Place

This may be a difficult story to read. It is my story and I tell it in part because I have told it so often before, but also because we need to know something of each other’s tragedies and vulnerabilities to connect with each other’s humanity. We live in an age of feeling disenfranchised and the primary product of this world is anger. Perhaps we can all do better.

Hat tip to and who tell their stories with courage.

Death pushed my dad that night when my mother succumbed to lung cancer. In that twilight intersection of the cocoon of morphine and suffocation marked the point on the track of her life where it would end.

He stumbled, stood up straight and soldiered on. He remarried and life went on until till death placed its cold dark hand on my father’s shoulder and gave another hard shove.

My brother, while he rested in his living room, in the first house he and his partner could buy, waited as his heart was slowly choked on the fluids of his own body. The protective sack filling until his great open heart could beat no more.

My brother had joked only days before while visiting a friend whose dog was covered with bumps and nodules of cancer and age, “I can do better than that”. He removed his shirt to reveal the horrifying disfigurement of his back that told him his end was near. His humor and grace, supporting his friends.

Again my father stumbled and picked himself up. Then a divorce and a reunion with the widow of a childhood friend. A new relationship and he would end up in North Idaho.

For me death kicked me on each of these occasions until one evening I was pushed by the hard cold hand of death myself.

My daughter of six and a half (every day so precious now) away at a friend’s birthday swim party at the municipal pool. Nobody knows what happened but she slipped into the deep end, filled her lungs until she sank silently and unseen to the bottom.

The lifeguards brought her up, mouth to mouth and CPR were applied, the fire department arrived; she went to ER just blocks away but she had been gone too long. Her lungs full of water, all their effort only inflating her stomach, a Coroner later informed me.

For me a knock on the door that meant the odd call or knock in the night would have new meaning for years to come. The lady sheriff deputy at the door, me wondering what I had done? A mention of an accident, no I could not drive my car she would take me there.

Silence in the squad car. Radio chatter just able to decode it wasn’t good news. The sheriff’s deputy unwilling to say anything.

Pulling up to the ER the firefighters and paramedics walking out heads hung low, not looking me in the eye as I exited the deputy’s car. Maddeningly nobody saying anything until I was taken to a darkened exam room.

A scene from some renaissance painting, my daughter laid on the table hair still wet under a single bulb, my wife in tears. My daughter looked asleep.

Was it some mercy I was not there. Could I have saved her or would I be wracked with guilt if I had not? I only know that in the year that followed I saved three children floundering in pools, parents momentarily distracted.

Some people in my small town thought us responsible. Perhaps I was, or perhaps this is the small comfort people take to assure themselves something unspeakable would not happen to them.

A divorce ensued as my wife was unable to cope with the loss. We were adrift in our own islands of pain. Like my father I stumbled and moved on. I found a new partner and wife and that led to a new life in Britain where my ex-wife took my son with her. A new place.

Nights at her graveside. Endless streams of tears fell for years after.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedGrief

It is a long lonely walk this winter.
Grief surrounds me like thin ether.
The damp air seeps into my clothing.
I accumulate my sadness more slowly now.

The cold seems to penetrate to my bones.
After 2 months I feel saturated with grief.
I sit beside my daughter’s grave,
And warm myself in her memory, tears on my face.

Over twenty years later my father struck by COVID sounded different on the phone and photos of him I could not recognize. We travelled over as soon as it was safe and found him using a cane and falling frequently. His balance and vigor noticeably diminished. His memory as shaky as his balance. We committed to moving out to be closer to him. The following year the move started. Another place.

His decline was steady mentally and physically. A full life of joy and tragedy which could not fell him, until struck by this strange tragic disease. He remains himself and his grace is present through the worst. And now he feels that press of death’s hand on his shoulder again only now death is here for him. And I am here too, for him.

We think we make so many choices in life but how many are choices that life and death make for us?

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedEmily

The cross lies in the back of the van
“Isabeau, we will always love you. Mrs McAnally’s class” it says
My dog Emily lies beside it. She has three legs now.
Her three legs that brought her closer to death than four.
I am tired and sore as I hold her.
I spent the morning digging this hole for her.
The vet has trouble finding the vein, Emily is confused.
This was to be so easy.

She loved chasing the sheep and the goats
She loved trips into the woods
The cancer started in her missing leg
It has now spread too far
This malignancy that spread
From my mother to my brother and now to my dog

Her brow furrows as though in deep thought
The breath is shallow and ragged and finally rattles to a halt
That is what it is like to watch life leave a body
The moment is deep, profound, sacred.

I reflect on Isabeau
Was it like this for her?
What did she think?
Was she scared?
Did she wonder when I would be there?
I yearn to believe it was peaceful

Emily just fits
I push the heavy clay over her
Replace the turf, leave flowers, say Good-bye
My sadness is so deep now
Later I cry in torrents

I cry for Emily my dog
I cry for Isabeau my daughter
I cry for Glenn my brother
I cry for Connie my mother
I cry for Redington my surviving child
I cry for my wife because she cannot
I cry for me because I am so overwhelmed

I never liked the rain here
I am so tired of having to cry
The rain brings life and growth
I hope my tears can do the same