Gone

Last week, I went to the nursing home to see my cousin. I’d had a strong feeling the previous evening that I should visit her, but my book group was meeting that night to discuss Paris Trout, a book I’d selected. So I didn’t feel I could skip the discussion. Plus I wanted to see my friends; I’d missed our September meeting because I’d been in the hospital recovering from surgery.

So I waited until the next day and drove to the nursing home during my lunch hour. But when I signed in and told the receptionist whom I was there to see, she looked at her roster and frowned. “She’s gone.” Then, seeing the shocked look on my face, she added, “To another facility, I mean.”

As it turned out, Anna was indeed gone, and not just to another facility. To another dimension. In fact, she’d crossed over just after midnight. Which meant that if I had followed the prompting I’d received the day before, I might have been there with my cousin at the nearby hospice during her final hours on earth. But now it was too late. Anna was gone.

Fast forward one week to today. A rainy Thursday afternoon. I was writing an article about science education in a rural community in western Nebraska. It was a part of the country I’d driven through at night. Alone on a dark two-lane road with no streetlights, my husband and I had pulled over more than once, turned off the engine, and gazed in wonder at the big October sky, full of stars. More stars than I’d ever seen before. When the teacher I interviewed for my article told me her school was starting a new science program called “Cosmic Connections,” complete with telescopes and star parties, I couldn’t help but think that rural Nebraska was the perfect place to learn from the night sky.

The idea of discovering hidden treasure in your own back yard—or, in the sky directly above it—prompted me to pull a favorite book off the shelf and re-read an observation made by writer Paul Gruchow: “The schools in which I was educated were by most standards first-rate. But they were, as our schools generally are, largely indifferent to the place and to the culture in which they operated. Among my science courses I took two full years of biology, but I never learned that the beautiful meadow at the bottom of my family’s pasture was remnant virgin prairie. We did not spend, so far as I can remember, a single hour on prairies—the landscape in which were immersed.”

Gruchow’s book, Grass Roots: The Universe of Home, had done for me years ago what Dorothy’s trip to Oz had done for her, opening my eyes to just how little I understood or appreciated the beauty and mystery of familiar places. Wendell Berry’s essays had had a similar effect, but I’d had a chance to meet him and tell him so when I was in my twenties. I’d never met Paul Gruchow. I’d never told him how much I loved his book. So I decided I’d look him up online and send him an e-mail. I thought he might appreciate knowing.

But it was too late. A drug overdose in 2004 after years of depression and several suicide attempts. He too was gone, like Anna, and not just to a new address.

We don’t know the worth of water until the well runs dry. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Youth is wasted on the young.

Loss, it seems, is inescapable—in many ways, as familiar as the sky overhead and the grass beneath our feet. So familiar, in fact, that we fail to appreciate the mystery and even beauty of it, to learn from it. Baby teeth tucked under pillows. Bodies tucked under earth. Leaves drifting from trees. Nothing gold can stay. A lesson in the wind: Now or never.

The Torture List

A terrible thing happened this morning: I completed all the easy items on my to-do list.

At first glance, that might sound like a nice accomplishment. After all, it means the dishes are washed, my toenails are clipped (at least, the ones I can reach), and the house has been purged of junk foods in anticipation of a healthier lifestyle (I’m a little bloated as a result, but I did it!).

Now I’m down to what I call the torture list. This list includes actions required by modern life or common sense–things that are good for you but not very fun. You know, things like “get mammogram,” “see accountant about taxes,” and “maintain even temper while calling phone company to inquire about yet ANOTHER billing error.”

Some of the items on my torture list have been there for months. In fact, I sometimes wonder if I might be using the list as a way to avoid the truly Scary Stuff. After all, as long as I have Important Matters to attend to, I can’t be expected to write the Great American Novel or to volunteer at the hospice, right? (Note to self: Add “find a good therapist” to list.)

I’d been thinking about this dilemma all afternoon when, just now, I checked Facebook (an excellent tool for procrastinators, by the way) and read a sobering post about the devastating effects of this week’s earthquake in Haiti. The news prompted me to consider what must be on the to-do lists of the survivors: find food and water, help bury the dead, look for missing family members.

I’d say that’s what a torture list really looks like. It certainly puts things into perspective. My complaints seem trivial in comparison. So . . .

Instead of adding “Donate to Red Cross” to my list, I’ve visited the Red Cross Web site and made an immediate donation.

Also, I’ve retitled the remaining items on my list: “Yucky to-do’s that I’m lucky to do.” This afternoon, I realized that what’s on my list might be unpleasant but doesn’t really qualify as “torture.”

Thank God.

My Mother Is Eighty (and Other Dangerous Revelations)

My mother is 80 years old, but she doesn’t like for me to say so. Not online anyway. It’s not that she’s vain–not at all; what worries her is identity theft. “I’ve heard about it on the news,” she says. “All it takes is one little piece of information, and they can get your whole history.”

Thieves aren’t the only ones we need to worry about when it comes to sharing data, according to Mom’s theories. Doctors, for instance, are always wanting to know which of your family members had what diseases, how much you smoke, whether it hurts when they press here or there, and highly personal details such as the color of your stools. All of this information can and will be used against you in the medical system as the doctors refer you to all of their specialist friends for various tests. ”They want to keep you alive as long as they can so they can make as much money off you as possible. And to top it all,” my mother says indignantly, “they don’t even bother to ask you if you WANT to stay alive. They just assume it!”

As my husband likes to say, you can’t argue with logic like that.

Mom has been like this for as long as I can remember. When I was in elementary school (I would tell you which grade, but that might be revealing too much), she warned me not to answer personal questions from the teacher. “Anything you say goes into a permanent file,” she cautioned, “and it could end up getting reported to the FBI.” But when Mrs. M____ asked me point-blank on the playground one morning whether I had any brothers or sisters at home, I found I was no good at subterfuge. I blurted out the truth, revealing that I had two little brothers. I am ashamed to report that when the teacher probed further, I broke down and revealed their names as well.

There is nothing I can do about the fact that my brothers’ names might still be filed away in an FBI vault somewhere. Or the fact that my doctor’s files include detailed accounts of personal proceses involving solids, liquids, and gasses. However, I suppose I could stop myself right now–this very moment–from publishing this post where strangers might read it.  But dangit, this business of keeping secrets is getting old, so I’m going to throw caution to the wind tonight. Here goes.

I ask only one favor. If you see my mother, don’t tell her I posted this story online. You see, she has this file . . .