Hearts of Gold/Feet of Clay

I have great admiration and, dare I say, Gratitude for Brene’ Brown. She took the stage looking like everybody’s Mom at her first TED talk, and wowed us with her homespun brilliance. Brene’ Brown took what we’d always suspected was true and wove it into a beautiful tapestry we all want to be part of. Unless you follow her regularly, you probably don’t know about the current controversy around her podcast. It’s her first controversy of this magnitude and entirely of her own making.

Joe Rogan and Brene’ Brown both joined Spotify in September of 2020. I remember hearing about the deal and being impressed by the company’s obvious aggressive plan to become more than just the cool place to find and play music. It wasn’t lost on me that the two acquisitions represented two completely different audiences. Spotify came to play.

Fast forward. It’s two covid-filled years later. We’re tired. We’re cranky and we’re looking for some place to dump a boatload of angst. Joe Rogan and his contrived…well…everything seemed like a good place to put it. Our angst, though, is over-flowing. I’ll Be Whatever I Need To Be To Cause A Stir Joe, despite his efforts to the contrary, just doesn’t feel big enough, important enough to hold our dissatisfaction. Cue the Gladiator extras! Let’s get Spotify!

Though a wonderful songwriter, Neal Young’s voice rivals nails on chalkboard for chills on my spine. Willies aside, I found it kind of precious when he threatened to pull his music from Spotify in protest of Joe Rogan’s content. The last time I considered Young relevant had nothing to do with music. In 2012, he announced he had stopped smoking weed. He was just too darn old and no longer had the brain cells to burn or something like that. I was quick to bring this to the attention of a couple of aging “heads” in my orbit in hopes that they, too, might decide to preserve whatever bandwidth they had left for their dotage. That had the same effect as Neal Young pulling his catalogue minus Joni Mitchell’s “me too”.

In walks Brene’ Brown wearing a pantsuit fit for parent/teacher conferences, her kitschy earrings, and her “this is the best I could do” hair.

I have that hair. Me, Brene’, and Hillary Clinton. It’s a thing.

Brene’ wrote a clear, insightful piece explaining that she’d paused her podcast to ponder a few things. The piece was everything we’ve come to expect from the grounded theory researcher cum pop sociologist and respected author.

One week later, she posted again. This piece began by reminding the reader of her “multiyear, exclusive contract with Spotify”. She should have stopped there. Instead, the word salad that followed left many of us feeling like she was saying something without really saying it and, that’s a bitter pill coming from the authenticity guru. Not to say the whole thing was without merit. She offered up a metaphor involving a high school cafeteria in which one has no say as to her table mates. Let me stop here to say, I, personally, never found that to be true. In 7th grade, as the new girl whose mother still sewed all her clothes using fabrics that did not necessarily complement my man-style, plastic rimmed eyeglasses, I was very clear as to the tables on which I could place my tray. Later, while laughing with my tribe at our table, I could feel the protective barrier we created with our camaraderie. Joe Rogan would have never dared penetrate that energy field.

Brene’ Brown wrote that Rogan’s content made her “physically sick” and that her contract with the same company sharing that content amounts to an assigned table in the Spotify lunchroom where she sits with all content creators, including Joe Rogan.

Here’s where it gets weird. Brene’ closed the metaphor by saying she isn’t willing to invite us to lunch with Joe, and goes on to describe her podcast content going forward which clearly can only be heard by sitting at that table,

in that lunchroom,

with Joe Rogan,

and his sickening content.

Do you see the problem?

Full disclosure, I’m with Joni. I deleted the Spotify app from my phone as soon as an artist I care about spoke up. It was an empty act, though, since the only reason I had one was because my son wanted to share a song with me and, when I mentioned Apple Music, where all my music lives, he gave me a look akin to a pat on the head, took my phone and downloaded Spotify. I haven’t opened it since and never paid money for it. (Yes, that felt just like it does when I tell people we only use cloth napkins and we grow things whose sole purpose is to feed bees.)

Pre-covid, when I spent several soul-crushing hours a day in what has been described as the worst rush-hour traffic in the world, podcasts were everything. I did what I had to do. Brene’ did too. I get that. I just wish she hadn’t stomped all over her integrity on the way to the cafeteria.

Collateral Damage: Let Them Eat Cake

There were enough breaks in the clouds to remind us there could be sun. Rain didn’t fall as much as spurt from the sky, intermittently, and with little power behind it. But it was enough to soak the picnic benches, prompting several of us to muscle the tables further under the shelter and away from the fireplace where Josh built a fire. Lush green grass and blooming trees aside, you’d never have guessed it was April in Atlanta.

In my usual state of rebellion, I’d worn flip-flops under my blue jeans and hoodie. Within minutes of arriving, I was grateful I listened when a voice of reason couched in loving kindness urged me to throw a pair of shoes in the car “just in case”. It was tricky business switching out my footwear without getting my socks wet, but I managed. As I perched inside the door on the backseat of my car, a steady stream of soggy guests passed on the other side.

By the time I emerged, the party was well under way. A large, multi-colored balloon bouquet swayed languidly over a chocolate birthday cake. The smell of grilling meat billowed from a flume on one side of the grill, an array of chips and desserts filled one of the tables, and a football sailed, occasionally, over the heads of laughing children. Hoods were on heads, hands were in pockets, and breath floated like conversation bubbles over the heads of guests, happy to see each other. Things would have been very nearly perfect if only Trey could have been there. For the second time, we celebrated his birth after his death.

In the days leading up to the party, I marveled at how well I was handling things. There had been no crying jags or heavy sighs. I wasn’t sleeping particularly well but, as a woman of a certain age, there were any number of possible explanations for that.

And then, someone mentioned ketchup. Which made me think of mustard. Which made me think of mayonnaise, and cheese, and relish, and trash bags, and streamers, and noise-makers, and all the other incidentals that would normally come without thinking when planning a birthday cook-out. Except that nothing was normal. Normal hadn’t happened yet. Perhaps it never will. And, if it ever does, it won’t be on that day. That day, Trey’s birthday, will never be normal again.

I didn’t realize until I got there how much I hadn’t wanted to come, or how little I’d done to prepare. Luckily a store down the street stocked most of what I’d forgotten and, by the time the burgers were done, we had everything we needed.

People attended the party for different reasons. Some, like me, came out of a sense of obligation. Some came to celebrate the life of a friend. At least one came for the company, and a few came for the food. I realized though, as I looked over the crowd, that despite our personal motivations, we were all there for the same reason.

We were collateral damage.

>Collateral Damage

I’ve never given much thought to birthdays. They come, they go, I mark them in the usual way. I pay little attention to the numbers that go with them. One year in fact, after expressing surprised delight at all the celebratory gestures that shouldn’t, after this many birthdays have been much of a surprise at all, I realized with genuine amazement that I was a year younger than I had thought for the entire preceding year.

This past August though, as my birthday drew near, I felt something nag at me. I studied myself in a mirror. I searched every tiny crevice time has stamped upon my face, but the answer wasn’t there. Long ago I realized there are good days and there are bad days. On good days, the lines are there, I just don’t notice them.

Was I worried about being attractive to men? After all, as a late bloomer, I had a short window. I tried to remember the last time I stopped a car, or just caused one to slow down. It seemed it had been a while. There was a time in my late thirties and early forties when I could still attract a man eligible for coverage under his parent’s insurance policy. Those are generally the ones who stop. After all, it’s easier to hang your head out the window and/or yell “Baby” over the din of Atlanta traffic if you stop the car first.

Then I remembered a day not so long ago when it rained, as per usual, during rush hour. About half my drive is bumper-to-bumper, and on this particular day the two men in the front seat of the car to my left seemed determined to get my attention. There’s a certain look in a man’s eyes when he’s hoping to catch yours. These guys had probably switched insurance companies a number of times. They may have even added dependents. That’s okay. They still had eyes. It felt good. Some days, I’ve still got it.

I am bothered by a sudden sense of the finite, the certainty that you’re over halfway through, the knowledge that there’s less left than you’ve already lived. It’s as though one day you think, as you have for the preceding decades, “I’ll get to it.”, and the next you wistfully wish you had.

And then it hit me. It wasn’t about me. It’s about them, the people who pepper my life; the ones who listen, the ones who’ve been there, the ones who know me and love me anyway. Because, I’m not the only one getting older.

One of my closest friends is eighty-six. She still works three days a week and puts dinner on the table for her husband every night at seven PM; not six, not seven-thirty, always seven PM. Four times a year, she drives her 1996 Toyota Corolla over 200 miles, alone, to see her daughter in Tennessee. She is blessed with a sharp mind, a keen wit, and a nose for good perfume. But…realistically..for how long?

Another friend is sixty-five. We joked, for years, that she was old enough to be my mother. She loves to eat, she loves to read, and she loves her grandchildren. Despite medication, her blood pressure often peaks to stroke level, and a valve in her heart isn’t working. She should have surgery but she already owes the cardiologist money she’ll never be able to pay. Sometimes she doesn’t hear the ring on her new smartphone which she describes as “good for everything but making telephone calls”. When she doesn’t answer, my first instinct is to joke with her about it. But what if it isn’t a joke? What if she doesn’t answer because she can’t and never will? I don’t leave a message. I call back later.

I resent having to think about these things. It’s one thing to face my eventual demise. I can put that away. When it pops to the surface I can push it down with a sense of purpose. After all, I’m healthy. I’m active. I’m doing the things I can to prevent the outcomes I dread.

But, I can’t do that with the others. The folds around my friend’s seawater-green eyes remind me. The sound of exertion as she painfully plods towards the entrance to the grocery store worries me. The certainty that one day they won’t be there saddens me.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I love them.

Now.

>Hot As A Firecracker

I collect aphorisms. A really clever one will stick the first time I hear it. Others take more time but are used just as often. My sofa is “heavy as a dead minister”. My son’s friend is ‘not the sharpest knife in the drawer”, and “time flies, whether you’re having fun or not”. I really love “…tight as Dick’s hatband”, but rarely have occasion to use it.

My Dad has a favorite I’ve only recently embraced.

“Old age isn’t for sissies.”

I just have gotten used to being fifty, which I suppose is a good thing since I’ll be fifty-one next week. Better late than never.

As an admitted late-bloomer, I find the gravitational pull of advancing years especially cruel. I only just arrived, and already I’m melting into my shoes…

If I could return, for a full refund, all the moisturizers, and eye creams, and facial serums, and Porecelana I have purchased since the age of thirty-five, I could easily afford the plastic surgery required to erase what time has wrought.

“Porcelana?”, you ask. If you’re my age, you remember the commercials featuring a frightening, liver-spotted hand. You remember thinking you would NEVER buy that stuff. If you’re younger, you have no idea what I’m talking about, and that’s just as well. I bought one jar, and for the record ladies, it doesn’t work. A Q-tip soaked in lemon juice is just as effective and probably much less carcinogenic.

It’s the baggy eyes, and the laugh lines, and the crow’s feet, and the lackluster teeth, and the nebulous chin. It’s in knowing that laying on your back takes years off your face, until anxiety sets in as you wonder where your breasts are. It’s that pair of Calvin Klein skinny jeans, the one in the back of your closet, the one with the permanent dust-line where your knee used to be. It’s all of it…

A couple of days ago, I was summoned by HR. This is never good. The man behind the desk is a scant four years younger than me.

“Did you change something with your insurance?” His chair turned side to side, and he with it.

Struck by the absurdity of his question, I hesitated before reminding him that he was the company insurance administrator.

Unembarrassed, he chuckled.

“I know!”, his voice, and his arms, became expansive. “That’s what I said! But my wife wondered if maybe you were having an important birthday.” The last two words squeezed out of the right side of his mouth while the left crept upward.

“No…”, I began. “You know my birth date. If anything, “big” would have been last year.”, the absurdity continued.

“Yeah, well…” He stopped spinning, and waving, and grinning, and gripped his desk instead. “But you are getting older…” The last word played like scales on a piano.

I’m thinking that’s what did it. That, and a comment made by a fellow blogger. Using wise words, she advised against comparing ourselves to young girls. She suggested, instead, that we embrace reality and try to be the best we can be…now.

The other day as I approached my car in the breezy way I do when feeling particularly light, I caught my reflection in the driver’s side window.

“Well! Look at you!” The words played, as though spoken, inside my head.

I slid into the driver’s seat with a smile.

I’ve “traveled the world and the seven seas”.

I’ve “been ridden hard and put up wet, more than once.”

Some days I feel “old as Methuselah”, but more often I’m “hot as a firecracker”!

Bring it on!

Jubilee

I dodge most of the puddles on the way to my car.

Most is the best I can do.

I love puddles.

Air that was cool for August is no less surprising, or unwelcome, on the first day of September.

I slide slacks over my sandals.

A fifty-year battle with procrastination dictates a stop for gas on my way to the office.

I’ll be late, and I don’t care.

It’s my birthday.

It is my birthday!

A smile of recognition and unexpected pride splits my face as I drive.

It’s my birthday!

The day has come, it’s finally here, and so am I.

I’m no worse for wear and remarkably better for meeting the milestone.

It’s done.

I didn’t expect the pride, the relief.

And, I revel in it.

Free, to be…

A Numbers Game

I spent the better part of my thirty-fourth year dreading my thirty-fifth. It wasn’t that I expected anything to change. I didn’t see thirty-five as some kind of horrific milestone, though now looking back on it, I think subconsciously I knew I’d reached a realistic half-way point.

What I couldn’t get past was the ugliness of the number itself, the overt roundness of it, the slovenly way it sits on its protuberant bellies as though fully sated and content in its rotundity. For twelve months I avoided, at every opportunity, speaking my age. The image invoked by the words disgusted me.

What makes this behavior remarkable is the fact that I assign no importance to age. I couldn’t tell you the age of my siblings, and it takes an appreciable amount of ciphering to determine my father’s. I know the age of my children, but only because I am expected to recite it with some frequency. If you admit to having children, you are expected to know when you had them. I suppose that’s fair…

For a full twelve months, while in my early forties, I aged myself by one year. As my birthday neared, a friend laughingly pointed this out to me, proving her point by counting backwards from my birth-date. She jokingly held forth my lapse as proof of some kind of mental instability, and her jeering bothered me at first, until I realized that my behavior only proved what I already knew; it really didn’t matter. For years, the question “How old are you?” forced me to think. It just wasn’t a number I carried around in my head.

Until now…

I still hesitate when asked my age, but not because I don’t know the answer. I hesitate because being forty-nine means I’ll soon be fifty, and I don’t want to be.

As my birthday nears, I find myself surrounded by two types of people; those who know, and those who don’t. And, it is those who know who have made it difficult to share with the others. For the first time in my life, people seem to feel it acceptable to pronounce me “old”. And, they do so, loudly, and often.

My father was the first to raise the baton. Months ago, as we chatted on the telephone, he mentioned my upcoming birthday, casually asking “How old will you be?”. He’s in his late seventies; the question didn’t surprise me. This was before I’d learned to hedge, and my answer came quickly.

“Fifty.”

“Fifty?” His voice was loud. “You’re going to be fifty?” This time his volume was accented by an accusatory tone. “Do you know how old that makes me feel…to have a daughter who’s going to be fifty?” He laughed as though he’d told a joke. I struggled to see the levity, while chuckling softly so as not to hurt his feelings.

Since that time, my birthday is never mentioned by anyone who doesn’t feel it perfectly appropriate to point out my longevity. Some appear awestruck; as though living fifty years is an accomplishment worth considerable thought and recognition. Some seem to feel as though my age poses a ticklish predicament. They giggle and point as though I’ve caught my heel in a sidewalk grate. And, of course, there are those whose faces fall in sympathy. I prefer not to know what they are thinking.

A dear friend mentioned my birthday the other day, and immediately asked how old I would be. As we’ve known each other only two years, he had no reason to know. Because he is a man, and younger, I really didn’t want him to.

I vacillated between simply ignoring the question and employing my finest southern accent, reminding him how improper it is to ask a lady her age, sure that in his usual manner he would soon turn the conversation in a different direction. While I hesitated he began to throw out numbers, “Fifty-five? Seventy-six? Fifty-two?”, until I could take no more.

“Fifty.” I said it, again.

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” His response resounded with authenticity, imbuing me with the courage to explain. He listened quietly until I finished.

“I have to admit that while you were talking I imagined myself fifty…and my heart did a little flip.” That one didn’t even hurt.

Last Saturday, my children and several friends celebrated my birthday by coming to my house for a cook-out. My oldest son manned the grill, and everyone else brought plates and plates of my favorite foods. The broccoli casserole my daughter-in-law made was the best I’d ever tasted, and by the time I discovered the potato casserole my daughter had cooked, I had to scrape the sides of the dish just to get a taste. My delight in their cooking skills was enhanced by the feeling that they belonged to me. I hugged them both, telling them how much I appreciated them. They did me proud…

100_0446

Despite my warnings, my daughter insisted I have my favorite cake. The raspberry-filled, white-chocolate cake she produced was perfect. As we admired her creativity, in scattering wine-colored cherry blossoms around the perimeter of the plate, she produced the obligatory package of black and white candles; the kind that usually come with a set of gray, plastic headstones.

“Do you like the Emo candles?”, she asked demurely.

“Where are the matching headstones?”, I countered.

“I said they were Emo, Mama.”, she answered with quiet forcefulness. “I’m being sweet.”

I meant to mark this day. Had all gone according to plan, I’d be wearing a jacket against an early chill as I clicked down a neon-lit sidewalk in Times Square. We’d be on our way to dinner, fashionably late of course, in a restaurant requiring reservations be made months in advance. Tomorrow would have been our final day in New York City. Our visit to the fashion district would be a wonderful memory as I laced my sneakers for one last run through Central Park.

As it is, I accept the blessing of over-time with a company hedging its bets against a fragile economy. I’m schlepping my son to football practice, and I’m writing. My gift to myself is my writing. I will document my half-century in words, and feelings, and words, and epiphanies, and words.

Happy Birthday to me…

Punting

It was late….

Darkness swaddled winding concrete pathways, separating injured playing fields, where echoes of parental calls of support lingered just above the distant tree-line.

The sound of slamming car doors bounced, softly, off firs enclosing the parking lot; and warning calls of parents to street-dancing children muffled.

And, that’s why I noticed her; she who was arriving just as everyone else was leaving.

The rubber band she’d twisted, earlier in the day, into her wispy, blonde hair was giving way, mocking facial lines that had deepened as the hours passed. Amidst the shadows, her face suggested Eastern Europe.

Two small girls of similar wisp and structure ran behind her as she began the descent towards the park. Each child clutched voluminous mounds of plastic grocery sacks.

I imagined their small hands cramming the sacks into receptacles dotting the park, above signs that read “Please clean up after your pet.” I’d always wondered who filled them.

But, they had no pet with them.

I slid behind the wheel of my own car, juggling my keys while I watched. The girls danced excitedly, taking turns leading the tiny caravan, unaware of their mother in a way that said they knew she was there, and always would be.

Just as they breached the fir-line, the woman slid her cellphone out of the pocket of her belted shorts.

And, I recognized the opportunity…and kinship.

I have been that woman…

Metamorphosis

“Is this yours?” Taking the paper from the fax machine, I offered it to Ann who stood wearing a faraway expression. The turn of her head didn’t allow time for her eyes to catch up.

“Yeah?” She wasn’t sure. The roadmap of lines around her mouth deepened along with curve of her back as she pursed thin lips in concentration. Her perpetually smudged eyeglasses slid, slightly, from their crooked perch on the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t know…”, she sighed. One gnarled hand shifted the paper, moving it just a little further away. Age shook her voice as she continued. “I can’t focus…I just move from one thing to another.”

“Like a butterfly!”, I exclaimed.

Rheumy eyes met mine.

“I do it, too! I flit from one thing to the next, just like a butterfly…” Smiling, I waved my fingers in her direction.

“A butterfly…I like that…I’m a butterfly!” Her back straightened slightly as she brought the paper to her chest.

Yes, you are, Miss Ann. Yes, you are…

No!

I am given to excess…

Once, when I was fairly young, maybe eleven or twelve, I ate enough chocolate to elicit an allergic reaction. Details of the event are lost in a blessedly selective memory. I know my mother had spent the better part of an afternoon baking what I remember to be cupcakes for someone’s birthday or a school party, or some such. I know she was called away by the telephone, probably to run her leg of a car-pool. And, while she was away I ate. Upon her return, we met each other red-faced; she from anger, while hives competed with embarrassment upon mine. I’m sure she was angry that I had wasted her efforts, but the subject of her tirade focused more on the effect than the cause.

Much later, I worked with a friend who took prescription diet pills, which she generously parsed among her closest friends. Solid food didn’t pass my lips for a solid week. There simply wasn’t any time as I had never perfected the art of eating while smoking, and smoking was really all I was interested in doing. Well, smoking and talking. I talked a lot that week. Understandably, our supply dwindled quickly, forcing us both to go cold turkey. After two days spent sleeping, when I wasn’t standing in front of the refrigerator, I called to tell her my speed-freak days were over.

I never suffered from morning sickness when pregnant. I was sick all day, particularly with my first child. The only food I could stomach was green grapes. Looking back on it, I’m sure this had something to do with the fact that grapes have no odor. You see, it wasn’t so much the sight of food as the smell of it that set my stomach to churning. Most nights, I met my husband at the door. As he fought to free his backpack from an over-ambitious screened door, I took the large, shrink-wrapped package of grapes from his over-burdened hand, consuming most of them before he emerged from the shower.

By my third pregnancy, I had learned to use vitamins and minerals to conquer my nausea, allowing me to eat as I liked. I was pregnant, after all. I was eating for two! Pringles had just introduced a new flavor, cheddar cheese, and after stowing the rest of the groceries away, I settled our girth onto a sagging couch cushion in front of one of my mother’s soap operas, and began to crunch. Immersed as I was in the drama of beautiful people saving the lives of others while seemingly incapable of solving the riddles of their own, I reacted with horror when my fingers were met by the hard, cold, metallic bottom of an empty Pringles can. Hours later, as I pressed my fevered cheek against the putrid coolness of bathroom tile, I silently vowed to never touch another Pringle’s potato chip as long as I lived. And, I never have…

At last count I own over one-hundred pairs of shoes, and those are just the ones I wear in summer. Untallied, the winter shoes were packed away.

Two drawers of my dresser are filled with frilly, feminine, lounge-wear, and yet, I almost always pull an over-sized, well-worn tee-shirt over my head after a bath.

It occurred to me today, that I have fallen under the spell of excess, yet again.

One of the best things about being a “woman of a certain age” is the freedom inherent in the experience we carry on our faces, in our hearts, and on our minds. I read recently that many women first learn to use the word “no”, comfortably, after the age of forty. I can relate to that. I never failed to speak a “no”, but I have spent a considerable amount of time wondering at the wisdom of the word. Time has taught me that most “no’s” are of little, or no, consequence.

And yet, I find myself reveling in the opportunity. I don’t wear make-up, because I don’t have to. I spend little or no time choosing my clothing because it really doesn’t matter. The tiny voice inside my head, who longs to see musculature ripple underneath my increasingly crepey skin, speaks loudest first thing in the morning. Rush and routine quiet her. And my diet remains relatively sensible until lunchtime, when a co-worker routinely waves warm tortillas in front of my face. I admit it…I’m a sucker for fresh salsa.

Many minutes of every day are given over to self-deprecation, to no avail.

On my way home, when much of my very best thinking is done amidst a multitude of carbon footprints, I realized I have taken saying “no” to a new level. “No!”, I don’t care to smear false skin-tone upon my sun-kissed face. “No!”, I really don’t care to spend precious minutes, otherwise spent sleeping, standing in front of a closet filled with the same clothes that hung there the day before. “No!”, I will start a new work-out program tomorrow. And, “No!”, I really don’t want the “Lean Cuisine” I deposited in the break-room freezer this morning.

Mid-life has turned me into a recalcitrant child. The music that inspired the dance I’ve danced since childhood has ceased, only to be replaced by a cacophonic, rebel yell inspired by the word “No!”.

I really can’t abide bratty children…

Inevitable

I’ve written, before, about Miss Lucy…

She was among the first patients assigned to me when I began work as a hospice volunteer. As I recall, I fell in love during our first visit.

Miss Lucy loved flowers…all flowers. Most appreciated was the large pot of mauve hydrangeas I tucked into a corner of her window last spring. She liked the curtains opened.

There was a small, unattended bird feeder just outside the window. I always wondered if birds would perch there if I filled it. I bought the seed, tossing it into the trunk of my car amongst an assortment of variously filled, environmentally friendly grocery sacks. I wonder if it’s still there…

Miss Lucy died two weeks ago. Ironically, after a year of service, she had been removed from hospice care about a month before.

After completing a six-week hospice volunteer course, the director presented me with a pre-printed “Certificate of Completion”, asking that I hold still while her photographer shot smiling stills of the occasion. A couple of weeks later, a glossy newsletter appeared in my mailbox. I made the cover.

None of the available assignments were convenient, so I accepted the least burdensome; three women housed in a nursing home thirty minutes from my house. Adding to my convenience, two of my patients shared a room.

Ms. Blackmon occupied the far bed, though until the last, I only saw her bent double in a wheelchair. The director cautioned me not to expect too much. Ms. Blackmon was uncommunicative. I watched as she spoon-fed Bible verses, and cranked the volume on gospel music acquiesced to through silence.

The next week, I visited the girls’ room alone, bypassing her sleeping room-mate in my approach to Ms. Blackmon. Remembering the sneer pinching her chapped lips as Jim Nabors crooned “How Great Thou Art”, I ignored the CD player and began to talk.

“How are you today?”

“Did you eat your breakfast?”

“Was it good?”

“No? Well, it wasn’t like it was at home, was it?”

The next week I plucked Shane, ripe from the football field, to join me.

“How are you today?”

“Did you eat your lunch?”

“This is my son, Shane. He plays football. Do you like football?”

All at once, Ms. Blackmon’s back straightened, slightly. Her eyes, under a blue, hand-crocheted skullcap, sparkled.

“I like football.” And, just as quickly, her back regained its inquisitory posture.

Her room-mate, Savannah, had given up. Her family was present during my first visit. Savannah sat on the side of the bed, leaning slightly against her daughter’s prominent shoulder, as she raised a spoonful of pabulum in the direction of her mother’s mouth. As we approached, Savannah managed a weak, drooling smile, while her daughter encouraged us to call her “if you ever need anything”. In the seven months I visited Savannah, it was to be the only time I ever saw her daughter.

In the interest of jumping the highest hurdle early, I always crossed to Ms. Blackmon first. As her head descended again in the direction of her lap, I smoothed the blanket covering Savannah, before perching, gingerly, on the edge of her bed. Often, an untouched tray of food crowded my perch.

“Savannah?” She always appeared to be sleeping.

“Savannah? It’s Stacye. Your lunch is here. Wake up and let’s eat some lunch, ok?”

She always woke with a smile, preceding the same three words.

“I’m so tired.” Pernicious anemia stole the volume from Savannah’s speech.

“I know, honey. Should I let you sleep?”

Sometimes she didn’t even bother to answer, turning into her pillow with drawn eyes. Sometimes, though, she tried.

A slight lift of her bonneted head from the pillow was my signal. Taking her shoulders, I helped her up before swiveling her kneels into a sitting position beside me. Savannah was a fan of iced tea. She ate very little, but her tea glass was almost always drained.

Miss Lucy lived in the same nursing home on a far hall. I usually saved her for last. For one thing, the “Alzheimer’s Hall” was on my way. For another, I chose to end my visits on a positive note…and Miss Lucy was sunshine.

Sometimes I found her sleeping. After several such incidents, I left her that way. More often though, I found her with her good eye trained on whatever television program her caretakers had chosen for her.

”Hey, Sweetheart! How are you feeling today?” Miss Lucy occupied the bed closest to the window, allowing me ample time to finish my greeting before reaching her bedside.

As my hands went to the curtains, she answered. Most days, bright sunshine lit her oiled face before she finished.

“Oh….I’m alright…” Years of protecting the mound of snuff, deposited in front of her bottom teeth, had trained her speech.

We had a ritual. Immersing the flowers I brought her in water, I brought them close to her right side, her good eye.

“Look what I brought you!”

“Oh…they are so pretty…” A succession of strokes had robbed her of movement, but I still saw her hand as she raised it to touch the blooms.

On good days, she regaled me with tales of earlier times; her daughter’s triumphs on the basketball court, bus-rides across town to work in the “white woman’s house”, and her “no count” man. And, good days were frequent. Bad days were only designated “bad” because I chose not to interrupt the rhythmic rise and fall of her slight chest.

Ms. Blackmon was the first to go. One Saturday I gingerly pushed the latest copy of “Sporting News” under her perpetually bent head. The next, I found her writhing, senselessly, in her bed. The sweats she had worn since I’d known her had been replaced by a worn hospital gown. And, minus the cap, her gray plaits were sparse and haphazard. I looked around for assistance, and finding none, dialed my director. Savannah worried the lip of her blanket as I listened.

The director encouraged me to find Ms. Blackmon’s nurse who took one look, and seeing nothing out of place, returned to her desk. I left thinking dying shouldn’t be so hard, especially when anticipated.

Much less dramatic, Savannah’s exit began just weeks later. I entered a room crowded with family, and remnants of the previous night’s vigil. They were happy to see me, beating a quick retreat. Occasionally, I felt that she heard me. Regardless of my pertinence I continued to talk.

Two nights later I entered a room empty except for Savannah, whose bed had been moved against the wall. She lay in a quiet I chose to honor, employing touch in place of words. The pallets that had decorated her room on my previous visit remained. I left, assured by their caring. It took Savannah two weeks to die.

Two down, one to go…

Miss Lucy thrived. During one visit, despite her inert state, I felt compelled to restrain her as she threatened an orderly who deigned to suggest she give the pummeled green beans another go. Her weight was up. Her spirits soared, and after a solid year of hospice care, her insurance company refused to renew. A month later, she died.

I’m not suggesting a relationship. I’m not implying any culpability on the part of her insurance company. But, I am struck by the irony…

My inspiration to become a hospice volunteer sprung from experience. During the final days of his life, my ex-husband’s journey, and more importantly the lives of our children, was greatly eased by the angelic presence of a hospice volunteer. As I watched her minister to those I loved, I vowed to give back.

Last weekend, I stowed my name-badge in the back of a dresser drawer. My yen to volunteer is colored by my insistence that Shane participate, and the sights and smells of a nursing home are too much for him. There is a food-bank across town in need of volunteers.

I am left with the knowledge that death, even when anticipated, is not easy; that there is a pattern, even in the final days.

And, no matter how hard we try…some things defy planning…