Vacancies

It’s going on nine years ago now that I sat me down under that old elm tree in the cool spring air and thought about things. 

I haven’t been back to that particular spot since then; the other day I made a trip out there.  I wasn’t sure if I remembered just where it was located as I got out of my truck, opened the gate, and started in the general direction of where I thought it was. 

For a bit, I figured I had it wrong.  But then I saw the tree I had sat under had grown more, and there were more gravestones than before.

My mind started going back over the past nine years, lingering the longest on what life had been and who I used to be when I had last visited this place. 

I looked back at myself then, a fellow used to a job with a steady paycheck who was trying to make a freelance business work with his two teenage boys. 

I remembered the hot disagreement I had witnessed between another man and his son as they worked on the same job we were on.  They switched from English to German when they caught on that I was listening, but I knew what they were saying anyway.  Anger is understandable in any language.

I thought of who my boys and my sweet daughter have become, and I think I can rightly say I’m proud of who they are, because I know they found themselves in spite of me.

Yes, I thought, things have changed.  The tree’s arms have reached down and wrapped their shelter more closely around the headstone beneath them; life has assumed a fuller, deeper meaning. 

But then my mind returned to that day, and even though it was fall now instead of spring, a cool breeze played through the leaves overhead just like back then. 

I didn’t expect a light brown Duramax to roll by towards the south, but neither would it have surprised me if one had.  Nor would it have surprised me if a like colored vehicle rolling by would have coasted to a stop and reversed back to where I stood, just like it had all those years ago. 

As my friend Jan uncoiled his lengthy frame from his truck back then, I thought of all the musings that had coursed through my mind during the day as I worked there.

We chatted, first of all, about his bird business and where he was going to deliver his pheasants the next week.  Seemed like it was Wyoming or Montana, if I remember right. 

Jan was interested in what I was doing, and I showed him what my task of the moment consisted of. 

But my mind wasn’t on what I was talking about.

After a bit, I changed the course of conversation.

“Jan,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about her a lot today.” 

“Yes,” he said, “Not a day goes by that I don’t.”

He filled me in on the details of his story, none of which I was acquainted with very well.  He told me he knew of Anne’s Severe Combined Immuno-deficiency Syndrome (SCIDS) and the implications of what a marriage to her consisted of.

He told me he had asked God for 5 years with her.  He told me God had given her to him for twice that, and how unworthy he felt to have been married to her. 

We talked about their son Zach.  I told him how that once, while driving by the school where he was teaching during his time of grief that I had wanted to stop in, but had lost my nerve, blaming my lack of confidence on the excuse that I didn’t want to interrupt his student’s study time.  He told me it wouldn’t have mattered, and I knew that really it wouldn’t have. 

We fell silent for a spell, and I asked him how he was doing with it all.  He said God had been good to him, and life was good.  I asked, “So you have found things to fill the vacancy in your heart?”

His answer from back then plays over in my mind every so often. 

“You know Les,” he said, “I found out early on that it was imprudent to try to fill the void left by Anne’s passing with other things.  In fact, I would much rather the vacancy stay just like it is for the rest of my life.  Why would I want to cover up all the good memories and times with something or someone else?  I want to keep that time of my life accessible to myself and anyone else who knew her.  If I covered that time in my life, then Zach would be forced to cover it also, and that wouldn’t be fair to him.” 

He paused a bit, and these two grown men wiped a few tears away. 

“No,” he said, “That place in my heart fits only Anne.  Nothing else will fit there, and I want to keep it that way as a memorial to her.  Doing so does not hinder or make my heart smaller in any way as I accept and give love and devotion to my wife Laura.  It rather enlarges it; my heart has had to grow in order to bring in new love and life.  It’s the hearts that try to fit something else into the rend made by loss that end up with a misfit, and a misshapen scarred up heart limited to time and place is the result.”

We should have had a prayer out there. 

We didn’t know it, but we were in church right then, gathered in one of God’s most beautiful sanctuaries, just the two of us.

And while it was Jan’s loss we were talking about, the One who made Jan and Anne, and me, had a message to get through to both of us that day. 

Somehow, even though I still felt that familiar tight lump in my throat the other day as I visited Anne’s grave, I found that it healed me. 

I like to think it was because I was allowed to be part of the journey.

Do you get it?

It healed me, not so much because I was mourning Anne’s death, but it healed me, nonetheless, of things I was carrying that day.

It healed me, because just like water and energy remain of the same quantity as the first day of creation, so the unselfishness of the one who I visited with back there reached up to today, being of the same quantity now, as it was then. 

Had his heart been rimmed up with scars, and closed off with self-pity and offense, he never would have seen me working there in the first place. 

Or, had his heart been crammed with other things as a filler, he may have seen me, stopped and we could have visited, but not freely; it would have been constrained to things that were valueless, things we both would have admitted were filler, even though we would have tried to fool ourselves into thinking they had value.

This isn’t so much the story of the two mentioned.  They wouldn’t want it that way.

It is the story, rather, of love and devotion given, and shared.

And when the fragments that remain are gathered, there is always more than enough left to help someone else along.

Dear K1, K2, and K3—(You know who you are)

We got your letter in the mail today.  I admit, it made me about as happy as when I see the most beautiful sunset, or when I see random wildflowers growing where I never expected to see them grow. 

I really don’t know why I’m writing you back.  The stuff I’m about to write probably won’t interest you in the least.  And . . . I’m fixing to post this on my blog, which, if you ask normal people, is probably weird.  But, this definitely isn’t the first time I’ve ran into that handle of weird being associated with me.

I like reading blogs.  I like to see what normal everyday life is like for others, and that is probably why I have a blog myself.  I currently read blogs written by a previous school teacher, a new school teacher, a new wife, another new wife, a guy who has a welding shop, another guy who has a carpentry business, a guy who writes a blog for a job, and once in a while, another guy who writes a blog for a job.  I suppose that is why I’m writing this on my blog, because I’m guessing there might be a few people who read this and maybe like it, and there might be a lot who don’t.

Do you like your teacher?  I bet if I asked you that in the same room as you are now, with her right there, you would say you did like her.  But, I’m guessing you’ve been mad at her already.  And you know what?  That’s okay.  Because that is a sign you have a good teacher, if you get mad at them once in a while.  It’s also a sign you have good parents, if you get mad at them, or a good boss.  As long as you don’t stay mad.  Because if you get mad at them, that means they are doing the best they can to help you get through the things you don’t know.  So . . . really you aren’t ever mad at them, just indirectly mad because of what you are trying to learn.

I keep losing my sunglasses.  It wouldn’t be such a big deal if I could find them after I lost them.  But I never can.  I must be on my tenth pair in the last five years now.  I suppose I should get one of those string things that tie to the back of them so whenever I took them off, they’d hang around my neck.  But I dunno, then it seems like I’d break them when I leaned up against something.  I’m still kinda happy at the memory of losing my last pair though.  I lost them while playing disc golf with Bryce.  I put them in my disc golf bag where I always do, and they have always stayed there, but I guess this time they didn’t.  And you know why I’m happy?  Cause I beat Bryce that time.  And I hardly ever beat him.  And he always says he doesn’t like the course we play when I beat him, but I think he just says that cause he doesn’t like his old Dad winning.

Yesterday, it was so stupid.  Right after posting that blog about Bozar, I got lonesome for him.  So I went right out to where he was and told him I had written a blog about him.  He was UNIMPRESSED!!  But, after generally chewing me out while chewing on some grass, we had a nice time together.  I slapped his huge neck to get some of the flies off and it wasn’t long afterwards that he told me he had better be moving on, he things to do and places to see, he said.  I laughed.  Because about all he can see is his pasture.  He hasn’t been to New York and I don’t think he ever will, but I’d sure recommend it to him if I knew he could get there. 

I need to mow the grass today, and do some book work.  It also looks like it could be a nice evening for disc golf, but I don’t have a very good feeling about my game at this point.  Like, if I was playing with Bryce, I’m sure he’d beat.  But at least I wouldn’t bash the course and say I didn’t like it if I lost.

Boola is snoring away, not ten feet from me on the floor by the couch.  Taz is out helping Mama Jan feed the cats.  Oh.  Last night?  I was sitting out in the dark on the back porch when I saw the three new kittens running up behind their mama towards me.  I sat still as a mouse (a kinda big one) and watched, cause I knew they had never seen me before.  They got to within 5 feet of me before they realized there was something big and scary looking on the camp chair.  At first the only thing they saw on him move was his eyes, and that definitely unnerved them, but they stayed where they were, ready to run in an instant.  Then, they saw his head move, ever so slowly, and two of them scatted away completely.  But the third one climbed a tree nearby and watched the big thing in the camp chair from there.  I think it ran off when big thing got up to go inside though.

Yesterday, your teacher said I had typo’s in my blog.  She thought it was funny.  But I thought her sentence structure telling me about it was even funnier.  You’ll have to ask to see her messages to me. 

It looks like my dinner hour is about up, and I think you will soon be leaving school.  Tell Austin and his pretty wife Lindsey hello for me, even though I just saw them both this morning.

Love, from you know who

Bozar

He was the strappingest 6 weight bull I had seen in while.  Probably the best since I bought those 8 bulls a couple years previously.

But I was torn.

Buying calves, for me, is a bit arduous.  I don’t have a bottomless pocket like it appears some of my fellow cronies at the sale do.  Neither do I have trailer space for such. 

It often boils down to this question.  Do I stop buying now, with 2/3 of a load, or do I risk staying on and inadvertently buying more than enough and need to make two, and, in extreme cases, three trips to fetch them. 

My trailer will hold 12,000 pounds of cowflesh in a cramp; 10,000 is better.  For sure if there is a two-hour road trip ahead of them like these had. 

I was at 9,000 pounds and told myself I would stay on another half hour to see if I could pick up a couple more thousand pounds.  After that, it was pick up and leave, no holds barred.  I have to make these decisions ahead of time, I’ve found, or I’ll regret the snap decision I make later.

That’s when this shiny, black, straight-backed bull walked in.  My problem?  The program I was running called for 450 weight heifers, not 6 weight bulls.

I really don’t know what guided my thought process that day.  Only 2 out of those 8 bulls I had bought two years before had survived. 

And six hundred pounds of bull sort of ruined any chance of picking up a pair of heifers like I had originally imagined.  But that guy was by himself in the ring and going for a song, so I gave a bid and just like that, he was mine, due to the fact that no one else was bidding on him. 

I got myself out of there and to the load out before I could make any more irrational decisions.  I waited for a few minutes after the load out guy took my load sheet and then started scanning the pens.  It didn’t usually take this long. 

Another ten minutes, and he came back to tell me it was going to take a while; someone else’s load had gotten mixed with mine.  I told him mine were 450 weight black heifers with one bull.  “That’s the problem,” he said, “The rest that got mixed with yours are the same weight and black.” 

“Well, then it’s not a big deal to me, the main thing is I’d like that bull,” I said.  Not that I really wanted him so badly; I knew I had paid $120 more for him and didn’t want to give that to the other guy.

My calves finally came down the alley, and I asked the load out guy how he knew which ones were mine.  “Well, I wasn’t so sure on the heifer’s, but that bull is from our ranch.  I brought him in this morning.”  Except for a couple heifers that looked a little too leggy, I figured he had done a good job of sorting my stuff out.

When I got home, Bryce was happened to be on the yard and came over to see what I kicking out.  When said bull scampered out, Bryce asked, “Why’d you by him?”

“Well,” I stammered, “I needed a little more weight to make the trip home pay a bit better, so I just thought I’d cut him, let him heal and then we’d sell a number one steer in a couple of months and make a nice little profit.”

“Don’t cut him,” Bryce said.

“Why not?”

“Cause, I’ve been wanting to tell you I’d like to start a little cow herd of my own.  Let’s let him grow up and we can use him on a couple of heifers that we keep back.”

“We don’t know anything about calving and raising calves,” I reminded him.

“We can learn.  I’ll take care of them,” he said.

It just so happened that the wee bull didn’t like his new surroundings, and much preferred the wheat pasture to the north of our place where 70 or 80 heifers were wont to graze.

And, it just so happened each time I saw him pawing the ground and hollering away at those females, that Bryce was gone on service work I myself had sent him on.

So, it just so happened that I was the one who chased a very determined bull back and forth and away from those heifers after he had repeatedly broke through very sturdy fences. 

I once saw him calmly walk through a 4-rail fence.  He got his head and one leg through, and then, with a Samson move, heaved up on the rail overhead.  There was a loud crack and with nary a glance in my  direction, he made his way over to those whom he wished to impress, myself not being in that number evidently, as I sped towards him even as he hoofed it farther away.

He knew his time was up when I reached him, and by now he knew the drill and just as obediently turned around and followed the same row he had come down all the way back home. 

We fortified his enclosure, and after enough time in there without an escape, he must have realized it was futile, and settled in for the winter. 

It was just him and the horse in that pen, and he thought he owned the place when it came time for me to feed them.  That horse had a way of getting its way with the other calves we ran with him at times, all out kicking or biting them into obedience. 

Not him. 

His pudgy bulk soon became the first in line and the last at the bunk every day. 

He was greedy enough, that I began to take both ears and held them for as long as I could through the fence.  He huffed and would back away, giving the horse a chance at a few nibbles before he elbowed back in.

Soon, though, he tolerated my ear twisting just so he could stay at the bunk and eat.  At which point I changed tactics, and started holding my hand out before he ever made it to the bunk, making it necessary for him to push up against my hand while seeing it and knowing it would stay there.  A couple of times got a little dicey when he tried to reef my hand and arm up and away with his head, cramming it up against the fence, but I soon learned what to anticipate from him. 

From then on, it was a matter of time before he let me pet him the whole time he ate, even letting me scratch right around his eyes and occasionally cover his eyes with my hands to see how he tolerated it. 

I started walking around with him in the pen, but he let me know that our friendship was a bunk friendship only, throwing huge hoof fulls of dirt up on his back, lowering his head, shaking it and slobbering all over the place before letting out a low pitched, enormous bellow and rushing towards me. 

Some guys say that half the time when they charge you, they are bluffing and won’t actually do anything.  I didn’t know then, and still don’t on most cowflesh, the difference between a bluff and the real thing.  When there are 1,200 pounds of black hided angry headed my way, I generally turn into 200 pounds of consternation and ease myself off to the side rather than try to figure out if its bluff or not.

Another thing I had to watch for was the way he incorporated a neat little side kick into that whole routine of his as he went breezing on by.  I once heard the air hiss as his hoof cut through it, not so very far away from me lovely body, as the Australians would say.

We kept at it, he and I.  I told him all about my day and what I had done while walking around, and he told me in gruff tones about the work he still needed to get done.  Eventually, he let me in closer.  All I can figure out is I misunderstood his language at some point, and what I understood as ‘We can be sort of friends’ was actually, ‘I’ll let you touch me if you let me out to the ladies,’ which, much to his distemper I didn’t do.

For a while, he rushed me every time, and every time I’d wait until he was close and bop him a friendly one between the eyes with my fist.  I soon saw, that for him anyway, that bop told me if it was bluff or not.  Bluff, and he stopped and let me scratch his ears and slap his neck while standing by him.  Not bluff, and after the bop he kept on coming, whereupon I told him that I had a few things that needed my attention just to the right of him and the general direction of his travels.

The day came when we turned him out with the ladies he had been showing off in front of and across the fence.  They all went to the pasture, and I left them be for a couple of days before ranging out closer to see how they were doing.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from the old boy, so I took my time.  I quickly learned that you don’t get off your four-wheeler on the side he is on.  He lowered his head and like to have pinned me up against it, had I not skittered my way sideways out of there. 

I understood, though.  I act the same way when I’m around pretty ladies like my wife and sweet daughter.  Sort of protective in a macho kind of way, you might say.  Soon though, it became common to ride out to him and have a little chat and scratch his neck without all the display from him.

*****

Last week, my good wife and I jumped on a plane and landed later in Jackson Ms., to see how the recovery was coming along of one we think highly of.  We were gone a week, during which time the boys and their wives carried on with the necessary things.  I don’t know if either of the boys have a relationship with Bozar or not.  At any rate, I know neither of them had time to ride out and talk to him. 

We got home late Friday evening, and first thing Saturday morning, my good wife and I rode out to see how the group in the pasture was doing.  I stopped a little distance away from the ole boy and started walking towards him. 

He looked at me, calmly, and then laid down right in front of me.  I walked the rest of the way up to him and started scratching his ears, talking to him and telling him about our trip, asking him how it had been while we were gone. 

He lowered his head, rubbed it against the calf of my leg, and sniffed it a bit.  Next, he laid his head on my shoe, and curled his big, 50 pound head up against my leg.  I moved my foot a bit, and he moved his head to keep it where he wanted it on my shoe and against my leg. 

I guess we are pals, me and him, although I really don’t know what he sees in me for a friend.

India Medical Camp

I’m skipping ahead in our India experience.  To go in chronological order was getting a little monotonous in my thought process while writing about it.  I found myself saying, “Then we did this, and after that, then we did that.”

Which made it hard for me to be enthused.  So, from now on, it may be a random hodge-podge.  Ha.  I bet that could be said about anything I write.

*****

We started getting things around the evening before, checking inventory, talking over what to take and what not to take.  Of course, it was Bryce, Derek, and Jenny checking it out, because I had no clue what to check for, much less what we planned to do the next day.

Early the next morning, sometime around 5, alarm bells started clanging around in the lower and second story of that cement built, three story house Bryce and his mission family stayed in.  By then, for me, jet lag had sort of eased off a little, and I was able to roll out of bed comparatively easy, and in a decent mood.

Themeri, pronounced as Tim-a-ry, was outside the compound, waiting for us in his diesel minivan.  He and the boys looked over the supplies to make sure they had what they needed and then some of us piled in with him, and some in the Scorpio, a diesel 4runner type of vehicle. 

We got started on our journey, eastward, at least if my directions were halfway correct, to a little town called Jaigaon, which as situated right up against the border of Bhutan.  Bryce said it was about 70 miles away, but took them four hours or so to get there the last time they had gone that way.

We moved from the warm, dusty streets of Siliguri onto a nicely paved road that wound past beautifully trimmed tea gardens, all trimmed to perfectly level waist height, and then on past into a towering jungle with huge trees arching over the road at least a hundred feet over our heads. 

The jungle soon gave way to occasional rice fields with domed rice shucks scattered throughout the field.  All along the way, scattered at haphazard intervals, were large convoys of semi-trucks and trailers.  Huge rigs, coupled to two trailers at times, with the windows all shuttered.  Bryce told me that India has a law that only allows these rigs to travel at night, a fact which I was to find out firsthand later in the day.  For now, though, we passed them and saw the random, sleepy looking driver standing by his truck, or, occasionally saw a rig with its engine being stripped down right on the side of the road in a quick repair.

We arrived in the general area of where we thought this medical camp would be held, and the boys started looking for folks standing along the main road we were on to guide us in.  Sure enough, they soon spotted a couple of guys standing and waving their arms and we hopped out to see if they were who we wanted to see.  They were, and we turned from going east into a southerly direction for a few kilometers.  In that time, we left any remnants of civilization and were soon bouncing along in a deeply overgrown road. 

Our guides pulled over to the side of the road where a couple of houses stood.  So far, I hadn’t seen any people and wondered how this was going to turn out. 

The boys got started scrounging around for things they knew they needed.  I didn’t know what we needed, and when they picked up an old bed frame and said they thought it would work, I nodded dumbly in agreement.  They set it on its legs, found a piece of wood and put it on top, saying that it would work just fine as a table, albeit a quite low one. 

By now, a number of locals had arrived.  I gathered as much that they were somewhat involved in helping get the show going.  They brought a blue tarp and set it up over the area we planned to work as sort of a shade.  Bryce and Derek were busily unpacking all the meds we had brought along in all the big plastic packing containers and arranging them on the low slung table/bedframe.  I could hear them discussing about what should go where and what they used the most of last time.  Again, I was totally out of the loop; didn’t have a clue what this whole thing was going to look like.

A nicer vehicle rolled up and Themeri said the Doctor was here.  A lady got out with him, and I correctly guessed her to be a nurse.  A quick conference was held, and a game plan was decided upon.  A table was set up at the 4 o’clock position from the bedframe.  Another couple of tables were set up at the 8 and 9 o’clock positions on the other side of the bedframe.  At the first of these some folks from a local church group sat and then at the last one, Themeri sat. 

Part of the supply we brought along included small, neat plastic sacks with nice handles on them.  We quickly laid out some gospel literature pamphlets and formed a line picking up and making a bundle of the different titles before putting it into the sack.  I would guess we had close to a couple hundred, maybe more, of those sacks filled with literature and stacked up behind the bedframe, together with all the meds still left in the containers. 

Themeri told the local pastor that we were ready.  That pastor asked if we could start with a prayer, which we did, and also asked if we would be so kind as to take our noon meal with his family.  To which we agreed.  The pastor then gave the word to a few locals, and the folks started trickling in.  First bashfully, but as the day wore on, determinedly.

It finally became apparent to me what the plan was when I saw it in action.  A local person would step up to the nurse, tell her and the Doctor their ailments while the nurse was taking their blood pressure and writing notes.  They would move over to the Doctor who would tell them to stick their tongue out so he could look at their throat.  Next, he listened to their heart, and palpated their stomach.  Finally, he reviewed their case, scribbled something quickly onto his tablet, tore off the sheet and handed it to them, at which point he directed them to the low-slung bedframe table. 

The ’patient’ gave their script to the boys, who quickly deciphered what the Doctor had written, reached behind them for one of those plastic bags, and reached down and over the many different medications to fill the prescription.

The boys asked me if I wanted to help, but it soon became obvious to me that the crazy blue light under the tarp, coupled with the script that intermittently morphed from English to Hindi and then back again had me lost in at sea in a storm of unintelligible mutterings and disorientation.  I assured the boys that they were doing a fine job and said I was sure my good wife would need to go for a walk soon. 

From the script table, the ‘patient’ moved on to the pastor’s table where he offered them some literature from their church.  Then, from there, they went to Themeri, who read again the note from the Doctor, transcribed it into local speak and wrote it out for them to reference later while verbally telling them how much to take and how often. 

Let’s just say that the restrooms had the women perplexed.  There was no throne whatsoever.  Just a hole, about a foot in diameter, in the middle of a concrete floor.  Due to the humidity, and possibly other factors, the cement was quite slippery around the edges of the hole, which seemed to limit the ability to release what a person had entered the room to release. 

I soon picked up on a couple of very decent boys who were helping here and there.  One, I think, was the pastor’s son.  The other was a local in the village.  When it was time for our noon meal, these two fine young men showed us back into the jungle to the residence where we were to take our meal.  They offered us two dishes, one was chicken curry, the other goat.  They offered us a couple of spoons to share amongst ourselves, but Bryce told them we had learned to eat with our fingers.  They seemed relieved to know that.

I chose the chicken, being (and still am) a little leery about goat.  The scars on my good wife’s arm are mute reminder of a day when a goat and a dog at our place became inseparable until death did one of them part, and my good wife tried to intervene.  Images of that fight, and the general diabolical look and nature those animals have compromised my appetite for the dish that day. 

Bryce took the goat meat and was instantly blessed while I was instantly transformed into a human inferno as soon as I took my first bite of chicken curry.  He said his goat meat tasted just fine and wasn’t very spicey at all.  Let’s just say that the effects of my meal lingered well into the next day or two as it eventually exited my system.

People kept coming to the clinic.  By midafternoon, I had no idea how many we had seen.  I definitely saw some repeats come through a few times.  Most of their ailments were rashes, or stomach problems.  Bryce told me many of them have stomach issues for life due to the poor quality of water they drink. 

One older fellow, not looking well at all, said he thought he had something wrong with his heart.  And indeed, I could see the Doctor looking over him very concernedly.  But the meds we brought along were of the general salves and low strength pain relief.  Also some for stomach problems.  Themeri came over and whispered, “Just give him some of everything.  It won’t help at all, but maybe it will help him feel like we did what we could for him.”

Warm, humid darkness settled in on us, but it didn’t abate the flow of humanity to the table, now lit by a single incandescent bulb hung with the wires feeding it it’s electricity.  It soon winked out for good, so we strapped on some headlamps and carried on.  Finally, Themeri said we had to stop, or we’d be there all night. 

*****

Three faces stay with me from that day.  Those of the two boys I mentioned earlier, and that of an older Mama.

She was so respectful. 

She had watched, just on the fringes of the crowd, for most of the day. 

Her back had a deep indention through layers and layers of muscle to her backbone, and yet she was so thin. 

I surmised her life to have been one of extreme hard labor, and possibly hardship from other avenues, based on her timidity. 

Finally, when we were packing the meds up, and Themeri had shooed the rest of the people away, she approached the doctor.  They talked quietly for a bit, and then the doctor came over, himself, to the med table and looked for what he wanted.  Not finding it, he rummaged in the packing crates until he found it.  Gently he handed it to her and in quiet Hindi told her what to take and how much. 

And then she vanished into the darkness.

As I type this, on Sunday evening, September 18, I realize that tomorrow will be the Queen of England’s funeral. 

I think of all the pomp and circumstance that will surround that event and possibly, from a human’s way of thinking, it is right and good.

But I think of that dear Mama, over there, almost 10,000 miles away.  Does she deserve any less?  Is she any less of a human being? 

And I am comforted in this thought, that it’s not so much what the sendoff from this side is like, but it’s the arrival, on the other side, that makes all the difference.

I like to think that, like it says in a Book I read that ‘When sheawakes, she shall be satisfied with the likeness she looks upon.’ Ps 17:15

A Normal Life

Some ten years ago, we got a phone call from down south. 

There were a few questions about the health of the Patriarch in my good wife’s family.  They were currently living in Truman Arkansas. 

What concerned them, they said, was that Dad was a little off.  His normal energy was lacking a bit; his regular sharp mind wasn’t always on point.

We decided to give it a couple of days and then see.  A couple of days turned out to be too much time to give it. 

On the morning of the third day, Dad was in the OR, and we were heading our pea green Dodge Caravan east towards Springfield, then southeast through the torturous curves heading into Mammoth falls, before dropping down into West Plains, and finally coasting to a stop in the Jonesboro parking lot of St Bernard’s hospital a little after midnight. 

Brother-in-law Galen and I went down the hall to see what we could see.  At an intersection with another hall we heard, “Clear the way, coming through,” and stepped back just in time to see our Dad being rolled away from the many hours he had just spent in the OR. 

The night nurses said they needed a little time to get Dad ready for us as a family to visit him.  We later found out that they didn’t expect him to make the night and didn’t want all the stress on us until the last minute.  I’m no medical professional, but I do know that he looked more dead than alive when we caught that glimpse of him as he rolled through. 

And he did die.  A couple of times.  The stress of the long surgery and the high infection rate in his blood from a staff infection he had picked up through a scratch wound while grinding tree stumps was too much for even his sturdy constitution.  But the One Who Knows had mercy on us and, working through the skilled efforts of the doctors and nurses brought him back to us.

The next few days were very much touch and go.  His journey to recovery had him in the hospital for 4 weeks and another 3 at an inhouse therapy location. 

Somewhere during that time, the Doctor told us that we could expect Dad to make a good recovery and go on to live a normal life.

Being somewhat naïve when it came to Doctor language, I took the Doc at his word. 

I became frustrated with the Doctor’s words as time moved along.

It was only some years later, almost ten in fact, that I think I began to understand the meaning of those words spoken back there in that hospital room.

I think what that Doctor meant was, in whatever way a person recovers, then at that stage of the game he/she begins a new phase of normal life.

Say you blew your knee out and had two surgeries to get back to walking.  Whenever someone professional would look at your case, they would review how far you had come, what your mobility currently was, and even though that mobility didn’t allow you to run much, if at all, said professional would say, “Yes, you are functioning normally for having had two surgeries.”

Normal, in such a case, seems arbitrary.

In our human way of thinking, we’d like normal to go on and build upon itself.

We’d like life to return to the original status quo once all the drama had been enacted and lived through.

But I believe that Doctor held out some wisdom to us that day. 

We humans don’t go through the molting process like some animals do.  Neither do we metamorphosize like some other animals. 

No.  We start out in what, for hopefully many of us, is a steady projection of growth and good things.

We are so sure of what we call the predictability of normalcy that we even go to the extra length of charting our progress on graphs.

May I hazard a question? 

If our projection of normalcy were lived out perfectly, would we be the better because of it?

I look at the animal kingdom.  I see those that molt or metamorphosize.  In each one, I see a new, and in some cases, a completely different creature.

So far, I have never seen one of those creatures go back to the original they once were. 

I don’t see snakes trying to crawl back into their old, worn-out skin. 

Neither do I see those beautiful butterflies folding up their wonderful wings and squirming back into the worm body they used to call normal.

Rather, they move on to the next phase, and more than that, they embrace it, if you will.

Methinks it was some of that philosophy that the good Doc was holding out to us back there in Jonesboro.

I look at the scar on my right collarbone and feel the plate of metal just beneath it.  I probably don’t like so well the way the scar looks, but by now it’s a part of me.  It reminds me of who I have become since then; it’s a mere point in the journey, not the end result.

I think back to that stage when our children were just the right size to sit on my lap, their head tucked in perfectly under my chin.  I look back and say that normal could have lasted a long time to my way of thinking.  But if it had lasted, then we still would be waiting to take the quick, last-minute trip to Wichita that we took Saturday with both our boys and their beautiful wives for an Indian meal. 

And why do you think we all crave Indian food? 

Likely a normal somewhere was shattered.

I look back to this last summer and all the fun times my comrade daughter and I had.  That normal still tugs a fair bit.  I see how happy she is over there in New York, and I realize I never would have learned to know the fine girls/young ladies she is teaching.  Nor would I have learned to know their folks and the couple she stays with if that summer normal would have lasted.  

I guess, in the end, it’s better that we humans take on new normals.  It isn’t always easy, and the end may not always be clear.  Travel on a few years, though, and it becomes the new normal.

In a way, moving on to a new normal begins the natural shedding process of things not meant to be carried any longer.

Probably a fellow with the last name of Browning put it about right—

‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’

Disc Golf

Yeah, I titled it that so anyone not interested could toss it off without any loss of score on either side.  (No pun intended.)

We played disc golf last night.

In the dark.

And in mini hurricane situations.

Whether the hurricane situations were from the wind or the temper tantrums some of us nearly threw, will be a question that stays out on the course, and in the dark.

The owner of the local course, Evan Smith, announced this evening some time ago.  He threw a teaser out of pork tacos for anyone attending.

I had never played at night before; I was a little dubious about what kind of fool I’d make myself into.

I ordered lights for my discs.  These are special little flat lights that you tape to the bottom of your disc and turn on, obviously, so hopefully you can see where your disc lands up.

I gave it a test run here at our place several evening before last night and said, “No way.”

I basically lost my disc, right here in plain sight.

But I did find out that I had the lights on wrong.  I had them facing down, and it seems the proper way is to face them up, through the plastic, an on a fairly transparent disc.  Neither of which I had done.

When I heard of the possibility of hundreds of people being there, my heart nigh well fainted within me, and all my imagined distance drives flopped very unethically to the ground not more than 30 feet in front and off to the right of me.

But the idea kept hanging around in my mind, and I figured if I had gone to all of that work like Evan had, I’d want folks to show up.  So, I got a few of my family to join me there at 8:45.

I taped two lights facing up through the plastic, and one down on my Saint.  I wasn’t about to lose this one.  Josh gave it to me after hearing that I had lost my other one to the trees in Mcpherson.  This disc flies good.  I didn’t want to lose it.  I figured I’d use only one disc all evening rather than try to keep lights working several of them.

Bryce, on the other hand, grabbed the rest of my lights and had a regular Christmas light show going on by the time he had a couple of his ornamented.

But I get ahead of myself. 

We were only a quarter of a mile from our house when we saw the lights of town haze down.  “What’s going on?” I asked Jan.  About then my phone rang and Bryce says, “It’s terrible windy here.  If it’s that windy in town, there is now way we’re playing.  See what it’s like there and let us know.”

It was terribly windy.  I never saw an anemometer reading, but I’m guessing in the 20 m.p.h. gust range.

Some sort of insane thought process ran a jolt though me, (not uncommon at all if you ask the females I live with) and I called Bryce and said, “I’m going to play this.”

I guess beings they are some relation of mine, the insane idea took hold on them also. 

We tried a few practice putts, and I heard Bryce say, “This is hard.” 

“No it’s not,” I said, as I easily sunk a long putt.  But I think that was the only put of any acclaim for me.  It was like Bryce said, hard.  The lights on the baskets made you wonder just how far off or near you were. 

The wind was hilarious. 

We joined up with a couple of good folks from Copeland, Ryan Nightengale and his boy Jed. 

It turned into a super fun evening.  It was almost magical to see the disc’s fly off, distance soon became a myth, and the lights kept us glued to their mesmerizing flight of up and down and all around.  Some throws went phenomenal.  Some hit the ground, got caught in the wind, and rolled on into the moonrise, on and anon. 

We cheered even the weirdest throws, and gave it up for Jed when the wind caught what might have been a 50 foot toss and kept it going for a good 150. 

I doubled down in disbelief when Bryce boogied, and then like to wet myself when it kept rolling and rolling and I heard the groan of utter despair next to me.  And then he double boogied.  It doesn’t get much better than that. 

Scores ranged in the plus 4 to plus 10 range, which, considering isn’t bad, if you ask me, when you play in a wind like that and in the dark.

Due to the wind, the course wasn’t as full as I was afraid of, which was actually quite nice for my timid nature. 

Oh, and the tacos? 

Amazing.



Idiosyncrasy

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy

[ˌidēəˈsiNGkrəsē]

NOUN

(idiosyncrasies)

a mode of behavior or way of thought peculiar to an individual:

At first, I thought the word I was looking for was fetish.  But that word means more of a fixation on something.  Idiosyncrasy fits.  Amusingly so it seems, as I gaze inward.

Years ago, I read of this TV celebrity who had a thing about how new socks felt when he pulled them on for the first time, and how they felt for the next couple of hours afterwards as he wore them. 

So much so, that his manager had to hire two people who concerned themselves solely with the purchase and dispersal of his new and slightly used socks.  The news brief said, supposedly, that he was wont to go through two pairs a day, wearing them only one time, before they were said to be ready for the next user(s).  This was the job of the second person on the sock team; find worthy individuals who felt gratified to wear slightly used, slightly odiferous socks. 

I guess you could say one of his idiosyncrasies was new socks.

The story seemed so blitheringly ludicrous that I practically snorted as I read it.  But then, like I said earlier, as I look inward I see a few quirks unique only to me that I imagine someone else may snort about, should they read this. 

For instance—

Don’t make me drink my coffee out of a cup that has been washed with soap.  I’ll taste the soap every time.

But, that’s only part of it. 

Don’t make me drink my coffee out of a cup I don’t normally drink it out of.  (At least when I’m around home.)  It won’t taste right, neither will it feel right in my hand, which is synonymous to coffee tasting right. 

I have a thing about napkins and envelopes.

I don’t care if I’m sitting in a restaurant, or my own dining room table, the way I leave my napkin at the end of a meal is important to me. 

Not so much with my wife and sweet daughter.  I told my friend Justin the other day that contrary to most of the signs, I am a perfectionist.  My napkin proves the point. 

I like use only the edge, not the middle, of my napkin to wipe any excesses away.  This way when the meal is finished the napkin has very few wrinkles, can be folded neatly in half with most of the soiled areas folded inward, and placed beside my plate. 

The females in this house, on the other hand, place little fuzz balls that once were napkins by their plate when they are done.  Their way is good for them, mine is good for me; we don’t fuss about it per say. 

I’m really not sure what motivates me to open my envelopes the way I do.  I do know it feels totally far out when I see someone get their mail, jamb their thumb under the flap, and crinkle and crackle their way to the other side.  The end result is an opened envelope, yes, but a completely disfigured one.  And it always leaves me with questions as to the integrity of whatever was inside the envelope after such a process. 

Like, what if it is a card I received from my good wife or sweet daughter, telling me of their nicer feelings towards me and I opened it that way?  Doesn’t it seem a little crass to treat such fine sentiment in such a coarse way? 

Sure, I get the excitement of someone wanting to see what’s inside so badly they practically can’t wait to rip it open.  I get that.  For sure if I suspicion it’s the aforesaid card from one of the aforesaid females in this house. 

But I don’t want to trample their love, right in front of them. 

Neither do I like the unseemly mess on my desk should I open the bills with my thumb or some other blunt object.  The pile of trash gets hard to manage with its this-way-that-way mentality. 

Open them with a letter opener, on the other hand, and you have a neat pile of trash that you know is trash and a neat pile of bills that you wish were trash when you see what you owe on them.

I asked the sweet daughter what she thought my idiosyncrasies were.  She never replied.  I’m guessing the list got long enough she lost interest with it. 

But it all begs a question.  Do you know what the quirks are of those you live with?  If they, like me, remain largely silent about what we are bugged about, is it still an idiosyncrasy? 

Do my wife and daughter know that when we take a walk, I need to walk in 4/4 time, with my walking stick moving only on the primary beat?  Do they know that if their step gets out of time with mine, I must readjust, sometimes almost continually, to get it to come out right? 

No, I doubt they know.  And I doubt it would matter to them if they did know.  It probably shouldn’t matter as much as it does to me. 

Anyway, wouldn’t it be a hoot to compile a list of ten people’s idiosyncrasies without their names? 

I wonder how revealing it might be. 

Dated

I don’t think I’ve ever been one of those who thinks this world has different ages to it.

I’ve looked on, mildly amused if I must say, at the efforts of a certain agency as they endeavor to determine if there is/was water on Mars.  It amuses me because, at least to my small way of thinking, the truth is self-evident in a certain passage at the beginning of a Book I read where it says, “And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.”  Which leads me to think that before all this was, there was water everywhere. 

Including on Mars.

But all that aside, some do think this earth came to be in varying intervals, and thus they explain what looks to them like dated matter.  Others say there are old souls among us.  Souls that have lived a life, died, and came back to live in a young person’s body.

I suppose I’m too simple minded; it is easier for me to think it all got started at the same time.  The world came into existence all at once, just as a person comes into existence all in one piece, and not in varying stages and different times. 

But I must say that what I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks has made me think about it all in a little more detail.

Here in Western Kansas, the state of being is in continual flux. 

At least it seems that way.

I look out over the prairie at night, or what used to be prairie, and see flashing strobe lights to the west and south of me, indicating to their owners that their center pivot irrigation is functioning.  I hear the steady thrum of the motors pulling away at the lake of water below us, ever and anon doing their job.

I see huge piles of grain, a million bushels or more, taking shape in long Saharan ridges.  In a few months, I see a payloader reach into that same pile, back out, turn towards the waiting truck and dump its cargo, until at length, the pile is no more.

I take in the scenes of new houses going up here and there.  I see new shops and businesses take off, and, in most cases, flourish. 

Even the wind, which whispers or hollers along the open plains hints at a new season approaching. 

Crops are planted, little seedlings rapidly take on the form of their mother plant and in a couple of months are taller than my head.  A couple more months, and that same crop is brown, ready to be harvested.  It’s not long afterwards, and tractors with implements are working through the stubble in anticipation of the flurries of snow that may soon whisk across the cold fields.

In a way, all the change I see makes this area I call home seem younger, or newer, if you will, although I never would have realized that until I saw what I did a couple of weeks ago.

We started packing Friday evening, in hopes of leaving home Saturday morning.  A problem ensued when the luggage we were attempting to get into the car for a certain young lady in this house didn’t appear to fit.  But eventually, with enough muscle and new ideas, it did.  Even if the rearview mirror was rendered useless because it was completely blocked off, and even if the bed of the truck and back seat of the truck cab was filled. 

Once on the way, though, all went fairly well.  This was my first time farther north and east than Ohio (in the U.S. that is) and I was looking forward to seeing what I could see. 

It was when we got into Virginia that I started having thoughts about the age of things.

I saw hills, they called them mountains, that I knew had massive history.  I knew Indians had walked through them for hundreds of years.  I knew pilgrims had settled in them, fought for them, died in them.  I knew slaves had hid in the dark of night, and then stealthily ran through them, ever northwards.  I knew blood was spilled upon them as the war for the slaves was fought. 

As those hills gave way to scenic Pennsylvania farmland, it seemed I could look back into the years and see dairymen tramping out early in the morning.  And even before them, I saw frontiersmen, chopping down trees, exposing the fertile soil in which today’s lush corn now stood.  Stone built barns and houses easily told me of their 100 years and more of memories nestled within their walls.

Late in the evening of the third day, we started winding through hills again, more north now than east, towards the town of Little Falls, New York.  Rain fell, off and on, and ahead we saw patchy clouds and mist hanging low on the hills.

Perhaps it was the tracks of Amish buggies in the pavement, or, maybe the colonial style architecture, or then again maybe it was the actual stone house of one of the generals from the Revolutionary war that sat me back into a state of time warp.

It was no surprise, when I hiked up to the falls only a couple of minutes away from where the sweet daughter now lives, that I saw what I saw, and sat transfixed.

How long, I asked myself, has this water been running?  Since the civil war?  Since the pilgrims?  Did it start when Indians first came to this land? 

It seemed the answer cascaded upon me as easily as the water fell before me.  It had to be since the beginning of time. 

The rock strata arrested me next.  I looked, incredulous to see the seams running vertical, not horizontal.  I remembered, years ago now, hiking down into Canyon de Chelly, and running my fingers along the sand layers that so completely told me of a great flood many years before, a flood of such magnitude that it totally rearranged the landscape of the world then, cutting huge gouges into the landscape as the water flowed in torrents and how, as I looked, one could read the days of drying time in each horizontal layer as the water slowly dried away.

This vertical rock strata seemed to speak of years before that great flood, untouched as it were, even by that flood.  Or was it?  What did those colossal waterspouts during the flood do? 

I stared at that rock, looked below to see how much had fallen away from that wall, some one hundred feet high, and saw very little at its base. 

Time, it seemed to say.  Time stands before you.  And your existence?  Does it matter?

I thought back to something my Uncle John once told me.  He said, “If you’ll notice when tracks are made in the pastures that lie just behind our place, in a few years, they heal over, and you can’t really tell where they are.” 

The whole thing came full circle for me then, while I was still sitting by those falls. 

Nothing is older or younger than creation.  And, if another 5,000 years come and go as the previous have, my existence and efforts will be as effectively erased as the tracks in the pasture, or as the trace of man upon those hills in New York. 

But I will say this, that place where the sweet daughter lives is stunningly beautiful, and I probably wouldn’t mind if time did slow a bit when I’m there.

And I’ll also, say this. I’m not sure any of what I wrote made sense.

Futile Pursuit

There is one thing that is just about as sure as death and taxes.

Let the grass start greening up; let the air get that fresh, spring smell to it, yea, even though there may be snow yet upon the ground, this one thing shall come to pass.

For just as sure as you have all those things, then just as surely, this question will be asked of the sweet daughter, if you have one in your house.

“Can I have a bottle calf?”

If this question gets asked as early in the year at your house as it does at mine, then it can be successfully parried for a couple of months as you extol forth in humid sobriety the dangers of very young calves taken away from their mothers in such cold and unfavorable, muddy conditions and expect them to survive.

But the day comes when you can parry no longer, and the continual questioning of the daughter cannot be muted.

Rather, those questions take on the form of three questions asked by the pudgy man in the presence of his sweet daughter and good wife. 

They go something like this—

Me, “If we get this calf that you want to get, who is going to feed it?”

Daughter, “Oh I will.  I’ll feed it every day.  You won’t ever have to help me like you used to when I was a little girl. . . well, maybe you could help me mix the milk once in a while, but otherwise you won’t have to worry at all about it.”

Me, “Who is going to pay for the milk replacer and the feed later on?”

Daughter, “Oh I will.  I’ve been saving and I’ll pay for all the feed . . . well, maybe if we keep the calf for a while, then I might have to get a short-term loan from you, but I’ll pay it back just as soon as we sell the calf.”

Me, “So how can I know you will make good on your answers?  Every other calf you have had usually ends up being my calf by the end, because I end up feeding it while it is still on the bottle, and I end up paying for the feed all the way through except maybe for the first couple of bags of milk replacer?”

Daughter, “No this one will be different.  I know it might have been that way on the other calves, but I’ll take care of and pay for this one all the way.  Trust me.”

And, since all questions were answered in good faith, as they are every year, it remains for the pudgy man to get himself involved in this project.

That day, some years ago now, dawned upon us, and as a considerate father, I made my way over to the sale barn with the intention of coming home with the perfect bottle calf, no matter the cost.

Cost doesn’t matter when it comes to daughters, you see.  At least that’s what I’ve been given to understand by the majority female sector of this house.

If I may, I’ll take the liberty to pat myself on the back as to my choice of purchase that day.  She was as cute as a button, (the calf that is, but the daughter could be included also) cost a small fortune, (the calf that is, but the daughter could be included also) and was as hyper as your typical teenager after several cans of Red Bull energy drink. (the calf that is, but the daughter could be included also)

The next stage in this oft repeated process, for those who haven’t had a bottle calf, is to acquaint it with the bottle and get it to take it.

What this means, is the ladies gather on the outside of the enclosure that the calf is looking warily upon us from.  It also means that they have thoughtfully and considerately mixed a bottle of milk and thrust it eagerly in the direction of the pudgy man, as though it were his duty to take the next step.

So, taking the next step, for him, means literally taking the next step, straight into battle.  Cheers erupt from the bleacher section containing it’s two occupants as he plants one courageous foot in front of the other towards his quarry.

The foe in front of him eyes him and in an instant flash is gone to the other side of the pen.  Cheers began to fade and soon suggestions are offered as to what the best way to approach may be.

It always goes the same way at this point.  Tucking the bottle under his arm, the man goes for the throat.  (Of the calf that is) In a fell swoop, tackle/dive/ungraceful fall, he gets his right arm around the head, right behind the ears and in front of the shoulders and gives his mightiest choke hold. 

The bottle gets dropped and starts drooling its contents out on the ground.

The calf, which weighs in at barely 110 pounds, begins to drag the man attached to its neck around in a most unceremonious way.  Even though the man could be twice its weight if he had all his winter clothes and shoes on and has lots of stuff in his pockets. 

It becomes a strung-out affair.  The pudgy man, strung out behind and bouncing along, and the calf, strung out in fear and survival mode, eyes bulging, and mouth wide as it emits cries for help, first to its newly lost Mama, and then when that fails, to the females who are now wringing their hands in sympathy for, uh, I think, the calf. 

The females rescue the bottle, and the man pries the calf’s mouth open and inserts the nipple, squeezing hard on the bottle to get some milk to wet the back of the calf’s throat.  And if all goes well, the calf latches on, closes its eyes, and drinks its fill right then and there.  If all doesn’t go well . . .  but we won’t go there.

*****

Somehow, I got lost in the details that weren’t really related to what I started out on.

This calf whom we/I were raising and had since been on our place three weeks or so, put on a show that we hadn’t seen coming.

My friend Trav called bright and early one Sunday morning and asked if we happened to be missing our bottle calf. 

I torqued out to the pen, and sure enough, I didn’t see her anywhere.  (It was still a bit dark, just sayin’)

It seemed strange that our calf would be a good four miles from home where Travis was looking at it, but I’ve seen those calves go crazy for their Mama’s.  They’ll do just about anything.

I hitched up quickly to our trailer and made it over to where he and his son Logan were gearing up to get that calf.  It had just rained, and the field it was in had 2 inches of soupy, splashy mud. 

What I saw next, would make your normal rodeo fans pale.

There was no way a horse could make it in that slop, so Logan sat on the front of the four-wheeler, rope in hand, as Travis shifted into 4 wheel drive.  

They took off in a wild, all over the place scramble for that calf.  How Logan kept his seat glued to that flat surface he was on I’ll never know.  The four-wheeler was doing a wild up and down and back and forth because of all the mud and such. The calf saw it, lit a rag and tore off. 

No matter.

Travis stayed stuck to its tail, and I saw Logan began to twirl his rope in the most easy, unconcerned manner, one second being tossed to the right as a turn was executed to the left, and the next instant in the opposite direction.  I saw the rope snake out, land on the calf’s back, but just short of its head.  

Another throw, and he had it. 

They took that calf in their arms and carried it back on the four-wheeler to where I stood waiting.  We loaded it up and I got myself on home, hopefully in time for church.

I backed up to the pen, got out to unload this venturesome calf of ours, er, rather the sweet daughter’s, and locked eyes with our calf looking calmly back at me from her pen. 

She seemed to say, “And just when will I have my bottle?”

*****

I guess in my haste, I missed seeing her in the dark corner of the little hut she was in at the back of her pen.  Knowing the pretentious ways of little calves though, particularly female ones, she may have done hid there on purpose, sensing her chance to get one over me. 

The owner of the other calf, which lived only a quarter of a mile from where it was lassoed and where the calf had escaped from, came by later that day after we called him, and picked up his errant little one.

Who Am I?

I read this deal a while back that stunned me into a state quietude.  Which, if you ask the females in this house, may not be a bad thing. 

The piece was about a lady who was responding to remarks said regarding a public appearance she had made. (She was a celebrity)

The remarks were about the dress she wore, and how it did, or did not, accent her body. 

Then she made the remark that stunned me. 

She said something to this effect—“My body is not me.  I live inside it, but it doesn’t define who I am.  I have had to make peace with what my body is; it’s okay, but I’m not a part of it.”

I guess I’ve been utterly naïve.

Because, to be right honest here, I always thought me was me. 

All of me, that is.  My fingers, my hair or lack thereof, my knee that aches ‘most everyday, all of me. 

But according to this lady, (I can’t remember her name, thankfully) that’s not me. 

That’s my body. 

And, ping. 

Just like that, I’m absolved of any blame or responsibility.  Not so much for my body, but then, it surely can look out for and defend itself.

I suppose on my good days, if I have accepted and made peace with my body, then I could even take credit from some of the good things my body does. 

I suppose on my bad days, if I wish, I can find all sorts of things wrong with my body, and therefore prove that ‘it’ isn’t me, and that ‘it’ doesn’t need my attention on such a day.

Hmmm. 

I see some very real possibilities with this approach.  And maybe some disadvantages.

Let’s suppose the sweet daughter says,

“Can you fill my car up with gas, please?”

Me,

“Well, it just so happens that ‘I’ would be happy to do that for you.  But this ole body of mine just ain’t been cooperative today, and last I checked, it threw a hissy fit when I proposed any type of physical movements.  Sorry, looks like not today.”

Or, the good wife goes,

“Can you dump the cat litter box sometime today?”

Me,

“You know I’d do that any day for you, dear.  I’m obliged to skip out on it today though.  I heard my body having a conference with all members earlier and it seems it is holding a mutiny against me for the way I disregarded its desires yesterday.”

Or what about this angle—

Officer,

“Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?”

Me,

“Yes, I do in fact.  My leg knew I had an appointment that I was late for and it kept pushing on the accelerator.  I knew it wasn’t going to end well, kept trying to talk it down, but it wouldn’t listen.  I really can’t help what my body just did.  It was against my wishes; I’ll have you to know.”

Officer, looking at me narrowly,

“Sir, you can resolve this in court if you wish.  I’m writing you up for speeding and for contempt of the law.”  (if there is such a thing as contempt of the law)

I wonder.  If I took this thing to court, would it take two lawyers to defend my case?  One for my body, and one for me?  Probably only one, since I wasn’t involved, just my body was.  And I suppose, should I be asked to do my time in the pen, I could look on disdainfully at my body as it rots away and be thankful that at least I was innocent of such heinous crimes.

*****

I guess this isn’t anything new.  If I remember right, I read not so long ago about a certain man who was eating something he wasn’t supposed to, and when asked about it, said, “Um, er, well, you see it was like this.  The woman You gave me, made me eat it.”

You know what?  I wish we didn’t have to deal with this kind of thing.  The thing of making excuses and always trying to look and be right.

But it looks like since that man ate what that woman gave him back there, years ago now, that we as a human race have been struggling with it ever since.

It seems like it is so much baggage to maintain. 

Some folks use their dog as a scapegoat. 

Some repeatedly use their spouse, which infuriates me. 

Some even use God, making it look like they are super good folks and always do just what God says, but when they get pinned in a corner, then it’s God who told them or didn’t tell them what to do.

I had a friend tell me once, when I was facing some dire circumstances that were of my own making, that, “Really, facing the facts, even if the facts aren’t pleasant, brings its own bit of courage to deal with them.”

So, if I think about this correctly, if we don’t own up to our mistakes, or face the facts, then we are cowards. 

And we prefer to act helpless and stupid about it all.

Every last one of us.

Because we’ve all made excuses at some point or other.

And if we are really honest, those excuses are never really the whole truth, rather just enough of it to make us look good.  But looked at by themselves, those excuses appear for what they really are, just a bunch of flimsy, fishy words strung together that sound kinda right for the situation we are in.

An old minister once said, “An attitude becomes a spirit when we let it stand up and cry for itself.”

Now I don’t mean to get preachy here, but it seems to me that if we let our excuses stand up and try to do the talking for us, we’ve entered into a contract of sorts with a certain subtle one that began this whole process with our father and mother, back there in a garden.

If I’ve let myself make excuses, and entered into that contract, then it remains that unsigning that contract is going to be difficult. 

But it can be done. 

And the way to do it is so simple.  It’s the courage it takes that is hard.

The whole process is couched within one word.

Admit.