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Okay, so maybe you don't know this, but I still sometimes say stuff like, "Oh Wayne." Or maybe even, "Oh Wayne. Where are you?"

Out loud.

This is one of those details people--people like me, that is, widows like me--usually don't share with others, believing that others don't really want to know it because they wouldn't know what to do with it if they knew it.

Sometimes it's hard for me to know it, hard for me to hear my own voice say such words at these times. Hard because I don't like the sound of my voice at such a moment, hard because I receive no reply. But they are not planned occasions. Neither are the places of their occurrence planned. It could be in my room or at church or in the car or wherever. It's all quite random, you know.

Somewhere, he is alive. That's what I think.

Sometimes I Work On a Poem

The River

Carol Schiess

A voice calls across the river,

but the water disconnects,

carries the words away.

The early morning sun

spreads light through shore trees

but cannot discover the ducks,

their passage swift on the water’s surface.

I mark the river’s speed,

its darkness,

water lines from other years,

wonder what it has passed by,

what might lie at its bottom.

At the river’s edge,

chicory grew thick in August,

waving its blue flowers as I passed,

but it's late September now.

A few weeks more, the blue

will be gone from my walks,

like some people from my life,

like their faces, conversations,

their stories of long love or

unexpected death.

I look at the water to find one staying spot,

but the river cannot hold;

its appointment is to move, to run,

tell a new story moment by moment.

I turn towards home, a familiar path,

but I may stop for rest at the log bench,

climb a neighbor’s worm fence,

or take another way.

As of Today, It's Working

Wayne and I built this house, as in I searched for months for the right plans. The house had to be big but not huge, so that the children still at home--Richard, Alyce, Ann--could live here and other family members could come back and have a place to stay. So that my mother's grand piano would have a place, too.

When I found the plan we both liked, we looked for a builder, found Bill Gehrke--which, as I see it, was a satisfactory find but nothing more--watched the house go up, made a few changes--which is code for "spent more money"--and moved in March 31, 1991.

All of which means that all original equipment, like the heating and cooling system, is nearly 19 years old.

Today Chris came from A-1 Heating and Cooling to do the semi-annual service on same. All is working, and he'll see me in March. Oh good.

But . . .

One thing concerns him and, therefore, me. "The age. Most furnaces last 16 years," he says.

So I'm already three years into the "free gift" period, I say to myself. Good, just keep on going. In another 19 years I'll be dead, if not before.

Not that I think it should last another 19 years. And not that the system has not had its troubles over the first 19 years: several times replacing the igniter switch, a new blower motor, a humidifier we had installed into the system, and for a few years it sounded like it worked but never did. And so on.

And the system has never heated or cooled the upstairs very well. Except for the girls' bathroom. So I've never been thrilled with it.

Still . . .

"Everything looks okay," he repeats, "but I wouldn't put much money into it if something goes wrong."

Oh great. "What I want you to tell me," I say, "is that nothing is going to go wrong." I'm funny sometimes. Really, that is a funny thing to say.

Chris doesn't get it. He begins to explain to me that such is not the way of things; he can't guarantee, and so on, as if I had no experience with life and things as they are. White hair speaking stupidity rather than wisdom. It's the world we live in.

I don't say, "Duh." I do say, "I know A-1 sells and installs, but I'm guessing someone else might be cheaper."

Then we have the conversation about that. Well, mostly I listen. Brand, quality of installation, etc. He goes on about these things and tells me he likes Lennox and Carrier.

"And mine? Is it a Trane?"

"No, it's a Day and Night, which is made by Carrier. Not their top model, but okay."

"Ah, yes" I say, remembering, "not my choice. The builder's. Saving money there." I hide my irritation. "And what about Trane?" I ask, but I don't know why, because I don't really care about Trane.

"A good brand, but harder to service."

I ask about Jeff Cox, the guy who sends me letters every month with offers on new furnaces. "Well, I hear he hires job by job," which may or may not be true. "We have installers that have been with A-1 for years." Chris is trying to sell me, in his quiet lispy way of speaking.

I sign the receipt. He gets in his van and drives away.

Okay fine. Just something else for me to think about--as if I hadn't already thought and thought and thought about it, like every time the thing comes on or fails to.

Something else to save money for, as in about $2000. But hey.

Something else to wish I could ask Wayne about, as in talk it over with him, but I can't, as we all know.

Meanwhile, winter approaches. I'll watch with fingers crossed, wearing my full-of-holes white sweater Paul brought me from Korea some time in the 1980s, and I'll hope Chris and I have the same conversation next March and again in September.

The Use of Time

Yesterday. Labor Day. I spent it watching tennis, the U.S. Open.

It's hard to do something like that without feeling guilty, especially since I have been reading and remembering about my pioneer ancestors and their very hard times--tramping through mud up to their knees day after day that first Spring in Iowa and Nebraska--and their many sacrifices--giving up their homes, loved ones dying on the way.

This post has suddenly become extremely serious.

So, believe me, I did feel guilty, but I managed to get through it. I do hope I never have to look back, like at the judgment bar, and wish I had not done it. I wonder if I'll have to explain it to anyone there.

I was about to write that this is not something Wayne would ever do, but that is true only if we're talking about tennis. Football or basketball he would, even golf. Somehow, that makes me feel better.

The Only Good Snake . . .

In the gutter at the end of my driveway lies a dead snake. I know it's dead. I just went out to check, to be sure it was not going to revive and head back into my garage, which is where I first encountered it when I stepped out the back door. I thought I was going out to check the mail. Change of plans.

I don't know if snakes have ears--I've heard that debated--but this one either heard me or in some other way sensed my presence. It slithered under my car, out of sight, out of reach of the broom I had picked up to sweep it into the street.

After many stoops and squats and bends without finding it, I wondered if it had jumped up into underworkings of my car, perish the thought, but finally found where it had curled up, right about in the middle underneath. I reached in and took a big sweep at it, managing to move it out from under the car. This was a small snake, but like the last one I had to deal with, it raised up to strike at me. I don't like that.

I stepped around behind it and swept again. Again it moved toward me, but two more sweeps put it into the gutter, where I beat it to death. (How does that sound?) At least I hoped that's what I did.

And why did I kill it? Duh. Because it's a snake. Because it was headed for my back door. Because I do not want snakes in my house.

This is a true story, as they say.

All in a Saturday's chores? Maybe. But I hate this true story, hate beating snakes to death, hate that I have to do this stuff. I suppose I should be glad I am able to do it. And, yes, this is about Wayne, bug-, spider-, snake- and other nasty creatures-dispatcher.

And other benefits. Those were the days.

Say Say What?

I hereby take back my apology. The new season of Survivor will be in Samoa. Not in Carno.

So I am free again to engage in mild ridicule. She said, "the devil incarno."

Say What?

You know how this family loves a good word faux pas. Here is today's. Sorry Ann. (I already told her, woke her from a nap to tell her. I said I'm sorry.)

I was watching something about Ted Kennedy, who died Tuesday night, and I must say I did not know what a great man he was. But that is not the story.

Here's the story. A commercial came on for CBS's new season of The Survivor, and the announcer said something like, "This season may have the worst villain in Survivor history." Something like that. Then they showed one participant talking about another participant, and she said, "He just might be the devil incarno."

Yes, I'm quite sure that's what she said, even though CBS has tried to edit the commercial so that the o is not audible. It's the devil incarno.