Bone White, Blood Red
He’s gone into the pain. The bone white, blood red pain. He talked to his wife long enough to let her know he would survive the night, but he had to go back in to deal with the pain. The only thing in the outside world that he can see is the red light on the morphine drip. Watching for it to turn green so he can hit that button. But it’s not touching the pain.
He knows that tomorrow he’ll watch the sky lighten up and he will be outside the pain just a bit. He’ll smile as he tells the nurse about his dog. He’ll think of his wife and miss her but hopes she will stay home, enjoy her day and take his dog for a walk.
The next day he’ll be on top of the pain and start to think about getting all the tubes and needles out so he can go home. He’ll ask the therapist, “How many of these fucking stairs to I need to do so I can get out of here?” And he’ll find the strength to do them.
The day after that he’ll sit outside in the wheelchair while his wife brings the car around. He’ll feel the sun on his bones. He’ll listen to the birds sing. The contentment of being outside those walls will wash over him. Spring has arrived in the last four days just for him.
But right now, he’s gone into the pain.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Theme week 14, First Story
The Longest Minutes of a Lifetime
She hears the screams as she crosses the bridge, the large dog slowly walking by her side. “My boy! My baby! Someone help me!” The worst thing that can happen to a parent has happened to this mother. The distraught mother runs out to the road. She grabs the woman walking her dog. “Will that dog sniff a child? Will it help me find my boy?”
“Have you called the police?”
“Yes, they’re on their way, but help me.”
Oh, Lord, she thought. This was Gretchen, the stupidest dog she ever owned. Gretchen was sweet and tried so hard to figure out what you were saying but really only ever learned three words. She knew “go lay down” and she was so happy to do that for you. Gretchen was a foster dog, left with the woman “for just the weekend” by her sister who had moved to California, two years before. She called her the city dog. The first weekend in her new home, Gretchen, who had never seen water not coming out of a tap stepped off the rock on the riverbank like she was going to walk on water. The woman had to run down the riverbank calling the dog’s name and clapping her hands as the dog’s head went under again and again. Finally the dog came close enough for the woman to grab her and pull all of her wet one hundred pounds out of the water. It took weeks for the dog to learn that walking across the bridge in town was safe.
But the out-of-her mind mother doesn’t need to know all this. She just needs hope and help. So the woman walks the St. Bernard down the riverbank pretending that the dog is searching while her heart pounds with fear. She sees something white floating in the river. No, thank God, just a plastic bag.
With relief she hears the police sirens come closer, almost drowned out by the screams of the grandmother coming into the drive.
Gretchen could have redeemed herself by finding that child and becoming a hero for the rest of her life. She could have been in the paper and on the local news. That didn’t happen and Gretchen didn’t care. A happy ending is a happy ending. The little boy crawled out from under an overturned boat on the riverbank on his own, having finished his nap or been awaken by the screaming. He has no idea what all the excitement is about but is really glad to see the big doggie.
She hears the screams as she crosses the bridge, the large dog slowly walking by her side. “My boy! My baby! Someone help me!” The worst thing that can happen to a parent has happened to this mother. The distraught mother runs out to the road. She grabs the woman walking her dog. “Will that dog sniff a child? Will it help me find my boy?”
“Have you called the police?”
“Yes, they’re on their way, but help me.”
Oh, Lord, she thought. This was Gretchen, the stupidest dog she ever owned. Gretchen was sweet and tried so hard to figure out what you were saying but really only ever learned three words. She knew “go lay down” and she was so happy to do that for you. Gretchen was a foster dog, left with the woman “for just the weekend” by her sister who had moved to California, two years before. She called her the city dog. The first weekend in her new home, Gretchen, who had never seen water not coming out of a tap stepped off the rock on the riverbank like she was going to walk on water. The woman had to run down the riverbank calling the dog’s name and clapping her hands as the dog’s head went under again and again. Finally the dog came close enough for the woman to grab her and pull all of her wet one hundred pounds out of the water. It took weeks for the dog to learn that walking across the bridge in town was safe.
But the out-of-her mind mother doesn’t need to know all this. She just needs hope and help. So the woman walks the St. Bernard down the riverbank pretending that the dog is searching while her heart pounds with fear. She sees something white floating in the river. No, thank God, just a plastic bag.
With relief she hears the police sirens come closer, almost drowned out by the screams of the grandmother coming into the drive.
Gretchen could have redeemed herself by finding that child and becoming a hero for the rest of her life. She could have been in the paper and on the local news. That didn’t happen and Gretchen didn’t care. A happy ending is a happy ending. The little boy crawled out from under an overturned boat on the riverbank on his own, having finished his nap or been awaken by the screaming. He has no idea what all the excitement is about but is really glad to see the big doggie.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Theme week 13 Big to Small, Small to Big
MINE. MINE. MINE!
Mine! Possibly the third word every American child learns to say. Mine! My momma. My daddy. My toy. “Mine, Mine, Mine” the seagulls squawk in Finding Nemo, jumping up for food.
“He took my snow ball!” The playground is covered in thirty inches of new snow. I look around for the trouble spot. “I made a snow ball and he took it.” “He shouldn’t have done that. Tell him how that made you feel.” “It was mine!”
“Stop pushing up there!” I yell in another direction looking up at six-year-olds on the top of the snow bank. “We’re playing King of the Mountain!” they yell back. “You can’t play it that way. We need to find new rules. Come on down, let’s talk.” “Can’t. It’s mine”
One might think that humans would outgrow this behavior as they learned that you couldn’t own people and pieces of ground, but no. The new mom looking down at her child secretly and gently says it. The newly married couples think it as they slip rings on each other’s fingers. I said it as I signed the papers on my new house. From a family of nine, I had never had my own bed now a whole house was mine. I feel it in my soul as I turn the corner at the top of my walk and look down at my town and my river. Or as I come across the bridge at my lake.
As old as time, across all cultures. People fighting for what they perceive as theirs. “Mine,” they said as they landed on the shore of the new world. “Mine,” they said to the Native Americans, the French and the Spaniards as they headed West and South for new land to claim as theirs. And then invented new guns to make sure they understood.
“Mine,” they said as they tried to draw lines in the ocean. My place to fish, my place to keep my shore safe from people like you, my place for my boats. And then invented better boats, airplanes and submarines to make sure they could keep it.
“Mine,” we said as we shot ourselves into space to the moon and planted a flag that proved it was ours.
Mine! Possibly the third word every American child learns to say. Mine! My momma. My daddy. My toy. “Mine, Mine, Mine” the seagulls squawk in Finding Nemo, jumping up for food.
“He took my snow ball!” The playground is covered in thirty inches of new snow. I look around for the trouble spot. “I made a snow ball and he took it.” “He shouldn’t have done that. Tell him how that made you feel.” “It was mine!”
“Stop pushing up there!” I yell in another direction looking up at six-year-olds on the top of the snow bank. “We’re playing King of the Mountain!” they yell back. “You can’t play it that way. We need to find new rules. Come on down, let’s talk.” “Can’t. It’s mine”
One might think that humans would outgrow this behavior as they learned that you couldn’t own people and pieces of ground, but no. The new mom looking down at her child secretly and gently says it. The newly married couples think it as they slip rings on each other’s fingers. I said it as I signed the papers on my new house. From a family of nine, I had never had my own bed now a whole house was mine. I feel it in my soul as I turn the corner at the top of my walk and look down at my town and my river. Or as I come across the bridge at my lake.
As old as time, across all cultures. People fighting for what they perceive as theirs. “Mine,” they said as they landed on the shore of the new world. “Mine,” they said to the Native Americans, the French and the Spaniards as they headed West and South for new land to claim as theirs. And then invented new guns to make sure they understood.
“Mine,” they said as they tried to draw lines in the ocean. My place to fish, my place to keep my shore safe from people like you, my place for my boats. And then invented better boats, airplanes and submarines to make sure they could keep it.
“Mine,” we said as we shot ourselves into space to the moon and planted a flag that proved it was ours.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Theme week 12. Taking risks, humor, exaggeration, juxtaposition.
Men, all true, not all my man.
Overheard in the mall:
Male voice in the stall, “Honey would you bring me a size 38 so I can see how they look?”
Wife as she walks away, “No Honey, they’ll look awful.”
I can just wonder how long he stood in there in his underwear wondering what she means and if she is coming back with pants.
Man, “You can’t keep leaving my mother alone in the store. She gets confused.”
Woman, “Her pocket book has been up my ass all day. I’m just trying to leave her with you for a minute.”
Forgetful man:
Husband reading the court news in the newspaper, “Honey, what’s Christopher’s (their son) middle name?”
Retired too long man:
Every time I get in the car I hear the passenger door slam and his voice say, “Where’re we going?” I can no longer shop by myself. I walk through the store and he just keeps breathing behind me. I just keep hearing him breathe.
I can cook man:
Husband standing in the kitchen with a puddle of melted cheese on the floor at his feet, eating a sandwich. “How much cheese to you put in a grilled cheese sandwich?”
I can cook and suck the joy out of your day man:
Wife, coming home to camp after a golf game, “Honey, wait until I tell you about my game!” Husband, “I cooked your supper and got tired of keeping it warm, so if you want your hotdog, it’s in the lake.”
Women have no sense of humor man:
Wife coming home with groceries, calling out his name, finds him face down on the cellar stairs. He realized it was not a good joke only when he heard the bloodcurdling scream and the potatoes hitting the floor.
The I’ll just make them laugh man:
I get a call from my friends husband saying, “She’s on her way over. She just got a call. Her brother does not have long to live.” I meet her in my driveway. We grab each other, hold on tight and cry. My mom and her brother on death beds. When we get ourselves under control and stumble into house, my husband says, “You’ve got to stop doing that. The neighbors think you’re gay and I’m a bit excited.” God bless him. We did laugh.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Theme week 11 When words mean something beyond themselves
Birth or Death
I headed for my favorite debriefing place. My lake. Everybody needs a place to go to be alone when times get tough. And this had been one tough day. A piece had been busted out of the circle of life. The lake was working its magic. I sat enjoying the way the wooden dock stretched out before me into the blue of the water and the blue of the sky with nothing but green of trees to break the blue.
As I sat contemplating nothing but the blue and green, an ugly black bug crawled up from the water and attached itself to the dock by its picky feet. I knew it was a Dragonfly bug. I had read that they live in the water for about five years before coming out on land and morphing into large blue-green Dragonflies to mate and lay eggs. I watched the back of the bug split open like something from a horror movie. Iridescent colors started out of the black. I was amazed at the size of the Dragonfly that unfolded its body from the ugly bug. It has to be three times the length of the bug, which was now only a bug shell. It looked like a wet newborn baby. For hours I sat and watched as its body filled with life giving blood, it's wings the last to dry and open.
As I watched, my mind drifted back through my day. Life and death. I wondered if the black bug knew that by crawling out of the water he was going to a new life; a life with wings, trees, blue sky and a mate. Did the bugs left below know that he went to a new life or did they just know he was gone? Which is the true life? The one crawling around underwater or the one flying in the sunshine?
What is this new blue? A flash out of the tree beside me. A Blue Jay swooping down.
I headed for my favorite debriefing place. My lake. Everybody needs a place to go to be alone when times get tough. And this had been one tough day. A piece had been busted out of the circle of life. The lake was working its magic. I sat enjoying the way the wooden dock stretched out before me into the blue of the water and the blue of the sky with nothing but green of trees to break the blue.
As I sat contemplating nothing but the blue and green, an ugly black bug crawled up from the water and attached itself to the dock by its picky feet. I knew it was a Dragonfly bug. I had read that they live in the water for about five years before coming out on land and morphing into large blue-green Dragonflies to mate and lay eggs. I watched the back of the bug split open like something from a horror movie. Iridescent colors started out of the black. I was amazed at the size of the Dragonfly that unfolded its body from the ugly bug. It has to be three times the length of the bug, which was now only a bug shell. It looked like a wet newborn baby. For hours I sat and watched as its body filled with life giving blood, it's wings the last to dry and open.
As I watched, my mind drifted back through my day. Life and death. I wondered if the black bug knew that by crawling out of the water he was going to a new life; a life with wings, trees, blue sky and a mate. Did the bugs left below know that he went to a new life or did they just know he was gone? Which is the true life? The one crawling around underwater or the one flying in the sunshine?
What is this new blue? A flash out of the tree beside me. A Blue Jay swooping down.
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