Yes

A few of you may know that some years back I experienced what I can only call a near death experience. Tonight I feel an unsettling sense of surprise that the memory of it brings me no comfort.

I'm struggling, and  I can't tell you precisely why it is worse again. That's just the way of grief I suppose. It sneaks up from behind with increased intensity when you least expect it. I miss JeanAnn, who died so recently on December 6th. I miss Brenda  who died in May of 2010, and my brother Steve, who died in November that same year. They are the most recent holes left in my heart, but there are many others, and. I am feeling them all tonight.

Do you have odd notions about the purpose of your life in relation to those dear to you? I have to ask, because, I certainly do. Always have. Always I have seen myself as part of the fabric of lives around me. A single thread, but woven deeply in and about; helping to hold it all together. Some very important strands in my own life are missing now; and I'm feeling the threadbare places this winter.

Don't get me wrong. My life is rich with friends and family still here with me. Tonia quietly sets a cup of hot tea beside me. Has music softly soothing the pain she sees in my eyes or in the creases around them. She has felt it too today. We have talked about it. Hard to say why  bittersweet memories have crowded so close.

JeanAnn was standing in our kitchen two months ago when she asked me about Brenda's death. They had been out of touch for years. Did my answer provide any comfort? Was it sensitive enough in view of JeanAnn's own illness, and her long ago friendship with Brenda? Maybe not. I think I may have dropped the ball that time. I do believe that if sentience continues after bodily death, the way that both JeanAnn and Brenda believed that it would, they are more forgiving than I of my shortcomings.

Hearing of my 'near death' experience may have brought comfort to my friends. I'm sure it did to my mother; but for me it raised  huge weighty questions. When asked if I would come back, I had answered, yes I would, for my friend. There had been no possibility for misunderstanding at that moment of decision. No looming questions. Moments, or milliseconds later everything was suddenly very different again. I must have meant 'friends' since it was impossible to choose between them. Weren't my family members my very first friends? Every animal I ever met, stray or not, domesticated or wild ? What exactly had I promised?

Is it possible that the entire experience consisted of ions misfiring over random synapses? That meaning was erroneously assigned to it? That the external and tangible events before and after that experience were just as meaningless as the near-death experience itself?
Is it just as possible that the simple act of saying yes was all that was really required? Could  that alone have accomplished something good for my friends?

Rusty Roo

On February 9th 2013 my friends on the east coast suffered a fierce winter storm. One source says 650,000 people were without power. Businesses that by their nature can not close exhausted their back-up power, and since winds remained high  restoration couldn't even begin for what must have seemed forever.

It's not hard for me to imagine. I was there in 2003. Snowfall broke records that year. I saw Boston, Dorchester, Quincy, and Worcester, Ma grind to a halt. Cars were lost beneath and behind walls of snow. To free their vehicles, people mountain-climbed and dug down to their car roofs. Fresh from Texas, it was a surreal experience for me and my Pekingese friend, Rusty.

Throughout the night I assessed the situation from various windows and angles. Snow plows barely visible in the blizzard, never stopped and never made any real headway either. Rusty watched me while I watched them, and his gaze grew ever more serious. I finally cut a sleeve from an old sweater, made two leg holes, and dressed for the inevitable.  As non-nonchalantly as possible I opened the apartment door. We were greeted by a free-standing wall of snow. I had to shovel just to reach the building's exterior door.
Eventually we stood on what had been the porch, now merely an extension of the white landscape. The steps were altogether hidden somewhere beneath the immense drift, and navigating to level snow was challenging.  Rusty slowly wagged as if embarrassed at the need for all the effort.

While that first outdoor necessity may have been confusing and embarrassing, it wasn't long until he was frolicking in deep snow. In the interest of avoiding freezing to death, we quickly dispensed with his sweater. He didn't need it, and I needed him to eventually want to come inside.

Tonia took him to a fenced playground one day. With leash removed, Rusty immediately raced the circumference in a series of leaps and disappearances through the drifts. It's a memory that sticks with me.  He had ping-pong ball sized icicles clinging everywhere by the time he was spent. His was one of the most joyous displays I have ever witnessed anywhere; and from a dog who had been grieving himself to death  a few years earlier.

I first heard about him in the hospital where I worked in Texas. That particular evening I was not in Intensive Care. I was filling the role of Nursing Supervisor and making rounds on every unit, and I overheard a woman preparing for discharge talking with her husband.

"If he still isn't even eating well, he is never going to get over losing her. I just can't stand watching him grieve any more.Tomorrow you take him to the vet, and have him put down."

I excused myself for interrupting and learned more. Rusty had belonged to the patient's sister, who died from complications of sickle cell weeks ago. He was a four year old Pekingese, well loved by all, who could not, by any account, adjust to life without his best friend. He had spent days with various family members, and now his last option was exhausted. I offered to take him.

"I don't know," The woman hesitated, ill herself with the hereditary ailment. "he is suffering. I don't want him to suffer."

I told them how I had recently lost Tory, my best friend Peke, to old age. I promised to send reports and gave them my phone number. In the end, I met Rusty after work and took him home.

They hadn't been lying. Rusty was a bit thin, and his thick red-gold fur was tangle free, but without luster. His tail drooped. He mostly kept his head down. He showed little interest in anyone around him. I offered him several types of food that night to no avail. My own. Spike the doberman's dry food. A can of  nutrition packed, appetite stimulating enticement left over from Tory's last days. Even cat food, which every dog I ever knew loves to steal. It truly was heart breaking. He was polite. He never turned away. He even wagged slowly as if to say it wasn't that he didn't appreciate my concern.

The degree of empathy that animals show is no secret to those who have been loved by them. Even so I was touched by the rest of my furry family that night. Feline friends Dinky, and Pal gave up my lap so that Rusty could be rocked in the recliner till morning. Officer Scruff who ruled everyone in the household, curled and purred at my feet. Spike who had not once attempted to nose in on the offered treats  lay on the floor nearby, braving Scruffy's wrath to lend support. When he got up to drink he glanced in Rusty's direction briefly; I'm sure he was demonstrating the location of the water bowl. I thanked him and stroked Rusty until we all fell asleep there.

I know you miss her,fella. She loves you too. She's not sick anymore. You will see her again. I truly believe that. Would you give it a try here for awhile? Shes's welcome to come visit. That sometimes happens you know. 

The next morning, still dressed in scrubs Rusty and I followed Spike out and took a tour of the immediate area. Past the fallow deer we were joined by guineas and ducks, and Charmin the pygmy goat. All the horses pointed ears at him when we walked to the fence line to say hello. Going back inside I thought his step seemed lighter. Although his tail remained down, he drank water, and proceeded to graciously thank everyone for their friendliness. He both allowed and gave brief sniffs indiscriminately. To my delight he also  curled his tail up over his back, and when a bit later I caught him at the food bowl I celebrated

I can't do Rusty justice with my writing. Trying to capture him for you within a few brief stories is simply impossible. He was heroically brave, and marvelously gentle, and one of the finest souls that ever honored me with friendship. He adored Tonia, and I will be forever grateful for all wonderful times the three of us; and sometimes the two of them shared. On rare occasions Rusty had a special visitor. I'd respect their privacy, and afterward he'd come and thank me, and tell me he loved me too.

In the end, she came for him. I like to think she rocked him for awhile.

Salix ×sepulcralis Simonkai

While she lived, I never knew her real name. She was simply my friend. Always there. Almost always had been. I barely remember the day that she arrived. I was small enough to still need help onto my swing set, and old enough to repeatedly chant the chorus of Mary Had a Little Lamb. If not for The Argument, that momentous day might not have even imprinted memory.

My father won the argument.  Against my mothers wishes, and amid my tears, I was removed from the swing and my swing set was relocated deeper into the backyard. We'd lost a battle of some importance. We had been displaced, my swing set and I.

Of course my tears stopped as soon as I was lifted  to practice swinging my legs again, but from the new vantage point, I watched my parents,  and this newcomer, warily.

For years I wasn't allowed near her. If I ventured too close the backdoor would open and I was admonished to play somewhere else, or told to come inside. Eventually I understood why. My friend was unlike others: fragile in some way. From a distance I watched her grow. In fact, we both did.. She waved at me shyly, I would smile back. She spoke in whispers. Became tall and lithe. She danced sometimes, with long strands of hair whipping. Beside her in rain, I would outstretch both arms and let rivulets course down my limbs. Year after year the bond grew stronger. From her, I learned to love every sunbeam, every drop of rain. I learned if you sit absolutely still, wild bunnies come very close indeed. I learned to appreciate the kind of strength that can be flexible, the kind of silence that isn't empty, and the patience that brings reward. She taught me also that giving freely without reservation or expectation brings a special beauty not easily found elsewhere.

When I began to read, and later to also write, I leaned on her. Often on summer nights I fell asleep star gazing beside her. One of my earliest attempts at poetry began with a line in her honor. "I loved a willow tree once, and neath her slender branches, I'd never known a rest so sweet."

She lived to see my son tickled by her branches, tiny fingers curiously stroking. Somewhere a photo captured him squatting beside her peeling an Easter egg. Then suddenly, in a late and fierce winter storm, she died. Working together, Shadrack and I did what was necessary.With rope around the saddle horn we carried her to the edge of the field. Her remains became a wildlife refuge. For years each spring I hoped to see some new sprig returning: but she was gone. Gone, but not forgotten.

The Green Ribbon

As a rule, I don't like cut flowers. I prefer them alive on their stems free to spread their perfume, feed the bees, and in time to wither and drop their seeds. No matter how intricate the vase, or how polished the table, plucked flowers somehow saddened me. I still developed a habit of picking blossoms. It became her habit too.

The first time was an accident. Not the picking. I intentionally broke the stem of a wisteria, or perhaps it was a lilac bloom. The accident was in dropping it while Shadrack shied around a huge mud puddle. I looked back as I rode on and thought someone might love the color it brought to that unlikely place. It became a  cherished spring ritual that JeanAnn embraced when I took her riding. If I was distracted by some surly Shadrack moment, she would tap me on the shoulder and point. Once I had calmed my horse, we would ride right over to the bush and grab a couple of blooms. Often JeanAnn would carry them until we found the ideal spot for deposit. Until then she would periodically reach from behind to let me deeply inhale the fragrance. Sometimes it was a mud puddle, the larger the better. Nicest, when it was one of the spots that children would come to sail the crude toy boats they had made. Sometimes it was the front porch of an elderly neighbor, or the windshield of their parked car.

We both had to agree it was a place likely to please and surprise, and at an unlikely distance from any similar  growing bush. It was a way of celebrating beauty, and showing love.

JeanAnn died this winter. I held her hand for the last time on December 6th. Not many flowers bloom at this time of year, but yesterday at the pasture something caught my eye. On the handle of the old worn pitchfork, wound carefully and tied into a bow, was a bright green ribbon made of twine. A final gift, left behind on her last visit.