Thanksgiving Approaches

Four more sleeps from now, to be exact.

Be it known I have much that I am thankful for, of which I will cite only two things: 1. That about 12 people from the Park Center Ward came yesterday and raked up all my leaves; 2. Mostly and always, my family. It's a right bunch of people. Strange, as we know, but funny and bright and good.

I believe some of my family will come to my house for turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day. They'll bring side dishes and such. We'll visit and eat and draw names for the Christmas gift exchange. We've done it all before. Pretty traditional. Nothing terribly exciting and nothing disconcerting, I hope.

We'll mention Wayne, no doubt, probably comment on the Pumpkin Pie, which I will likely buy at Costco. It will be good, I'm sure, but it won't be his, and that is certainly worth a mention. But I expect we'll have a fine time together, probably eat too much, maybe even talk about what we're all thankful for. Just kidding.

Keeping Up

Standing in the check-out line at Winco yesterday, I heard someone call my name. It was George Huff, recent widower of Gretta. She was 96 when she died two months ago; George is 13 years younger, as he used to like to mention--before she died--and for the last three or more years has done everything, which he also liked to mention. "And I mean everything," he would say, "inside the house and outside. It's wearing me out."

Toward the last, he couldn't keep up with all that needed to be done, so they had someone come in for a while in the mornings. Hospice, I suppose.

Since her death George has cried a lot. I have seen it, how it comes over him unexpected, and have been sad for him but glad he misses her. I mean, doing everything did not wear out his love--that it would not may seem obvious, but I mention it anyway.

Yesterday he was chipper, chatty, his usual self, and he offered to take me for my basal cell surgery Wednesday--with his daughter Carolyn, of course, because it wouldn't be proper for just the two of us to ride alone in a car. He told me again about his recent skin adventures. This was the second time he had told me, and I won't be surprised if he tells me again when he sees me after my surgery. A red head, George has had many skin adventures, I'm sure, in his 83 years. I thanked him for his offer and declined.

We talked more as I placed my food items on the moving belt. Then I noticed the Star Trek-like gizmo attached to his left ear. "George," I said. "You're wired."

"Oh, yes," he said. "I'm a real tech-y."

I told him he is very cool.

I knew he had a cell phone now. It's Carolyn's way of keeping track of him, making sure he's okay. But the ear piece is new. Very direct, her calls going immediately into his ear. Carolyn, a nurse, is working nights, he told me, and calls him in the morning when she gets off work before she goes home. Just to know that he's okay.

It's a good idea, I say, as long as he remembers to put the thing on.

Poem

Etude
Carol Schiess
for Wayne, for Carol

I
Sleep is a deep spinning dive
through dark water to a cavern
bright with the light of you,
where the sudden saving breath
inhales the scent of you
lingering on the skin,
where the quickening touch
is your fingers
wiping water from my face.

II
In sleep the muscles relent,
tissues, cells give over
to all they resist waking.
The body can move
through fire,
absorbing heat,
until it throws back the covers,
spreads the arms wide
in welcome.

III
At the piano a small girl sits,
playing again again and now again
a certain passage, the notes
before her. Someone weeps.
Perhaps she
weeps. Tears run
down the page, notes
blur, fingers turn
wooden,
hearing fails, her mother--
not there before--
walks from the room
shaking her head. Sleep
is a reaching, an invasion
of fears, of loss, of something
never found.

Jeff's Mom

Jeff is my son-in-law. His mom died last Friday. Shirley. And it makes me sad. She's 67, still young. Lola says Shirley was always so happy, so easy to be around. People were drawn to her. It's sad to lose someone like that. I hope Jeff can talk about it with his Nevada relatives, that is if he wants to.

No, I'm not going to carry on or wallow in the sadness I feel about it, because that would just take me right back to losing Wayne. But I will say--not for the first time--that for me death is the hardest part of life. It is the trial of my faith.

My friend Mike, in his early 50s, is ready to go, he says. Anytime. Not that he's looking for ways to die. No. But that he does not fear it. "Whenever He wants to take me," he told me the other day, "I'll be ready and more than glad to go." That has never been my view of things.

Do you think there is a way to change one's point of view on this issue? I mean, what good does it do to be afraid?

Shirley had projects, things she wanted to do, stuff she was working on. I say good for her. And I think I can hear her say, "Life is short. Live. Do things now."