Soapbox

     So I've got this kid….
          …and yesterday the boy child came home for the week- along with every freakin' stitch of clothing he owns in garbage bags. We could barely fit it in the back of Ted's Santa Fe! He seems to still have every t-shirt and pair of pants I ever bought him since his freshman year in high school. I buy him new as the old gets raggedy, and he hangs onto the raggedy, apparently.
    All weekend the house will be filled with the sound that every parent of a college kid probably associates with school vacation: the chug-chug of the washing machine. My grocery bill went up last week when I started shopping for his favorites, and my water bill is going up this week. But it's awfully nice to have him home.  I don't know if soon he won't be coming home much any more… or if he soon will be living here again. Time will tell.  I'm good either way: he's such a sweet, lovely boy. Or… man, I guess. He's 21 now, mom: he's a man. I'll have to get used to that, won't I?

    They are calling for lovely weather today and tomorrow- I must take advantage and get that darn garden plot finished.  I still need to strip the rest of the sod and work in the compost, terrace it a bit, and put up a fence to keep the dogs from dashing through it in pursuit of squirrels.  I hold no dreams that a fence will keep the rabbits out.
    I love working in the dirt- I love the smell rising off the freshly-turned earth as the sun warms it, and gently re-planting all the little worms I uncover. It makes me feel that, no matter how screwed up things are,  there's something right with the world, when the earth is rich and fertile.
    The seedlings I planted Tuesday and Wednesday are mostly sprouted already and will soon be clamoring for a home. I keep opening the seeding trays and staring at the little shoots like a proud momma. I love the way each one is different, and the graceful way they curve up from their beds and reach towards the sun. Grow for me, babies, grow! Grow big and strong… so I can eat you!
   And then, and then… my daughter asked me to go shopping with her this afternoon. She asked for the old lady to tag along!! I swear to God!  She has to get some birthday gifts for friends and hates shopping alone, so would I mind too much going to the mall with her?  I'm sure the fact that I'm almost guaranteed to buy her lunch while we're out did not factor into it at all. 
    Of course this will cut into my digging in the dirt time today but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to be with my girl. I must remember to watch for the warning eye rolls that tell me I'm trying too hard to be "fun". Sometimes, even though it's a drag for me, it's best if I just be the mom.

   Oh, and one more labor of love: I came home from my mother's house with a whole box of family photos that I'm going to scan, and work a little Photoshop magic where I can. Many are pictures I have already seen, but some are brand new to me. The delight I felt at uncovering delicate black-and-white images of my grandfather, shortly before his death, working on his cane-backed chairs at the State Fair, or cleaning fish down by the Big Darby… it's like discovering a piece of myself that I thought I had lost. I can't wait to get to work, and then share the pictures with my family.

     It's shaping up to be a good weekend all around.

    I went in for my annual (drat being old!) mammogram the other day. By now I know the drill: strip to the waist, put on the lovely paper "shirt" they provide and go sit and wait for your name to be called.  I have had several now, and I must say, I don't recall ever being "manhandled" in quite the way I was this time- and by a woman! But as with a pelvic exam, one stares at the wall and tries to pretend that what is happening isn't happening, I guess.

   For the last image, the technician stood back and frowned.
   "Could you turn a bit more to your right?" she said. "I'm trying to get more breast tissue."
    I laughed.
   "Let me know how that works out!" I said "I've been trying to get more breast tissue for 30 years!"
    Ha ha. Well, it's an awkward situation, you know?

   Afterwords I was sitting in the little waiting area beside a woman who, when she arrived, must have been well-dressed.  I took in the nice shoes, slacks and expensive haircut and considered my own blue jeans and scuffed chukka boots. I noticed that we were both sitting in the exactly the same manner, however: arms tightly crossed, clutching our paper shirts closed, hunched slightly forward in our chairs. And because I have a perverse sense of humor, I sat back and grinned.

    "I love mammograms" I announced to the wall before us.
    "Uh… really?" she said. She cut her eyes nervously in my direction, and I suspect she was wondering how much longer she would have to sit there next to the crazy woman, but politeness won out and she asked, "Why is that?"
    "Oh yeah. Because it doesn't matter if we arrived in a Mercedes or in a Chevette, wearing Gucci or Salvation Army. And it doesn't matter if we're built like Dolly Parton or, " I looked down ruefully,  "like Boy George. Yep, when we're sitting around waiting in the ole pink paper shirts… we're all just women. It's the great equalizer, don't you think?"

   She smiled at that.
    "I think they're making these shirts smaller every year" she confessed tugging at the bottom of her paper shirt. "I swear I'm colder every time I'm here. What would it cost- about 3 cents to make them a little longer?" We both laughed as a technician approached.
    "Patricia? Your films are good- you can go. We'll send you a card in the next day or two to let you know the results."
    The woman stood and collected her purse. "Good luck" she said to me with a quick smile as she went to get dressed.

    Oh yeah. That's another time when we're all the same: when we're waiting for the results. Good luck to all of us.

Well, I got myself a Facebook page.

   I…haven’t decided how I feel about it. I had assumed Facebook was something 16 year-old girls did to, you know, like totally talk about  boys and stuff, you know? But then I heard that my older sister had a page… and was hearing from people. In our family! People that I never hear from!
   Huh uh. No. If Barb can do it, I can do it.
    And so I did.
    I don’t yet understand half the ins and outs of this thing. Like, what is "poking" someone? (Or do I not want to know?) And there are "groups" and "events", and I know you "friend" people and get them to friend you back….

   I’m starting off slowly. I have a few people from high school on my list, including one guy who was a jock and I doubt he knew I, the theatre groupie, was alive back then. Now he’s old like me, with grown kids and he "friended" me out of the blue, which I thought was nice.  We’re all grown-ups, after all. And I have a few people in my family on my list. Facebook keeps suggesting others, but here’s how I look at it.  Imagine you’re 17. Do you want your mother’s old lady cousin to be your friend? Probably not, ’cause then you keep getting links to all her old lady friends and updates on what she’s doing. So I’m giving the kids a break.

   I did friend my former next-door neighbor, who is now a big-time photographer, thank you. I was a little nervous that he’d think it was stupid… still feeling like a wallflower, even on Facebook. He just posted some lovely photos of the inaugural on his site. I remember leaving my bike in his front yard all the time, and my Dad looking at his photographs and giving him suggestions, back in the day.

   Last night Facebook informed me that my husband (who is one of my friends- thanks honey!) has joined a group called "You Know you’re from Lancaster County When…" and I started to wonder what other groups are out there. First I checked the ones of which my friends are members:  Allison Krauss fan club… Friends of Nelsonville... not really for me. Is there anything about writing poetry, or getting your writing published? Or maybe a Beatles fan club? Ah, "search groups". Sounds promising. ~click~

   Whoa. Talk about going through the Looking Glass!

   After scrolling through 45 pages of groups I struck out completely on the Beatles club (shocking!) and poetry writing, but I did make some interesting observations.

    First, while teen-aged girls may indeed be gossiping about boys on Facebook, most of the groups here seem to be started by teenaged boys who want everyone to know how bad-ass they are,and that you are totally missing out if you’re not having sex with them. (Clearly boys are just as full of it now as they were 30 years ago.)
    Second: way too many people  think it makes them look cool to use profanity in the title of their group, as in the "F**k yes I’m Hot, my Ni**a!" group. Which might as well be called the "Hey everybody- I"m an immature jerk!!" group, or "Emotionally arrested at age 15? Join Us!"

    And what is with groups started about your cell phone? I must have seen 30 called "Tom lost his phone and Needs your number" or "Renee finally got a phone, y’all!" I just don’t get it. Too old, I guess.

   But there were some groups that fascinated me. For example: "Zombie Defense Force" . Who knew they were on Facebook? Now that I think about it,  to date there have been no Zombie attacks at all, so I guess they are doing their job well!  There is one called "F**k Islam!" which claims to be a group about "spirituality’. Yes, very spiritual, I’m sure. They probably all have bracelets that say "Who would Jesus give the finger to?"

    A group called "I Bet I can Find 1 million People who Hate Abortion" has 32,000 members. So …not yet, huh? (I wanted to start one called "No one Loves Abortion, you moron!" but common sense prevailed. )

    The group called "I Love Nuttella" has 47,000 members. Uh oh, looks like more people love Nuttella than hate abortion. Too bad. But Nuttella is just so yummy!

    There was a "Stop Hillary Clinton!" group with over 800,000 members. She’s Secretary of Defense now… so did they fail, or succeed? Perhaps they should have gotten together with the Zombie Defense force… I know people who would see some similarities!

    "I Flip my Pillow to get the Cold Side" has 800,000+ members. Well sure, I mean- who doesn’t? But I can’t imagine what there is to talk about in such a group.
    "Dude- totally flipped it 6 times last night."
    "Cool". 
    Umm… pass.

    "When I was Your Age, Pluto Was a Planet" intrigued me (58,000) as did one called   "I Judge You When you use Bad Grammar" with over 800,000 members. I do judge, actually… but I really don’t want to brag about it. Moving on.

   I found one called "World Domination" which has to date just 3 members. But really, I think it best there not be too many people interested in World Domination, don’t you? The world has enough problems without too many little Napoleons running around.

    My personal favorite was definitely the one called "I don’t Care if I’ll Die at Midnight, I am NOT Passing on your Chain Letter!" If I had a nickle for every prayer chain I have broken I would be recession-proof right about now!

   Well I did not yet find a Facebook group I want to join, but I’ll keep looking. Maybe I should start my own. Perhaps I"ll call it "Old Broads who Don’t Totally get this Facebook Thing Yet"

… and love Nuttella!

   I occasionally do some volunteer work for hospice. Now when you tell people this, invariably someone will say “Oh, that’s wonderful, but I don’t know how you do that.” And I appreciate what they’re trying to say, but really, once you’ve been involved in something like that, I don’t know how you can not do it. First of all, because we are all going to make that final walk one day, aren’t we? And the chance to walk it with another helps us to think about our own final journey. But also because, if you open your eyes, and your heart, you can learn so much that helps you to live your life today, too. 

    You witness pain, and fear, yes. But also courage, hope, and more than anything else, you find yourself part of the enduring story of love. 

    I was given a hospice assignment to stay with an elderly patient  so that her daughter could go to the local VA office. I knew it was going to be an unusual visit when I called the daughter to confirm that I was coming.

   "Oh great! Listen- where do you live? Can you stop and get me a Gatorade on your way?"
   "Um… sure…"
   "Oh! That would be wonderful. I’ll pay you for it."
   "Ok…what flavor?"
   "Blue. Or orange. Or whatever. I just need one."

She sounded like a bit of a Gatorade junkie, but I stopped at the Speedway and picked up a bottle of blue Gatorade.  I arrived at the door of the small townhouse unit in a nearby neighborhood and knocked on the door. It opened to reveal a woman of perhaps 60. She had short, very tousled grey hair and was wearing a short pink nylon nightgown and pink socks. Something tells me she’s not going to the VA today, I thought.
Pasting a smile on my face I held out my hospice ID badge. She eyed me suspiciously, and somewhat blearily.
I held up the bottle of Gatorade.
    "Yes!" She opened the door and snatched the bottle from me. "Come in!"
Not totally sure now that I really wanted to, I nonetheless squared my shoulders and entered, the intrepid volunteer, ready for anything.

   The front room of the townhouse was small and made smaller by the hospital bed taking up most of the space. On it lay a tiny, emaciated old woman with short grey hair and a vague regard that spoke of a pretty severe loss of sight. I had been told by the office that the patient, Mary, 96, had a diagnosis of "Failure to thrive." Does anyone actually thrive when they’re 96? I wondered. She certainly wasn’t eating much these days, to look at her. I set down my purse and walked over to say hello, as the daughter sank with a moan onto the sofa on the other side of the room.

     "Oh my gosh- don’t know what I’m going to do !" she moaned.  "I’ve been so sick all day!"
 
Within 5 minutes of my arrival she rushed to the bathroom and proved the truth of that statement. Which explained the Gatorade request.

It was clear that there was plenty for me to do with my time, even with the daughter staying home. Patty, Mary’s daughter, explained that she had begun throwing up the day before and figured it was from drinking too much orange juice to fight off a cold (?) but now it was back again.
    "I have epilepsy- do you know what that is? And I get grand mal seizures." Hoo boy. 

     How tough must it be for her to care for her mother in her small home! I was impressed with the cleanliness of the patient (if not the apartment) and the wonderful condition of her skin- a difficult thing to maintain in a person so thin who is bedbound. For a while I just  sat and chatted with Mary and distracted her and gave her daughter, obviously exhausted, a chance to rest  on the sofa with a cold cloth over her eyes. Mary told me that she and Patty had been without power until just the night before from the huge windstorm that had swept the city. 
   "Oh, it was nice when the power came back, wasn’t it Patty?" she said. "We didn’t have any candles, but we do have one flashlight."
   "You did just great, mother" Patty assured her from the sofa. "You were great!"
I patted Mary’s hand and contemplated 4 days with no power in a small, stifling apartment: an epileptic and a slightly querulous, incontinent, bed-bound elderly woman. I gained a whole new respect for the eccentric but clearly devoted Patty.

     I was trying top decide how cognizant Mary was. She seemed fairly aware, if pleasantly vague, about most things and answered simple questions lucidly. But several times I heard her ask for Mommy. About the second or third time she complained that she hadn’t seen Mommy in a long time, Patty roused herself and came to the bedside.
   "You saw Mommy just this morning" she assured her.  I found that doubtful, but I sat and listened to see how this game would play out between them.
     "Where is Mommy?" Mary asked in a petulant tone, and Patti sighed.
      "I’ll go get her." she said, and walked out of the room.

I saw in the wall mirror that she walked just around the corner and stood for a moment, shoulders slumped. Then she straightened, threw her head back and walked back into the room with a spring in her step.
   "Hey honey! Hey there my Mary, how’s my girl?" she  sang out and sat on the edge of the bed.

Mary’s face lit up in joy and her thin hands stretched toward the sound of the voice.
   "Mommy? Oh Mommy! I missed you!"  she pulled her daughter to her and pressed her face into her shoulder. "Oh mommy, I’m so glad you’re here! I haven’t seen you in ever so long!"
Patty laughed and stroked her mother’s wild hair gently.
    "Why punkin, I was just here this morning, remember?"
    "Was you?"
    "Yes, we talked for a while right after you had your breakfast."
    "Oh, that’s right." Mary patted her arm and laughed. "Mommy, I’m so glad to see you! I miss you when you’re not here."
    "Oh honey, I’m never away long, am I? I wouldn’t leave my precious Mary, now would I?" Mary laughed happily.
    "No, you wouldn’t." she agreed.

I felt a lump in my throat as I watched the strange tableau before me. Mary, the mother, possibly grandmother and great-grandmother, was being given the opportunity to be someone she hadn’t been in over 80 years: a little girl in the arms of her Mommy.  The role of mother seems a fairly natural one for a daughter who has taken on total care for her failing mother, but I have seen few adopt the role as completely as this. Tired and ill, Patty laughed and smiled, petted and praised her "little girl" for a while. And then Mary cocked her head.

  "Where’s my Patty?" she asked. "Is she here? Where is she?"
  "You sent her to get me, remember?"
   "Oh, that’s right." Mary’s hands fluttered and fussed with her blanket in distress. " I worry about her. She works so hard, you know that? My girl works too hard." Patty straightened up and patted her mother’s shoulder.

   "I’ll go get her" she said in a businesslike tone and got up.  This time she took only a few steps away from the bed before turning and walking back.

   "Hey mom! It’s Patty! How are you? Did you have a nice visit?"
   "Oh Patty, Patty, there you are. You aren’t working too hard, are you? The girl " (referring to me) "said that you had an upset stomach. Are you feeling better?" Patty sat down.
   "Oh no, I’m fine" she said, a statement belied by the paleness of her skin.
   "Well you just sit here and let me take care of you" Mary said. I got up and gave Patty the bedside chair I had been using and went in the kitchen to wash a few dishes. When I stuck my head back in a few minutes later I saw that Patty had laid her head on her mother’s small, boney shoulder. Mary was stroking her daughter’s hair and fussed over her, and Patty closed her eyes and for just a moment, let her self be the little girl in her mother’s arms again.

I was moved by my chance that day  to witness, in all its bizarre beauty,  the fluid nature of love and relationships. When I went home I sought out my own lovely daughter and asked how her day went, and as she chatted about this and that, I contemplated a time when she might find herself having to mother me. And I found it didn’t concern me as much as it once might have.

   It seems to me that love itself is like a large body of water that we all swim through, all our lives. On the top we humans like to string buoys and section off lanes for ourselves and others. We have the lane for love of a parent, another for love of a child, another for friend, etc. And each of us has our lane and we stay there in a specific, designated relationship with those in the lanes around us: our loved ones. You swim over there in the "friend" lane and by golly- you stay there! I love you "this way" but not "That way".

  But underneath, you see, it’s all just one big ocean. It’s all the same water: love. 

    And sometimes a person slips underneath the lane markers that define their life and relationships, and swims in the wrong place. And often society doesn’t understand, or even disapproves.
    Don’t get me wrong. Some of those behavioral boundaries we create in life are much needed. But the reasons we have those boundaries are physical, not emotional. There are boundaries we shouldn’t cross, but those boundaries are about surface things. Because of human nature, we need those compartments when we’re splashing around up here on the top. But when you dive down a little deeper, where the water is cool and clear, we see love in a different way.

    At its core, love can’t be divided into sections. It is endlessly circulating, touching everyone, connecting everyone, flowing back and forth in invisible, often incomprehensible but undeniable patterns. When we look beneath the surface of love as we too often define it, we recognize the boundless love of human to human, when one frail, imperfect creature recognizes that perfect love which connects him to every other creature. And we can dive deeper and deeper and never reach the bottom. Because of course all love comes from the same place, doesn’t it? And in the end, it’s all just love. 

But you know, while we are all immersed in the same water, because of who we are, we try to find all of those different kinds of love in our surface lives. To feel whole, each of us desires the love of parent, child, friend- and we are so hung up on the difference between them that we don’t see the similarity. People will suffer their whole lives for not having had a parent, or never having a child. And I’m not trying to say- from the position of someone lucky enough to have both- that these things don’t matter. But what we need to try to remember as we mourn what is missing in our lives is that parent, partner, child, friend- its’ all the same stuff: love

And if love is some great river or ocean then we all are born in water, and end our journey there. Love is the one part of us that never lets go, that we can never lose. I cannot tell you how many times, as a geriatric nurse, I witnessed this truth. I have cared for patients who had lost so much of themselves: they had lost the ability to dress themselves, to feed themselves, to speak or even to remember their own name. And it is cruel and heart-breaking when this happens. But I would remind you that all those things they’ve lost, as much as we prize them, as much as we feel they make us human- they don’t. What makes us human is love, and we never lose that. I have seen it- and hospice, if it does nothing else, helps me to remember that.

20 years ago, when I was a nurse, I had a patient- a very elderly woman, Belinda, who was confined to a wheelchair. She spoke mostly in meaningless babble now and spent her days, arms and legs contracted upon herself, rocking and muttering and gazing into the distance, seeming to comprehend nothing. One day her granddaughter came to visit. She didn’t appear to recognize her granddaughter at all. She didn’t even really look at her as she spoke. It was a typical visit with Belinda, frankly: one-sided. And then a remarkable thing happened.

“Look grandma” the young woman said . “Look who I brought to see you. Your granddaughter.” And she took a tiny baby, probably not more than a month old, from a carrier seat and held her out.

I don’t know- maybe she heard a sound that the baby made. Maybe she smelled that newborn smell which every human creature recognizes. Whatever it was, Belinda looked up, and her face just shone. I mean, light poured out of her face like a candle was lit inside her. She held out her thin, weak arms and she said the word “Baby!”. She breathed it, almost like a prayer. And the mother set that baby in her great grandmother’s arms, which I tell you, not many new mothers would do! But I guess she trusted in the love she saw there. And the old woman cradled that child to her chest, and cooed, and even though she didn’t speak another intelligible word, we all knew what she was saying. And all of us- nurses, aides, visitors- everyone who witnessed it- we knew we were witnessing the endless depth, and the eternal nature of love.

Too many of us go around “looking for love” like it’s an Easter egg hidden under a single tulip in a huge garden. Certainly it can feel that way sometimes, but again- that’s of the surface. At its depth, love isn’t something that we’re given. It’s who we are. It is how we were made.
Love isn’t something we give to each other- it is something we all were given by God, and we just pass it back and forth as we’re tugged by  the eddies and currents. You may think you have love all figured out and you’re swimming in your little lane and you know where it is taking you, but one of these days you just might find yourself caught in a rip tide and sucked under, and headed in a whole different direction. And I think when that happens we just need to let go and float, you know? And let love take us where it will. It can be hard. But it can be beautiful. 

The woman clutching the Gatorade bottle that afternoon gets it. The young mother who brought her baby to the nursing home that day got it. Sometimes you need to trust in the love that is always there. And sometimes you have to take down the barriers and just let a person paddle around in the water wherever they need to go. Watching Belinda clutching her great granddaughter that day, and again, seeing the tiny 96 year old woman clapping her hands in delight at the arrival of her mommy, I got it too.

It’s all the same thing. It’s all just love. So jump on in- the water’s fine!

                                        All we Are

When I woke up this morning there was a mourning dove
Right outside my window, singing about love.
Oh, fly away you mourning dove, for now at last I see
How each and every love I’ve known makes up a part of me.

All we are in this short life is all the love we feel.
The giving and the taking are the only things that are real
and that’s the simple reason why I have got to let you know
Something that I should have said about a hundred years ago:

All we are in this world is love.
All we are, when we come to the end of our days
Is the people who love us, and the ones that we love.
All I’ll take when I go is love:
All I am in this world is love.

Now we can’t all climb mountains or sail across the sea
and I will never change the world or write a symphony
But it is love that built the mountains and it’s love that filled the sea
And it’s love that makes me who I am: mine for you, and yours for me.

So hush-a-bye you mourning dove, please fly away and find
all the special people that I’ve got on my mind.
I don’t care if I said it yesterday or half a lifetime has gone by-
I’ve got to say it one more time, and here’s the reason why:

All I am in this world is love.
I’m a patchwork of people who fill up my heart,
the people who love me and the ones that I love.
All I’ll leave when I go is love,
All I am in this world is love.

      Last night we went to Costco for our tri-yearly "Let’s see how many things we can find that we don’t need but really want to have" spree. "We" this time was Ted, myself, Katie and her boyfriend Jason, who went with us last time and has since confessed to Katie an affinity for wandering at Costco.
     When we were in the food section, Katie hurried over to a huge, decadent-looking chocolate cake and said "Every time we’re here they have these, and every time, I want one. Can I please have one of these for my 18th birthday?"
      I pointed out that she will need to have a lot of people over to eat through a cake that large and that rich but she didn’t think that would be a problem.
   "You know, exactly 2 months from today, I will be 18."

   I felt like she had hit me in the stomach.

    "Ted!" I called, hurrying to him in distress. "Make her stop!"
    "Stop what?"
    "Katie just said that 2 months from today, she’ll be 18! Then I won’t have any children any more! I’ll just have a couple of quasi-adults! That’s not fair"
    Ted seemed largely unsympathetic to my unhappiness, but Katie threw me a bone.

    "Don’t worry mom, Jason will still be 17 for a while. He can be your kid."
    "Oh Jason" I said, "Will you let me borrow you when I need a kid?" I asked.
    "Uh…sure…?" he said.

    Whew!  Wait- this doesn’t mean I have to pay for his college, does it?