a real page turner

From C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle:

And as he spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.

You can read more about the events of a year ago here.

spelunker

After a hard week of soundtrack work in Nashville for Shop Girl, her swelling belly brought about a rabid desire for nesting.  Homeward bound – nothing was going to stop my Fast for a minute longer than a necessary pee and some peanut butter crackers for sustenance.  Early morning fog softened the vistas through Tennessee and Kentucky taking me to places long forgotten but dreamy in the recesses of my memory.

Vacations for Billy were generally spent close to home doing the things to keep the house in repair…painting inside and out.  Finances never allowed those fantasy vacays to Disney.  But somewhere along the line, I don’t suppose I was more than 7 or 8 (sibling memories could help here), we headed South.

One of our stops was at the famous stables of the Kentucky Downs racetrack.  I was thoroughly entrenched in that love-of-horse phase that so many pigtailed girls go through and I still remember the marvel of the sleek chestnut bodies and silky black manes towering over me.  The wonder of wonder was being allowed to stop in the souvenir shop and three items were purchased specifically for me.  Somehow I recall some whining from the bro/sis combo to the tune of, “She’s a spoiled brat!” and “Who cares about dumb horses anyway! I just want to get home!”… if I was about a 3rd grader – that made them tweens and what is worse than being stuck in the backseat of a family car with no air conditioning, dvd player, radio or space for that matter.  This was sometime before 1965 or so, people!

But the pièce de résistance of that trip was a tour of the Mammoth Cave.  I am not even sure if that was actually our final destination or just another stop along the way.  Regardless, it marked me for life.  Fear gripped me as we began the steep descent into the bowels of the earth.  Shivers worked up my spine not just from the change of temperature but from the mere fact that I was being held captive by tons of limestone.

Eyes wide open, peering down crevices that could swallow me whole – my heart pounding so loudly in my chest it buzzed in my ears…once all senses adjusted, it became the most spectacularly magical space.  Colored lights highlighted the stalactites and stalagmites.  Underground rivers flowed silently by into inky black. Musty, dank air hung thick.

When Best Boy and Shop Girl were about that same age we read George MacDonald’s children’s fantasy novel  The Princess and the Goblin and its sequel The Princess and Curdie out loud around the dinner table.  MacDonald launches into his ideas of mountains and caves within the first pages of the second book:

A mountain is a strange and awful thing.  In old times, without knowing so much of their strangeness and awfulness as we do, people were yet more afraid of mountains.  But then somehow they had not come to see how beautiful they are as well as awful, and they hated them – and what people hate they must fear.  Now that we have learned to look at them with admiration, perhaps we do not feel quite awe enough to them.  To me they are beautiful terrors.

He continues a few paragraphs later,

All this outside the mountain!  But the inside, who shall tell what lies there!  Caves of awfullest solitude, their walls miles thick, sparkling with ores of gold or silver, copper or iron, tin or mercury, studded perhaps with precious stones – perhaps a brook, with eyeless fish in it, running, running ceaselessly, cold and babbling, through banks crusted with carbuncles and golden topazes, or over a gravel of which some of the stones arc rubies and emeralds, perhaps diamonds and sapphires – who can tell? – and whoever can’t tell is free to think – all waiting to flash, waiting for millions of ages – ever since the earth flew off from the sun, a great blot of fire, and began to cool.

Not too many months later, we found ourselves on a sweltering day under a blistering Washington D.C. sun, queuing up at the Smithsonian with Shop Girl and Best Boy in a full melt down.  Once inside we mapped out our visit including my one MUST SEE.

We were ushered into a room where all the lights were turned off and told to stand in the center and wait.  Suddenly, the recessed display cases set deep into the walls like mini caverns were set ablaze and sparkled with the most gorgeous display of gems in every color of the rainbow – exposed from where they had been hidden miles below the earth’s surface for centuries.  Suddenly the deep underworld of Curdie, the miner’s son, was brilliantly brought to reality.

Caves.  Me.  Facing fear.  Getting choked by the demons of claustrophobia or delighting in spelunking to discover precious veins buried deep within?  That is where my mind has taken me in the last few days.  Sparked by a conversation on the porch with Shop Girl and Mimi about facing our greatest fears and finding buried deep within ourselves those treasures – valuable resources – veins of gold and silver that steel our souls and weave through us – belying the hard, gray exterior that can seem cold to the touch.  Who are we really – deep in the core?

During my treks back and forth to Indiana over the weekends of the last few years, I had spent a good deal of time fearing the death of my father.  How was I going to face that?  What would it look like?  Feel like?  I planned the funeral in my head.  I talked through eulogies.  I wrote in notebooks while I drove.  What would his face look like when the real Billy was headed through the ceiling of the room that confined his physical body?  How would the Mrs. survive?

We have crawled through some dark twisty passageways this year.  The Mrs.’ voice echos off the walls.  But the thrill of every caver’s life is finding yet another tunnel, another underground waterway, another secret grotto – slogging through the mud and muck to chart new passages. These twelve months have been that journey for me.  Sometimes coming out into a wide space – a chamber – where standing upright I blindly pat the perimeters of the hard space. Other days I find myself crawling on my belly – squeezing through impossibly tight spaces.

So here’s to facing fears and finding the gemstones hidden deep within.  New adventures, new discoveries, new pains, new joys await. It takes hours of tumbling in the grit for the shine of those stones to come to light. Keeping my headlamp burning bright and forging ahead – daring fear to block my way.

After weeks of spelunking in Billy’s basement with all its similarities to the Mammoth Cave, I feel like yesterday my eyes had become so adjusted to the filtered gray light that I finally looked up and could almost see three of the four walls.  I have dug deep this year – quite literally – and as each layer is uncovered, I am in awe of the precious gems I keep unearthing.  Do you still have all your marbles?  I sure don’t.

Just in case you are lying around today with nothing better to do and you’ve never read MacDonald’s books you can read them here and here for free on line.  No need to even get off the couch.  Thank you Google.

marking time

First time visitors to Billy’s breezeway are always taken back by the sight of two headstones – both from 1863 marking two deaths in one family less than 10 days apart – a father and a daughter.  I don’t know their stories but I have this sneaking suspicion that I will soon enough – either real or imagined…the stuff of stories and novels.

Right now we are working on another marker of someone who’s story we did know well.  The walkways that lead to the main doors of the hospice center where Billy spent his last two weeks are paved with inscribed bricks that serve as mini-markers to the pain and loss of hundreds of families.  It was one of the things the Mrs. wanted to be sure to do before time moves on.

Now that we are facing Spring and the formal headstone at the cemetery is set – she wants to get this one done too.  As I went over to hospice last week to review the kinds of words people had used to honor their loved ones – I needed something more.  Something that was more Billy – “2good2B4gotten” just doesn’t cut it.

I’m not planning a public vote on this – but I would appreciate your feedback.  I’m not even sure we can get it all to fit but I wondered about a quote by one of the Mrs.’ favorite authors – George MacDonald.   

Love is the opener as well as the closer of eyes.

Something that speaks to how he lived and died and an intrinsic value he held all those days he walked here between those two markers.  What think thee?

this again?

I’ll be the first to admit that I am often stuck in a rut when in comes to creative meals but seriously?  I know…one is the flavor of the day…and the other is an entrée but just seeing them together this way made me laugh.

Billy was a MickeyD’s kinda guy but she’s stepped it up to Culver’s.  Yes, you can tell me how bad it is for her and how she shouldn’t eat one a week – but at 82…if she wants a single deluxe…I get her a single deluxe basket with onion rings, by the way!

It was another daytrip for me – squeezing in my job as a pharmacist, supervisor of water softener salt, garbage man, accountant and grocery shopper- into just a few hours. Another task came my way unexpectedly which delayed my return trip north by a number of hours.

A week ago she had a call from a friend asking about the experience with hospice. Ruth Ann’s husband’s time at the hospital had come to an end and hospice had been suggested. The Mrs. felt good about being able to just share her perspectives on the subject.  

A couple of different times during the past week, she got in her car and drove over to the hospice center see her friend but missed her each time.  I was proud – the courage it must take to re-enter the space where she’d just said good-bye to her life partner of 60 years-to walk beside another facing the same situation. Ruth Ann’s time there with her husband only lasted a week and he died on Valentine’s Day.

So, when I walked into the house yesterday at around 11 a.m. the Mrs. was all dressed and ready to go to the viewing.  She’d mixed up the times and it wasn’t until late afternoon in a neighboring city about 15 miles away.  Anytime I think about her driving more than the 3 miles, in town-to church, I get nervous.  I just have to deep breathe and remember that I’ve lived through this before with young teen drivers a dozen years ago and can do it again. But if I can save myself one ounce of worry by taking the trip with her, I will.

The hours until the viewing were passed with lunch and my buzzing through my list of things to check on.  We got in the car and I was at her mercy to direct me to the funeral home.  She had no doubt how to get there. One of the good things is that Billy taught her to back road.  If there is a county road that goes in the same direction…it is always the preferred route.  That was some comfort knowing that she was going to be driving this route again in a few days for another outing on her busy social calendar.

She’s still sharp enough to know her way around and her directions were impeccable. I let her off at the front door, helped her inside then sat out in a parking lot watching couples in their 70’s and 80’s tetter in – along with lots of single elderly women.  I waited almost an hour before sneaking in to make sure she’d not passed out somewhere.  There she was – sitting with her famous “Lunch Bunch”…all high school friends that try to get together once a month for a gathering.  She was saddened to learn that since Billy’s death, two or three of her friends have also lost their husbands.  It’s a new club…they may all be widowed…or soon to be.  Ruth Ann – the latest inductee.

In the twenty minute ride back to her house, she told me about six different times that two or three of her friends had been widowed since Billy’s death.  I just listened and acknowledged each declaration as if it had been the first.  I knew her brain was on overload.  Then she launched into memories of Billy’s funeral – she doesn’t remember much save staring into the stoic yet tear-stained faces of her grandsons as they stood behind the flag draped coffin. And she remembers being “tickled pink” that her grandkids dragged her outside for a group picture that she cherishes with all her heart.

Our little adventure was over.  I got her back inside and settled for the night before my own return trip north as the sun was hanging low in the sky.  It had been great little detour.  More time to process.  More time to talk.  One less outing that I’ll fret over her taking the car out alone.

This week she’ll be taking those keys in her hand alot.  Today is the funeral, then she’ll skip the burial to head off to a luncheon for the seniors at church. On Thursday, she’ll drive the route we did over the country road another 15 miles to where she’ll meet one of her Lunch Bunch ladies.  They’ll carpool (with the other one driving) to a restaurant where they’ll meet up with the others. 

I’ll try and not stare at the clock all day…waiting for her call late in the afternoon and breathe a sigh of relief that she’s home safe and sound.  She’ll tell me that two or three of the ladies have lost their husbands since Billy died and I’ll act as if it is the first time I’m hearing the news.

optics

My maternal grandfather was a watchmaker.  Half of the “livingroom” of his itty bitty tiny trailer was taken up by his wooden workbench.  Half-blinded by cataracts, he was no longer working when he lived there that I know of…but the workbench was still the center piece of his life.  Staying overnight was an adventure, amusing myself by going through all those little drawers and tinkering with all the tools and half assembled watches.  

Of all the gadgets, springs and gears living in those drawers but by far, my favorite were the magnifying glasses. All kinds of them – eye pieces, hand-helds, big, little, the whole gamut.  Making the tiny look huge was just as much fun as looking through the opposite end of binoculars to make things look like they were a million miles away.  OK – so I’m easily amused.  But I’ve often wondered if all those early experiments with lenses imprinted on me my love of looking through a camera’s viewfinder and manipulating the optics to bring things into sharp focus. If I had my druthers, I’d always choose portrait work over landscapes…coming up closer on things – magnifying life, not broad sweeping vistas.  

Keeping my focus on the task at hand isn’t always as entertaining as playing with those lenses when I was six.  It had been exactly seven days since I’d been here. The weather had been horrid and gray and freezing.  I was reveling in being all alone in my space – all alone. But her voice cracked over the phone when I asked a question. She was being brave but it was getting to her.  

I changed my plans but didn’t tell her.  There is no reason to have her worrying about whether or not the roads are snowy.  And they weren’t anyway.  But when we quietly share this space – she speaks her mind.  Things come to the surface and she tells me why last week was so hard.  Post-non-61st anniversary she was surprised at church when the year-in-review flashed up a photo of the two of them from a few years back – followed by a long, too quiet, winter week.  Grieving is in focus.

I will leave in the morning because there is a very special package being delivered to my northern door step the day after tomorrow…and I’ll have new lenses – ones free of the Sahara sands gritting in their guts – to play with. Trusty little point-and-shoot is on an exotic vacation and has been pried from my grip.  There are those who want me to get serious again about getting behind the viewfinder.

So here’s to new focus – be it magnified hours of loneliness or sweeping new vistas I record on a memory card.

grave blankets?

“Oh good, you’re here.  I was just about to go to Remus Farms and get a grave blanket.  I got this coupon out of the paper.”

I hadn’t even closed the door behind me.  My mind reeling trying to add up the words to form a picture – grave + blanket.  The day after I left last week she got word that the headstone had been set.  I really didn’t expect to hear before Spring.  But it was an early Christmas gift of sorts.  Needless to say, she was anxious to see the real deal and know that their spot is carved out with no uncertainty as to where they are parked!

She gives me directions to the fruit stand/farm market and I’m delighted to know it is about 20 minutes away.  We get to the intersection of where she expects it to be…and Remus is NOT the name on the sign. Luckily she had jotted their phone number on the coupon that was going to get her a free poinsettia with the purchase of the grave blanket.  We weren’t too far off track – just had to cross the road into the next county.

We were directed to the back of the mostly empty farm stand to the display of blankets.  The best description of what I saw is a mound of evergreens about six feet long properly bedazzled for the season with a price tag of some $75. “Mom, you know he’s not cold right?”    

More investigation led us to see the pillows, baby pillows and wreaths. WHAT?  I got the wreaths but the evergreen poofs with big huge bows on the top???  Not buying it. But what do I know about grave decor.

It was totally her call.  She had brought along a stash of cash she’d been hiding from my dad for who knows how long.  No expense was to be spared. She kept talking out loud about which one she thought my dad would like all the while I was screaming inside that I thought he’d “Bah, humbug!” all of them.

Slowly but surely we determined that too much flash was not Billy’s vibe.  So a simple wreath was her choice because the plaid bow that made it all so Celtic to her.

By the time we got back cross-county the sun was hanging low in the sky. The stone was totally covered by snow and even brushing it off left the engraving filled.  It struck me as we stood there what a perfect place this was to lay him to rest – he is still doing one of his favorite things even in death…sitting out watching the cars and trucks go by on the highway as the sun goes down.

 

 

 

 

 

only 525,600?

Exactly one year ago yesterday, I took this photo.  Just a year – just a series of seconds that became minutes, minutes that ticked away into hours, hours into days and here we are today. So many things have changed and so many just the same as they were twelve months ago. 

I can waste so many minutes in a day or I can take a few and do something that is really important and meaningful. That is the really tricky part of managing my life. I’d like to be more careful in the next 525,600 minutes to do the right things.  A balance of minutes that nourish me and minutes that care for those around me in a million little ways to let them know they are loved and esteemed. 

Because we all know that our lives can change in a second…

When I get a…

I don’t even feel like writing and I take that as a sign that I should.  There are only 15 minutes left till the 25th is officially history.  I wasn’t even tracking on what day it was today until late this evening she drew my attention to it.  A month has gone by and today I feel pretty overwhelmed.

She wanted to go to George’s for breakfast – it was strange to be there without Billy.  George wasn’t even there so she couldn’t personally give him the little card thingy from the funeral.  We left it with the other guy and hope he gives it to him.  Maybe it was being there again that silently set the tone of the day.

I thought I’d be responsible and proactive by fixing the outdoor sconce first thing so soon as we got back home,  I had it taken it down and taken apart. Ninety percent of the project went off without a hitch.  But before long I found myself in the garage and in the basement staring at his work bench looking for specific things I couldn’t fine.  Finally, two more trips to the hardware store and four hours of work lead to so much frustration that by early afternoon,  I called an electrician’s shop and took the stupid thing in to have them fix it.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t figure out how to repair it, it was just a simple logistical matter that got me in the end.

I knew I should get something else accomplished…something significant.  But I had been sabotaged early on.  Looking for what I “needed” and seeing all the things I need to sort through – I hit a wall.  A big wall.  One that reminds me that there is plenty of work to be had around here.  

It’s not lost on me that I was so energized last week by reading someone else’s blog about organizing their work space.  This is my work space. I’ll start with the four boxes method:  Goodwill, garbage, keep and the “Oh God what do I do with this now” box.  I have to be disciplined and remember that this didn’t get here in a day (more like 41 years!) and it’s not going to be taken care of in a day. There will be days that I will be able to do alot…and there will be days that I don’t do much.  I’m really very grateful that she doesn’t have to do this alone.  

I found myself in the basement wishing a dumpster would magically appear in the driveway accompanied by six strong men without bad backs – like the kind you can hire outside the Home Depot on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles for a song and a dance ‘coz they are just thrilled to find “work”.  People I don’t know – but people I can boss – people that won’t engage me in conversation or distract me.  But they aren’t here…

Or someone that walks behind me snapping digital pictures that are automatically uploaded to eBay with the perfect descriptions and eager buyers already bidding by the time it is posted.  There really is a gold mine here.  But do I have the patience, time or energy to recognize it all?  If the group from Antique Roadshow would just pull up outside they could tape 10 episodes for sure.

Tomorrow is another day.  The day after the day he died a month ago.  Supposedly that will make the 25th of next month easier.  Maybe I will have made so much progress by then I will feel better. But for now, I’m officially giving myself permission to take this a baby step at a time and say …it’ll get done when I get a round tuit.

…a thousand words.

Need I say more?

empty nest

Fox News – CNN – the Weather Channel – MSNBC all have enough to report today to keep her glued to her chair…just where she needs to be.  Well actually she’s moved over to his chair – but that is good.  A phone call from one of her oldest friends in California who just had to have her husband taken to an Alzheimers residential facility makes us grateful – even now.  The things we aren’t facing giving us some strange consolation.  Lunch glued to the tube – then a nap for an hour and a half…followed by a “Jon and Kate Plus 8” marathon.Even watching this is something that couldn’t be done just a few weeks ago.  It was too much visual/audio stimulation.

Later in the afternoon a visit to a friend in the hospital that couldn’t come to the funeral.  A quick dinner at Culver’s with no napkins to go, no extra ketchup or mustard packets to put in the fidge at home. Going and doing with one instead of two is quite the change.  

This is life – it keeps rolling.  Everyone that was here for the events of the last few weeks are settled back snug as bugs in a rug in their own beds.  I can’t help but look at the clock and think back to what I would have been doing at this time of the day just a month ago.  Late afternoons were the worst – no matter how easy the day had been.  Multiple times a day she mentions how relieved she is that he’s not suffering any more.

She thinks through possibilities of re-purposing spaces in the house – little projects long forgotten because she picked her battles wisely. The apple cart was so delicate – one dared not upset it.   In random conversations she mentions social outings that she is putting on her calendar. She won’t have to worry about coming home in the dark to find him sitting outside in the rain with a flashlight waiting for her to come home…the storm had frightened him and he was anxious for her to get home.  With each passing day it seems like she gets “lighter”.  These declining years were heavy.  She carried it more than I’ll ever know.  

We talked about one of my dad’s best friends who’s wife came to the wake alone – she can’t take him out any more.  She was glad that is all over for Billy.  She wondered if he was playing softball up there – no shortness of breath, flashing that grin, cracking jokes, knowing everyone’s names and of course able to run the bases after hitting a solid line drive. There will be good days and sad days there will be life in the empty nest.