If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain
think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways, I keep and pass
and turn again.
- Emerson,
RW
Who knew clouds were gathering in the
distance? Who knew the earth, in a
garden so carefully tended, was losing its vitality. Who knew…what lay ahead?
The
Show Me state…
September in Missouri is one of the more
pleasant times of the year. The heat and humidity of the summer has begun to
lose its energy. Gone are the days that
do their best to make outdoor life unpleasant – some might say
unbearable. Yet with the subtleness of
an hour hand quietly moving over the face of a clock, and with the unmistakable,
yet indescribable smell in the air, the magic of fall slips quietly into place.
For a few short weeks, Missouri almost takes
on the climate of southern California winters…warm days…cool nights. Missouri, of course doesn’t have the ocean,
but California doesn’t have the changing foliage. In Missouri, in the fall…the annual cyclic death of the leaves, provides beauty and royal color rivaling the greatest treasures of the
earth – “…yet I tell you, Solomon in all his glory was not so arrayed
as…these.”
Yesterday,
all my troubles seemed so far away…
It was 2006 – Molly and I were living in
Detroit and had returned home to Missouri for a few days visiting friends and
family. Thirty years in a closely knit
religious community had created deep bonds.
Jerry and Diane lived some 55 miles north of Jefferson City on Highway
63 in Clark, Missouri…a community of about 300 people tucked away in the
southeast corner of Randolph County.
To be more precise, they didn’t exactly
live in Clark, but on a nicely situated piece of land a few miles to the west
on Route B, with a small fishing pond just out back. The kind of idyllic place one imagines Thoreau
might have found himself, at another time in another place.
As I looked off the deck to the water and
small groups of people – some chatting…some fishing…all enjoying one another –
I pictured Jerry and Diane’s quiet mornings and wondered if they thought:
“…I have a great deal of company in my house;
especially in the
morning, when nobody calls…” H.D. Thoreau
There was food on the table and some of the
more meaningful people I had known for the previous 30 years – Mattie,
Marguerite, Judy, Jim, Sharon, Diane, Jerry – a grand group indeed.
It would be the last time I would see
Mattie and Marguerite, matriarch’s of the church, who had so influenced my
life. Strong, smart women who had lived
in an unsung generation, in isolated geography with poor educational opportunity,
which belied their power, intelligence and impact on my life along with so many
others.
A
momentary reflection…
Mattie!
That laugh…that spirit…God, she could make a pan of corn bread and
strawberry/rhubarb pie that would bring a king’s ransom – if the king had only
known. A country woman with only one
good eye and a bone conduction hearing aid…the microphone for which she kept in
her bra. Sometimes, for her to hear you
clearly, you had to speak into her chest!
Plain spoken she was…simple in life with a
richness of spirit that had no discernable boundaries. Her word? Ha, it was all you needed! Her heart?
Just try to fail in some way that would cause her love for you to
falter! She was not a particularly
attractive woman until…until she settled her eye on you and began to draw you
in. Then? Then, there are few women I have known who
could capture you so fully.
You
know the feeling…
That afternoon was like putting on an old
pair of tennis shoes. Before we all
gathered to eat, someone pulled out a guitar.
We played…we sang…told stories and laughed ourselves silly, as we had
done so often before – before when we were so tightly interwoven into the
fabric of each other’s lives…as natural as breath itself.
But that was then. The more than three decade experiment to
“…change the world…” had managed only to change our worlds…our minds…our
hearts. Millions would never know, but
we knew; in the end that would be enough.
Only
love and a photograph…
As I looked at the picture of all of us
sitting around the kitchen table, from that afternoon there was someone
missing. My sister Nancy was to come with
us, but had a few things to catch up on, so said she and Riley – her trusty
dog – would be an hour or so late. Getting
to Jerry and Diane’s could be a challenge for the uninitiated, but she had been
there several times before…we would see her soon.
The afternoon passed…it was a great
afternoon – she never arrived.
Later when we talked about it, she had in
fact made the trip…driven past the plainly marked Route B sign heading north several
miles before turning around; passing the plainly marked Route B sign heading
south on her way back to Jefferson City.
She said someone must have taken the signs down. In the busyness of life, it seemed a bit odd,
but I marked it up to some preoccupation in her mind.
A
sign of the times…
As I look over my shoulder, it wasn’t only
she that had missed the sign that day.
It was I who had missed my first sign that she had begun to slip away
from us…even then.
The highway for the subsequent years of her
life would prove to be her most difficult.
Before it was over, all of the signposts were gone…all of the beauty of
that September day in 2006 would be lost…all of the life would be taken…
Five years, five months and two days later
she lay in a hospital bed in Columbia, Missouri taking her final breath.
It is compelling to look back and think,
“If I had only known…If I had done something different, maybe the outcome would
have been altered…” In fact, that is not only a fools errand, but robs one of
appreciating the beauty of the life she so richly reflected…it robs one of the
appreciation for the heroic way she fought and fought…it robs one of the
richness of the opportunity to have participated in the most intimate and
unspeakable ways…
I refuse to let that thief steal from me
twice…he took part of my life with her death…he will not take more through
regret…
- ted
Thanks Ted.
ReplyDelete