bill, who got me through high school. I’ve been on my own for a while now. Aunt Betty in Louisiana was my favorite. She bought my first art supplies when I was ten and encouraged me to draw and paint. She gave me my passion.”
Michael thought Janie would eventually settle, and they might even get married, but like a nomadic butterfly, she would only light for a short time, then fly off again. They rarely fought, and she never left mad. She seemed to have little capacity for anger. He never knew why she left. She just left.
It was to Texas that he first followed her, a little town called Canyon. And it was in Texas that they acquired the goddess-mobile. It started life as a used 1982 Toyota truck with a camper shell. Inside the camper, Jane hung beaded curtains, made devotional alters for her Buddha, golden plastic Ganesh, serene Vishnu, and an eclectic collection of saints. She was ready for any possibility, if the hereafter came calling.
Michael installed a foldout bed, camper-sized refrigerator, and a sink with a 50-gallon water tank. He put in outlets for a microwave and hotplate. In the cab, Janie glued statues of saints, Joseph and Francis, a St. Christopher medal, a plush Garfield with rosary beads around his neck, assorted rocks, leaves, and seeds she collected in her travels, on a piece of green faux fur that covered the dash. She painted designs and quotes around the outside of the truck and camper:
“In Goddess We Trust”
“In the morning, I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta…Henry David Thoreau
“I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but now I see I should have been more specific.” — Lily Tomlin
“Mediocrity thrives on standardization.” “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.” “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” — William James “Reality is just one of my many options.”
They used the goddess-mobile for camping trips and inspirational journeys to cleanse their minds from everyday humdrum. Michael drove the Camry his father bought him after college, and Janie had custody of the truck. It amused him when curious strangers approached Janie when she parked her unique vehicle near a grocery store or in a shopping mall. He knew she loved the attention.
Michael got a job again with a small local newspaper, and Janie taught crafts at an elderly care center. Moses kept his people supplied with affection and dead rodents.
“Mrs. Whipple, our ninety-year-old Scrabble champion, has a sharp tongue on her,” said Janie one day after she came home from the center. “She scolded me today in front of the entire ‘Natural Materials for Greeting Cards’ class for living in sin. She said a woman’s only security is a good marriage, and why wouldn’t my young man commit to me?”
“And what did you tell her?” asked Michael.
“I said commitment is for institutions, and I wouldn’t put anyone I love in an institution.”
It felt like a normal life to Michael, and after nearly three years, he had begun thinking in terms of marriage.
“Janie, why don’t we get married?”
“Is that a proposal or a real question?”
“Well.”
“Well.”
“Okay. Janie, will you marry me?”
“Nope. But I’ll love you to the end of my days on this planet and beyond.”
“I think we should get married.”
“I don’t.”
“What’s your reason?”
“No reason in particular, but ‘no’ wins the discussion – no marriage. I don’t see the point. People get married to please other people. We’re happy just the way we are. Aren’t we?” She gave him a meaningful stare.
“I think people get married because they want to tell the world they promise to share the rest of their lives and love together.”
“Let’s hire a sky-writer.”
“Don’t be flip. I’m serious. I think we should consider the idea. What about having children? We’ve never talked about it before. Do you want to have kids?”
“Maybe. I don’t hear your parents clambering for an official ceremony and grandchildren from your loins. I think they secretly hope that you will eventually find some nice girl and have a real family.”
“What makes you think they don’t like you?”
“Oh, I think they like me, okay. But I don’t think I’m a prime prospect for official daughter-in-law. I’m not like Judy or Helen, your brothers’ wives. I’m a little too out there for them.”
“They treat you with the same respect as they treat Brad and Mark’s wives. They love you. They always talk about how clever you are, and talented. They hung that huge picture you painted them for Christmas last year in the living room for all to see. I think showing off a picture of persimmon, teal, and gold coyotes prowling a shopping mall is telling the world they approve of the painter.”
“It matched the throw pillows on their white leather couch.”
The next day, he came home to find the note.
Need to see evergreen trees and mountains. I’ll call you when I find them. Love, Janie.
She took the goddess-mobile and left Moses.
This is part of a short story about Michael and his wandering love, Janie. The story continues in the next post.
In a recent Oro Valley Writers’ Forum meeting, we were given a prompt to write for five minutes from the point of view of an object. Prompts are always fun challenges for me, so I put pencil to paper and began. This is my short short story from the POV of an object.
I’m always the last to know what was for dinner. I get the detritus of the meal. I can only surmise how good it tasted or sometimes I am really happy I missed it all altogether. Those goopey gravy-laden things are not my favorites. Hard to choke down. On the other hand, I really don’t appreciate the crusty stuff that I have to scrub, or else I hear Madame complain that she will have to replace me. I do my best. I welcome the well-rinsed pot and plate.
Then there are the glasses – don’t get me started. Young master drinks milk, then lets the glass sit without rinsing, and a hard ring forms at the bottom. How am I supposed to get that out?? I don’t have fingers, you know – nothing that can reach in and rub the ring away. Again, I get grief for my performance because the glass doesn’t sparkle in the sunshine. Oh my, it is a hard life.
I overheard one of Madame’s friends talk about how she has neverused her appliance for washing dishes. Her husband has somewhat of a drinking problem, but she enjoys a tipple now and again. Her appliance holds all the liquor in her house, so her husband won’t find it. He would NEVER think of opening the dishwasher.
As it happened, the last thing I did before leaving the house that morning was to turn on our dishwasher. It was the first thing I thought of when given this prompt. Try it yourself. Write a short essay or poem from the point of view of an inanimate object and see what happens.
We live amidst a variety of birds that visit our yard daily. Some are seasonal visitors, and some stick it out through hot or cold, sweltering sun, monsoon rain, or winter snow. The doves are the latter. They are always here.
Our yard backs to a nature preserve that used to be a golf course. Substantial old mesquite trees line the edge of the preserve. Rising above the other trees and brush, they are lookout posts for birds. Doves wait patiently in the top branches for me to put birdseed on top of five block fence pillars each morning. Then they swoop down, and the seeds disappear within minutes. If the doves are slow, smaller birds will start their feast.
The gentle cooing of the Mourning Dove is soothing. We hear the more aggressive sounds of the White Wing Dove – still a coo but stronger with an emphasis on the beginning sound. The White Winged dove is slightly larger and more decorous than the mourning dove. White Winged Doves have light gray bodies with white stripes on their wings and, when they fly, rounded tails sport white feathered fans. The smaller mourning doves are drab gray-brown with black spots and have narrow black tails, but their wistful call is so much sweeter.
We enjoy the gleeful cheeps and tweets of other birds, most of which I have not identified. Harris Hawk sounds like the beginning of a baby cry that stops abruptly. She is the dark presence of a predator in our benign assemblage. She is beautiful, however, and oh so clever.
My favorite of all time is the Mockingbird. Their chatter is a symphony of sounds, sometimes a birdy twitter, sometimes a hammer, then a barking dog. When our mockingbird visits, we are entertained for as long as he wants to stay. I never leave the backyard as long as he is around. He used to visit often, but it has been over a year since we’ve seen or heard him in the backyard. I heard him this morning, as I walked through the Preserve, so I know he and his cohorts are still around.
We are blessed with little hummers too. I believe they are the variety called Anna’s Hummingbird. They are mostly green and gray, but some have a reddish head. The females are gray-brown with a bit of white on them. They are attracted to anything red. When Ken wears his red ball cap outside, they come to investigate his head. They hang around the lemon tree when it is in bloom. They rise and dive through the air in a birdy ballet.
Doves signify peace, hope, and spiritual purity in many cultures worldwide. To the Greeks, they were holy animals of Aphrodite. To the Jews, they represent God’s holy spirit after the flood. The Cheyenne people of North America had a saying, “If a man is as wise as a serpent, he can afford to be as harmless as a dove,” the equivalent of “speak softly but carry a big stick.” In Hinduism, the Inca Dove represents love and spiritual peace. Doves are used as a universal symbol of peace at international gatherings.
Those folks have not met Lefty.
Lefty is a white wing dove. He is at our back fence nearly every day. We sit on the patio with our morning coffee to watch the coming and going of our bird neighbors. We identified Lefty because he is arguably the major antithesis of a peaceful bird. When he flies in to join other birds, he shoos them off by lifting his left wing and pushing at them until they move or fly away. Mourning doves and small birds skitter when he lands. Even our cardinals who are more his size, leave after he knocks them with his wing a couple of times. The only bird I’ve seen stand up to Lefty is a Gambel Quail. They are roughly half again his size. He doesn’t back down readily but if push comes to shove, their shove is mightier.
The Cactus Wrens are chatty birds, and they are here year-round. They don’t fight, but they are active, flitting from pillar to pillar, staying out of Lefty’s way. They raise their bold voices to scold the other birds, but they don’t get physical. I love to watch them scale the side of the block fence. When other birds are landing on the top, the cactus wren will hop up the wall sideways.
When a local Harris Hawk comes to visit, Lefty along with ALL the birds disappears in a furious burst of winged agitation.
Every now and then, Harris sits on our fence waiting for her breakfast. She knows a dove will eventually come out of hiding. Doves, not known for their smarts, are very low on the food chain. They are the perfect size for a hawk’s meal. Harris has to work harder to get a quail, but I’ve witnessed one being devoured by her.
As I watched one day, Harris patiently observed the Preserve from our back fence. She was waiting for the right morsel to break her nighttime fast. She watched the trees, then cocked her head, looking to the ground. I think she was ready for anything feathered or furred to move. After fifteen minutes, several of the smallest birds came out of hiding, flashing their feathered finery and darting through the branches of trees right in front of her. Instinctively, they knew they were safe because they weren’t even a mouthful for the predator. They acted like a motley crew of comedians, skipping, fluttering and dipping through the tree limbs as if putting on a show. They sat directly in her line of sight as if to say, “ha-ha, catch me if you can.” Of course, it would have been easy for Harris to pick off one of those jeering birds, but the nourishment acquired would not compensate for the energy expended. Harris is no fool. Harris turned her head to look at me as I videoed the scene from my patio, off and on for over an hour, as if to say, “I’m the star of this flick, right?” Finally, a furry creature, I think was a mouse, possibly a pack rat, darted through the underbrush and swoop went Harris. When she flew away, I could see the small meaty creature in her talons, destined to be her morning repast.
We don’t have to leave home to find amusement. We have an endless display of nature to enchant us, especially the charming members of the bird kingdom.
I love to write to prompts. Quick stories, handwritten in a limited amount of time, jump-start the right side of my brain. The windows to my imagination are flung open and words fly freely onto the page. They are untethered to logic, only conforming to the guidelines of the prompt. Often, I am taken by surprise at the words that leave my pencil and show up on the page. Most of the time, they are zany musings, sometimes the beginning of a story to develop later, and sometimes a dark force compels a tragedy. Occasionally, nonsense dribbles out, and I find it hard to follow the labyrinth of thoughts. I am always in awe of the process and its revelations. The following story popped up when given ten minutes to write a scene from three different points of view.
The Scene: A female hitchhiker is dropped off at an emergency room with a problem. Tell the scene from the POV of the nurse, the patient, and a hospital administrator.
Nurse POV:
A young miss came into the ER early this morning with a problem. One I haven’t seen in my twenty-four years of nursing. She had been hitchhiking along Highway I-10 from Mobile on her way to Jacksonville, Florida. Her thumb was the size and color of a pickle, not dill, more like a large sweet. She didn’t appear to be in pain, and the rest of her hand looked quite normal and pink, but she complained that since the weather had turned cold, it had been impossible to put on her gloves. I took her vitals, then sent for Dr. Shambala, who was on call. He came in and examined the majestic, inflated digit with no discernible dismay.
His only question to her was, “Is it easy to get rides with that thing?”
To which she replied, “Actually, it comes in handy.”
“Well then, no surgery,” he said. “I think the answer is to buy larger stretchy gloves. I wouldn’t want to inhibit your travels or your gardening.”
I discreetly took a photo of her thumb. I wanted to show it to Hiram, our hospital admin. We had a meeting just last week about the anomalies of the human body and how to address those issues.
Patient POV:
My thumb had been bothering me for several days. Snow and sleet had become an everyday occurrence, even though I had consciously chosen a southern route for my winter journeys. My gloves just didn’t fit anymore. My thumb was getting larger and was really, really cold. I hitched a ride on a pig wagon to the nearest ER. It was a twenty-mile ride, but the farmer was swell. He asked me about my thumb, and I told him it was the reason I needed to see a doctor.
“Going to have it cut off?” he asked.
“Heavens no,” I replied, “just wonder if it could be made a little smaller for my gloves.”
In the emergency room, the doctor asked the obvious question. “How did it happen?”
It’s not the first time that question has come up. I get tired of the same old answer, “I was born this way”, so I told him I was picking crops in Mexico and got a cut, and the juice from the pickles I was picking dripped in, and lo and behold, I woke up with a pickle-sized green thumb.
The nurse at the ER looked a little disconcerted, but kept her cool, and the doctor suggested I get larger gloves for my travels.
“We wouldn’t want to impede your traveling abilities. It clearly is a significant benefit to your lifestyle.
As I was leaving, a sour-looking gentleman, round as a wine keg, came up and asked that I go with him to his office. I did, thinking he might have a suggestion for my thumb. I found out he was a pervert with a title and a fancy office. He wanted to suck my pickle. I left without “goodbye.”
Hospital Administrator POV:
Nurse Nancy came to my office this morning with a photo she took of one of our ER patients. That’s strictly forbidden, but when I saw the photo, I understood her motivation. The girl had a thumb the size of a juicy green pickle. I had given a mini-seminar to the staff about physical anomalies and injuries they could encounter in a rural hospital; everything from nails in the head or hand, to animal parts embedded in human parts – enough said. The thumb picture triggered something in me, and I had to go down to see it in person. The young lady was just leaving the ER. I asked her to come up to my office for a chat. She obliged, but when the door closed, a powerful urge overcame me. I just had to taste that thumb. I had been a thumb sucker up to the age of fifteen when the shame heaped upon me by my peers finally inhibited the craving, and I quit cold turkey. The girl was offended by my request to suck her thumb and left in a huff. I wished her well on her journey and hope she has a dilly of a life.
Just as I wrote in my blog post about Captain Hershey on January 29, 2024, words have consequences. I had three interactions with then Officer Hershey in a two-year period. The first contact was the most impactful. He was the epitome of what a policeman is. He understood in the deepest way what it means to serve and protect, and the power he had to serve with his words, not with physical interactions.
If Officer Hershey had given me a speeding ticket and sent me on my way that morning, I would have paid the ticket, cursed under my breath, forgotten him, and probably sped down the hill again. Instead, he told me with his words that I mattered, that my speeding had consequences beyond the law. In short, he said, “Do you love your husband? Call him and take him to lunch. It will cost what this ticket should cost. Tell him you are sorry for endangering yourself.” I was immediately taken from the momentary annoyance of getting a traffic ticket to the bigger picture. My speeding on a hazardous road had consequences for someone other than me. I was endangering myself and impacting my husband. His words made a huge difference. I never went down that hill again (safely, I might add) without thinking of Officer Hershey and his words.
As a young mother, I occasionally told my kids exaggerated stories to make a point. One day, when they were about five, seven, and nine, I was talking about being self-sufficient. I think I was trying to show them how to make their own lunches. I said in an offhand way that when they turned twelve, they would be out of the house and had to prepare for it. I said they would be on their own. Our oldest understood the hyperbole, our youngest didn’t really care and blew it off, but our sensitive middle child took it to heart. Days and years passed, and on our eldest daughter’s eleventh birthday, I found Shari in her room crying.
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to help me get ready for Karen’s birthday party?”
“I feel so bad,” she said.
“Why?”
“She only has one more year to live with us.”
“What?”
“She has to leave when she is twelve. That’s what you told us.”
Click click click went my brain. I very vaguely remembered saying something like that. I never thought any of them would take it seriously, and think we would really kick them out of the house. At first, I thought it was funny that she believed me, then I realized she had lived with the burden of my words for two years. What kind of monster would hurt their own child with that kind of threat? Shari was devastated, and so was I. It took a lot of hugs and reassurances from both my husband and me to let her know she would determine when she wanted to move out at some point in the future. She said she would NEVER leave us. A smile returned to her pretty face, and her heart was lighter. The birthday party was on, and everyone was happy.
It is critical for all of us to choose our words, whether written or spoken, with care. We can impact someone for good or ill. That’s not to say you can never be critical, but there are words that can help even when you have a negative message.
wonkagranny 