Yeah, But Really?

     I don't think anyone can be shocked anymore, but that doesn't negate the possibility of being surprised at the lack of good taste, especially when dealing with anything connected to children. This past Mother's Day  WNYT sponsored  a 5K race  in  Saratoga Springs, a memoriam by   Kelly's Angels, for the benefit of helping children cope with the loss of a parent due to cancer.  The name of the race is "Run Like A Mother."  The name seems to be based on some book so titled, but really?   T-shirts and all? 

Words: More or Less

 Sometimes I come across a word, in a book, a crossword puzzzle, or heard on television, a perfectly familiar word, and I wonder-----have I ever used that word:  Spoken it?  Written it?  Time was when  I used a lot more words than I do now, all those written term papers, all those years in the classroom, those rambling discussions with friends, and others, aimed at discovering who we were.  Arguments, debates, confessions, explanations.  Even today, if words had mass, took up physical space, I could easily speak enough words to fill a room, or even the entire house,  just by talking.  But circumstance inevitably applies its own restrictions, and, though it would seem  incomprehensible to the self I used to be, some days now I speak hardly a word.  ****So many words, so little opportunity.

One Last Look

The house was done,
Stripped and drained of the stuff of life,
 Like a corpse,
And infused with the cold liquids of gloss and polish
That simulate a life within,
Absent the heartbeat.
The illusion is of perfecton
That all, unblemished, is a possibility here.
But the rooms have a hollow echo.

On to the outside,
To the flowers and the plantings.
We work in the warmth of the doomed sunlight,
Clipping, pruning, digging and even replanting,
Trying to restore what had been lost
When the force that was its creator
Weakened, and then died.

The chill remains inside;
Out here we have more hope.
"You can live on here," I breathe.
Flowers symbolize eternal life,
Don't they?

One, and only one, last look, I tell myself.
So, just before a year has passed,
And against the voices that tell me no,
I drive down the familiar road.
The early promise of budding life
Calls for me to see what she had loved,
And what we'd tried to keep alive.

The tulips should be ready,
The giant peonies showing promise,
Her beloved roses still waiting,
The scores of other flowers and shrubs,
Chosen from her yearly catalog searches
Soon to emerge into various displays.

The glory of the street, and her special pride:
A  lovely and rare Variegated Butterfly Bush,
Carefully pruned and nurtured
To dominate this spring, to be a standout amidst beauty.

I drive my car past her house without looking yet.
I circle the loop and stop in front.
The side of the house where her flowers once grew is   
Empty--
The entire area barren, dug up, just black soil,
Awaiting, without doubt, a new imprint.
The butterfly bush has been cut down, gone.

Only Words

    I've always liked words, and stories, and what they leave us with.  Some fairy tales were scary when we were little, with  menaces such  a kidnapping dwarf, a big bad wolf, and a hunter with a gun.  I remember crying over the suffering of Ginger and Merrylegs, feeling sad for the lost and lonely Lassie trying to find her way back home, and my heart breaking over Old Yeller and the Red Pony. The images are forever etched in my memory.
    I remember being fascinated, though, by a story from a much less respected genre, the American folk tale:  I was never much impressed by those stories nor by Paul Bunyan, who I considered an unreliable blowhard, yet one of his tales left an indelible mark.  He is describing how cold the weather was, and he relates that it was so cold that words froze as they fell out of people's mouths, and no one knew what was said until the spring thaw.  I was intrigued by the concept of words having a solid form.  It seemed right to me that they should. You could write words down, which gives them substance, why then shouldn't they have a physical counterpart as well. 
   During my adolescent religious period, I got into what may have been a type of passing trend, because I don't hear much of it anymore, though I suppose that could be because I am no longer in that theater. Mental prayer was what they called it, and that meant you were supposed to be able to pray in a higher form without using words, not even in your mind.  This was in direct contrast to what the "migrant nuns" taught when they came to our neck of the woods--- that praying doesn't count unless you move your lips.  TBC---my eyes go to sleep before I do nowadays--more's the pity
  

Futility

     I was outside a few hours ago, trying to find a place to plant zinnia seeds.  I so looked forward to doing this all through the long drawn-out spring, when I bought the colorful packets of seeds.  But now that the time is right, the ground is hard and dry as a bone, and there are immovable rocks in my way.  I sense that my efforts will be less than stellar, but am still hopeful--maybe tomorrow---if it doesn't rain.  I come inside, and feel a pinching on the inside of my arm; a tick is trying to burrow its way in, has gotten maybe 1/4 of the way.  It's on the inside of my right arm, so I need help to tweeze it out. 

Second Thoughts

  During the last few years of her life, she was in and out of the hospital, a place she despised.  She had been in the vanguard as far as health was concerned.  Way before it was mainstream, she advocated for her own health by  eliminating  desserts, drinking orange juice, and, unusual in the 1950's, engaging in what would now be called power walks, up and down the rural road where she lived, daily walks at a rapid pace.  So when her health started to fail despite her regime, she was at first in denial, and being a person without faith in the afterlife, most likely frightened.  Her husband was dead, so difficult as it must have been for her fiercely independent spirit, she asked for help, by calling my mother.
   So as it happened, it fell on me to drive her to the hospital when she was in distress.  Only I and one other person could possibly know what that entailed.  She was far from the ideal patient.  At the time, there were 3 hospitals in the city she lived in, and we alternated, going from one to the other. 
   Typical of her background and the time in which she lived, she was of  a frugal nature, and her financial assets, though modest by any standards, were of major importance to her.  Sensing the end might be near, because, after all, a common belief of her age group was that hospitals were where you went to die, she would apparently assess her circumstance at the time, as to who would get what upon her passing.  She would summon her lawyer, at first the one who had drawn up her will, and later whatever lawyer she could prevail upon to come to the hospital for semi-regular revisions to her will.  She would never tip her hand as to what heir she was displeased with, or what offense she may have endured or imagined, but she was adamant in her demands.  
    Her plight was a tragic comedy, typical of a person making unrealistic and frivolous demands upon others while faced with  the impending end of her own life--nothing funny about that.  Upon analysis, it seems that it is natural to want to control whatever you can---even if it's only money. 

Mantra

"If you see something, say something."  Go ahead, damn it, don't be afraid.