Soapbox

He heels in a way he never has before.

In his now-silent world, I don't know
if I represent security or if simply loyalty compels him,
but when he rises
from the tattered lambswool that has been his bed
for a dozen years,
he walks slowly to my side and waits there
as I do the ironing or wash the dishes,
sometimes with his face almost against
a cabinet or the laundry basket,
wedged awkwardly between leg and wall or shower door
and simply stands, silent, staring ahead at nothing,
ready.
Some days I trip over him a half-dozen times
when I turn without realizing that my dark, rheumy-eyed shadow
has left off his dozing and come to stand sentinel.
In exasperation I'll blurt,  "Get out of the way, pup!"
before I remember
that he cannot hear me,
has no concept of 'the way'.

In his youth, after we brought him in
from the cold of
scavenging ditches and dodging cars
he was afraid of everything:
gurgling water, fluttering sheet, busy broom-
he needed frequent and fervent reassurance that the world
was not about to turn on him again,
end the reprieve from fear we had given.
I used to wish he would just relax.
Today he regards the world with sphinx-like impassivity
wanders with unflappable calm from food dish to water bowl
to back door.
He sometimes tries to jump the steps on to the porch
as if he doesn't remember that his back legs
just don't work like that anymore
and seems stoically clueless of basic commandments like
thou shall sit before I put your leash on.
But when he leaves off one of his frequent deep sleeps
he wanders to stand at my side
in a perfect 'heel'
and follows me quietly as I move from place to place,
standing ready,
protecting me- or drawing security from my nearness-
I don't know.

I have grown accustomed to his presence.
But when I remember to, I leave off what I am doing
bend down to fondle white-fletched ears still silken,
whisper endearments they cannot hear
mindful that one day soon my shadow will be gone.
 

Once, I believed we would be friends forever –
through the years and the miles, the bond would not sever.
When I was sad, you helped me get through
for something in me was completed in you.

Once we picked daisies and played in the grass,
looked up at the clouds and wondered as they passed.
Our dance steps were different, but always in time
I was your friend, and oh- you were mine!

     And your eyes look away from me,
     insist I offer nothing that you could ever need.
     but your heart is not so easily deceived:
     I am your friend, whatever you believe.

Our paths are different but we never cared-
we let those things go and enjoyed what we shared.
I held your flowers while you said "I do"
We shared the wonder as our children grew.

We said that we would grow old holding hands
Two laughing girls become ancient friends.
And I don't believe that we really have changed
Maybe life just distilled us to more of the same.

    And your smile is written on my heart,
    in our dreaming and tears and secrets told in the dark.
    So your heart will always be with me.
    You are my forever friend, whatever you believe.

    Your pain has always made me cry
    so I"m sorry that it hurts you to tell me goodbye.
    Call me a fool and so naive
     I am your friend- whatever you believe.

      Some times you meet somebody and you think you have a connection that will last forever.
     And sometimes you meet someone who will be your friend forever and you don't even know it, or recognize its worth.

     He calls me about once a week now, asks how my most recent holiday went, talks about those days  when we were at VCC together. He often reminds me of the day I asked him to come collect firewood with him, and the time he pointed out how the light reflected off the trees. Sometimes he talks about a TV show. One excruciating hour our conversation was about an episode of "Bonanza" and the day he went to the circus. But always he ends by telling me how knowing me has changed his life, and how he will never, ever let me go.

     And I send him a card now and then and once for his birthday I made him his own VCC t-shirt, which left him almost speechess. (How did you know I wanted this? How indeed?) And while the phone often rings at inopportune times, I do enjoy his enthusiasm for so many small, mundane things, and I admit I sometimes imagine myself rather a kind, wise person for my benificence in being so generous with my time.
Yeah.
     Today's conversation began pretty much like usual, then drifted in to a recounting of times he spent with his maternal grandfather when he was a boy. His grandfather never really wanted to do anything with him or be with him, apparently because he was a 'rotten little character' as a child.
                  Because you were mentally handicapped, and it threatened him  I thought, but just made agreeing noises.
     Then he sighed. "Trace, how do you stop thinking about unpleasant things from your childhood? Last night I just thought and thought about how it was…"

     Well that's the million-dollar question, isn't it? But I knew it was a big deal for him and I wanted to say something comforting. I resorted to cliche and pop-psychology. I said that some hurts run deep, and thinking about them will probably always make you sad. You may not get over those things, but you must at least get past them, in order to have time for today.
     "Remember, all the time you spend being sad about yesterday is time you're aren't enjoying the small things of today". (Yes, I actually said that, Dr. Phil. But hell, if I knew how not to dwell on shit from the past… I would be flippin' Ghandi!)
   I offered the possibility that perhaps part of the reason he acted out around his grandfather was because he sensed the man didn't feel comfortable around him, because 'kids know this kind of thing, sometimes without realizing that they know" and so it may not have been his fault at all. And I said sometimes, it's ok to reflect and to be sad, but then you need to put that sadness in a box and move on. It's a part of you, but you don't have to look at it every day. Yada yada yada.

     Something I said- or maybe just the chance to talk about this- must have resonated, because he did something he has never done before on the phone: he cried. Then he blew his nose, said that there would be no wars if everyone went to a place like VCC in their youth, and thanked me.
    "If I didn't have a friend like you, I don't know what I would do".

     He has said it a dozen times before, but this time, it almost made me cry. Having just lost a woman who was supposed to be my actual BFF because of my big mouth, having realized that  there will probably never be a picnic at the cabin or parents' birthday where I will feel welcome, knowing that my very presence will cause others to refuse to attend… I was beginning to feel like I would forever be that same awkward, unpopular girl who never fit in… 53 years old and sitting on the floor in the corner at a poetry event because none of the 'cool kids' at the tables invited me to join them. Not quite good enough.
    But not to him. To him I am wise and kind and funny and someone he will call and talk to about that day I took him skip-rocking around the lake when no one else would until the day he dies. And no matter how many other people slam their door in your face- that's a pretty great thing.
    I thanked him for calling and said that he is a friend I will hang on to til forever. Sometimes, when you build a wall to keep the monsters out, you have to remember to leave a window open for the angels to come in. I forgot that, but my angel didn't…. dialed the phone and squeezed down the chimney. 
    I guess the important thing isn't who thinks you are funny and loving and special, just that someone truly does, and that there is such a thing as a forever friend.

Today NRA officials labeled President Obama an elitist hypocrit  for saying that, while maybe some schools should investigate hiring security officers, the NRA call to arm teachers and janitors in every school is rash. Why do they think it outrageous for him to do so? Because his own daughters have armed guards at their school.

Dear NRA:
     You cowards! You sniveling, stinking cowards! If any of you had received even one TENTH the number of death threats that the Obama family has gotten just in the last month, you would hide under your desks and pee your little pants.
   How dare you alleged adults use children as pawns in your selfish little games of money and power!
      Are his children more important than ours? you ask.
     Well, when was the last time someone threatened to shoot you, blow you up or skin your children alive? Yes, the presidents daughters are guarded well. And the ease with which slack-jawed idiots can stockpile assault weapons with no background checks is part of the reason WHY they must be guarded! The Obama family receives more than 30 death threats a day: a level even the Secret Service calls "exhausting". And yet they continue to live their lives as normally as possible. Those two girls have more courage in their little fingers than you quislings possess between you.
 
      Also, there is a world of difference between a trained Secret Service agent whose sole job it is to guard someone, and a janitor who took a 2 day training class at a firing range and now carries a gun while he mops floors and changes light bulbs. You conflation of the two is insultingly stupid.

      You are no different than the Tobacco lobby, selling cigarettes to children and insisting that they were harmless and cool. Your "Guns, Not Butter" approach to every facet of life in America is partly responsible for the toxic gun culture our children are being poisoned by every day.
     So do the world a favor. Go back to being an organization dedicated to education and safety for gun owners and stop trying to pedal assault weapons and high capacity magazines in the hands of amatures as the snake-oil cure that is the only possible remedy for what ails us.

Stop sending us Teddy bears.
The twinkling black eyes and cute button noses will bring no smiles,
push, fuzzy bodies stuffed with sympathy and regret
do not comfort us, nor our grieving parents.
They only comfort you,
provide you some release from the pain
that pushes at the back of your eyes
and grips your throat til your breath barely whistles through.
Sending a gift helps you to feel less helpless,
which is blessed oxygen to the heart
when small bodies hit the ground.

But please, stop sending us teddy bears~
rooms and rooms and rooms full
of books, and toys, and crayons,
and thirty- thousand silent, never-to-be-loved bears.
Your fountain of good intention quenches no thirst in us,
only causes pain for those who must decide what to do
with these loving, empty gestures that now fill a warehouse.
The Poohs and Paddingtons you send to us
will never serve as pillow to a shampoo-sweet head,
get smeared with jam, tear an ear loose falliing out of a tree
or be sneaked guiltily  into a suitcase when we go off to college.
They are being made into bricks for a memorial-
surely not what bears are meant  for.

When curious brown eyes, untied shoes and sticky fingers
are suddenly snatched away,
when decades of possibility can be burned in an instant
down to one grim certainty
it is natural to wish to hold on to~ something,
anything that is good and innocent,
to gravitate to symbols of comfort and security
in such a confused and broken world.
Yet how much greater is the tragedy
of gifts sent to children who need nothing
when so many are still in need?

Gifts bring no comfort to those already dead.
Facebook prayers offer no protection for those
who will die tomorrow.

Keep your lamentation and atonement.
Do not send us your anxious nights and fears of the dark.
If you would push back against the shadows
hat steal childhood
and lift the weight of guilt and shame, then
send your gifts to the living.
Books and toys to a  homeless shelter,
stoic bears to offer strength to children too often
poked and cut and stitched back together.
Your time to a foundation working to stop child abuse
is more healing than gifts given after
the final blows have fallen.
Compassion and justice for the living  brings
more light to the world than all the weeping candles,
balloons and drawings,
complacent, doe-eyed angels and teddy bears
left at all the street-corner shrines
for all the souls taken much too young.

So stop sending us teddy bears.
Send them to arms who can hold them.
Send them to those who still feel pain.