Salty like hot dogs (and tears). Sweet like marmalade (and life).
Those who journey on level ground have no need to give one another their hands, whereas those who are on rough and slippery roads hold fast one to another… in order to walk securely and help one another in the many difficult places through which they have to pass.
St. France de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life
God, in His mercy, blessed me with a number of people who offer me their hand in the difficult places.
This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for each one of them.
Laurel and I left before the crack of dawn for a swim meet this morning.
As we came over the top of Murphy Hill, I caught my first glimpse of the eastern horizon.
“That’s going to be a beautiful sunrise,” I told her.
She started to laugh.
“Just you wait,” I said, assuming she was laughing at me gushing over another sunrise. “Some day 50 years from now, you’ll see a breath-taking sunrise, and you’ll think, Mom would have liked that.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“You laughed,” I said.
“I thought you said, ‘That’s no surprise’,” she said, referring to the conversation we had been having before I was distracted by the crack of dawn breaking through the sky ahead of us.
We both laughed. I mis-hear a lot. This time is was someone else’s turn to hear incorrectly.
I handed Laurel my phone. “See if you can take a few pictures on the way,” I said.
And she did.
I know that beautiful sunrises are simply caused by light reflecting through particles in the atmosphere.
Still, it was a lovely way to start the day.
Every time we came around another curve or crested another hill, the view just got better.
It doesn’t happen often , but I’m so glad that some days are like that.
On the way home from New York City Mary asked me what my favorite song from Dear Evan Hansen had been.
Mind you, I had heard all of the songs a grand total of one time.
Unlike Mary, who knew every word of every song.
Unlike the woman sitting next to Mary, who also knew every word to every song.
During intermission I asked the woman if she had seen the play before.
“No,” she said, “I’ve just listened to the soundtrack a thousand times.”
Now, two weeks out, I’ve joined their ranks.
I want to see the show again in the worst way, but the tickets were a huge splurge the first time and would fall into the realm of ridiculous expenditures if I were to see it again.
“What’s it about?” Karl asked, a little mystified about my latest obsession.
In a nutshell, the story is about a socially awkward teen (Evan Hansen) whose counselor suggests that he write a pep talk to himself every day — Dear Evan Hansen. One of these letters falls into the hands of another social outcast who commits suicide. When the letter is found in the pocket of the deceased boy, his parents conclude that he and Evan Hansen were friends, and a fabricated friendship begins. This barebones synopsis leaves out a thousand important details, I know, but it’s a start.
What’s it about? I could have answered mental health or high school or parenting or social media or life.
I’m still trying to figure that out — life, and what it’s about.
~~~
As Mary and I stood in line to enter the theater, we saw a sign saying that the part of Evan Hansen was being played that day by Michael Lee Brown. People in front of us and behind began to grumble. Before taking my seat, I listened to a woman argue with an usher about it.
“I paid to see Ben Platt,” she said. Purse looped over her forearm, gloves in one hand, ticket in the other, silver-haired — she looked like the innocuous grandmotherly sort, but she went after the usher like a Rottweiler.
To future Dear Evan Hansen viewers: May you be so lucky to see Michael Lee Brown perform the title role. He was amazing. He was the perfect amount of awkward as he stuttered. His hands fluttered — a stage-visible sign of a racing heart, something I know too well. I watched his hands, fascinated.
~~~
What was my favorite song?
I know them all now and sing along as I make dinner or walk the dog.
The lyrics are quotable, meme-able, but so layered and rich.
I think I know which song I would choose now — but that’s probably a post for another day.
Two years ago this — Helen and I kept vigil through the night with my mother. Helen had snapped this picture while I was dozing.
I went home in the wee hours, grabbed a little sleep, then went back to the hospital to relieve Helen.
After struggling so much the day before, making terrible gurgling sounds as she tried to breathe, my mother finally slept peacefully. I think the atropine helped.
Atropine gets its name from Atropos, one of the Fates, the one who chooses the mechanism of death and ends a mortal’s life. I find that both strange and interesting.
But my mother slept.
And we took turns sleeping.
At the end, Helen was sleeping when my mother passed away. My siblings were all there, but Helen, who had been so close to my mom, so faithful and present in so many ways, was not. In retrospect, I should have called her. But I didn’t know when the thread of life would finally be severed. None of us really do.
November 3rd feels heavy, like a weight on my heart.
My friend, Michael McNevin, wrote a song we play every November 4. The first few lines run through my mind unbidden.
Thinking of the cold to come…
It was 61° this morning — not very cold, but I shivered anyway. Today my father goes for a physical as a step toward entering an adult home. I am so unsettled with this decision. Ah, the cold to come.
From what I hear it will make me numb…
I remember the numbness after my mother died. I don’t want to feel that again, and yet, it is inevitable. My father walks more slowly now, shuffling along with his walker. His pacemaker paces 90% of the time. His thinking is muddled at an unquantifiable percentage.
Two of his peers took him to lunch the other day. When his friend brought him home, he pulled me aside. “Your father really couldn’t follow any of the conversation today,” he said, “And he fixated on one small thing. That was all he could talk about.”
Yes, I’ve noticed that, too. It makes me sad.
Look at how the wind goes by…
A breeze refreshes, but the wind is the wind. It blows through our lives – pushing us along, trying to hold us back, knocking dead branches out of trees, grabbing loose items and skittering them away.
Two years ago my mother died on a cold November day.
I can remember walking up the hill to the hospital that last time when she was still alive. It was still dark, maybe 5 AM. I wanted to give Helen a chance to sleep. The wind blew tiny raindrops against my cheeks — portending tears to come.
It’s November 3rd, that’s why.
Dear Mary Zaengle,
I didn’t know yesterday was going to be such a great day and here’s why —
In preparation, I had focused on the tired parts of the day: the getting up before 4 AM and the getting home after 1 AM.
I was worried about the city, all those people crowded together and the tall buildings holding them in, a barricade between city and country, urban and rural, not home and my home — and I was spending a day on the wrong side of the barricade.
I braced myself against the day instead of leaning into it.
I felt like you, who had never been to the city before, should be going with someone who loves the city and that’s not me — but you wanted me to go so I figured I’d better make a good effort.
“What do you want to do?” I had asked you. We had several hours to kill on either side of Dear Evan Hansen.
“I dunno,” you replied, in that helpful way you have.
So I worried about that, too, and finally decided we should go to the New York Public Library. You love books. I knew that if it turned out to be just a bunch of books you would be thrilled. You would pull the oldest book you could find off the shelves so you could hold it in your hands, feel the paper, and smell the old book smell. I’ve seen you do that.
The library was the right choice. You reached up to touch one of the stone lions that guarded the main entrance.
Inside, I touched the Lego lion that guarded the entrance to the children’s room.
“Mom!” you said, aghast. “The sign says ‘Please do not touch.'”
Oops. My bad.
But what a magnificent place! You wished you could climb up the ladder to the second tier of books that ran the circumference of the study room. I wished I could have seen the original card catalog where now tables of computers sit, the card catalog’s modern replacement.
We walked the long hallways, climbed the marble stairs and admired the art work that was everywhere.
As we were leaving, we noticed a sign for tours of the library. Our 2 hour visit served as a peek — there’s so much more, I’m sure. Next time we’ll have to take the tour.
Did I just say next time? Next time?
After spending some time there, I kind of want to go back. We should do that, don’t you think?
Sincerely,
Me
On October 29, I am grateful for these — collected over the course of the month.
How has your October been?
Laurel said the other day, “We should all learn another language. As a family, you know?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, then if we’re someplace all together and we want to say to something to someone in the family but we don’t really want everyone else to know, we can just say it in that other language,” she said.
I think she was thinking along the lines of a let’s-get-out-of-here signal.
“Like Swedish,” she said. “We could all learn Swedish and nobody would know what we’re saying.”
“Ummm… you’d be surprised,” I told her. “I’m pretty sure Amy knows Swedish.”
Amy — former pastor, dear friend.
“Oh, well…” Laurel said. “You know what I mean.”
Personally, I think we should all learn sign language. Not as a secret language — because there are a lot of people in the world who know sign — but as a quieter way of communicating.
I can always tell when my father’s hearing aids aren’t working.
“What?” he’ll ask.
Frequently.
“I’m having trouble hearing you,” he’ll say.
I’ll check to see if his hearing aids are in, and, if they are, if he has turned them on. Often these days he forgets the latter.
The other day Mary had a dentist appointment. As she and I headed out the door, I stopped to check my father’s hearing aids — and turned them both on. He was on his way to sit in the living room with the Daily Jumble.
An hour later when we got home, he was standing at the kitchen table.
“What’s going on, Dad?” I asked.
“I need to put this in my…” and his voice trailed off as he searched for the word. He was holding a hearing battery in his hand.
“You need to put a new battery in your hearing aid?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and he pointed to his right ear — where there was no hearing aid.
“Okay, I can help with that,”I said. “Where’s the hearing aid?”
“That’s the problem,” he said.
“Did you set it on the table here?” I asked, and began moving papers and looking.
“I don’t know,” he replied — and that became his reply to every question.
“Where were you when you took it out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you sitting in your chair in the living room?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you go in your bedroom?”
“I don’t know.”
I began looking everywhere — the bedroom, the bathroom, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the sun porch. I crawled around on the floor, looking under furniture, putting my cheek to the floor because that made it easier to see the incongruity of the hearing aid.
“Is it in your pocket?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he replied, but he dutifully emptied his pockets for me.
All this conversation was taking place at a high volume — because of the missing hearing aid. That, alone, is exhausting.
Twenty minutes into the search and I was ready to give it a rest. My neck hurt from sleeping in a bad position the night before and this cheek-to-the-floor business wasn’t helping. I sat down.
“We’ve got to find it!” my father said when he saw me sitting. He was looking through some papers that hadn’t been moved in a year. The hearing aid would surely not be among them.
“Criminy,” I muttered under my breath. My neck ache was quickly becoming a headache.
“Keep looking,” he said urgently. “We can’t stop looking!”
I got back to my feet and went back over the same places I had been looking. Finally, in his bedroom, I spotted it poking out from the back edge of a chair cushion.
I could see the relief on his face when I brought it to him.
“Where did you find it?” he asked.
“On the chair in your room,” I replied, while trying to put the new battery in.
“Where?” he asked again.
“On the chair in your room,” I replied, while trying to put the hearing aid in his ear.
“That’s better,” he said, once it was in place. “Where did you find it?”
Something in me snapped. “ON THE CHAIR IN YOUR ROOM,” I shouted — not in a nice way.
I left in search of Advil.
Frederick Buechner, in his new book The Remarkable Ordinary, talks about his mother’s hearing loss and the difficulty of shouting conversations.
I thought about my deaf friends who read lips so well — and appreciated that I don’t have to shout at all with them.
When Laurel said she wanted to learn Swedish, all I could think is that I’d rather learn sign language.
That way maybe I could communicate better with my friends who use it.
And when I’m old and hard-of-hearing, my family can converse with me without shouting.
We had a family picnic a few weeks ago.
Actually, that’s kind of a generous description.
It was a partial family get-together that involved food, frisbee, and talking.
Five out of eight children — that’s more than half the family.
A kind of weird conglomeration of food that included deli meat (but no bread), watermelon, fresh mozzarella salad, chips, and blueberry pie — I suppose that constitutes a picnic. We were eating at a picnic table.
A huge caterpillar.
Frisbee.
That became layered frisbee.
A walk by the lake.
And lots of sitting around, talking.
The best of life is made up of so many simple moments.
They may not be perfect, but the sum of them is.
I sat in an exam room with a new health care provider last week. As she worked her way through the list of get-to-know-you questions, she came to medications. The form had said, “List all medications,” but I left it blank.
“Do you take any medications?” she asked.
“Nope,” I said.
“Vitamins or supplements?”
“Nope.”
“Anything over-the-counter that you regularly take?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing at all?” she asked one last time, looking up at me.
“Do you count coffee?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “That’s a food group. Coffee and chocolate — both are food groups.”
I knew then that we would get along famously.
My sister survived Irma. The morning after the storm, she reported that they were fine but didn’t have electricity. To the best of my knowledge, they are still without electricity. She texted me pictures of trees down and debris in the road, then added,
The real problem: NO COFFEE 😬😱😡
I read a joke that made me think of her and her situation.
Q: How do you feel when there is no coffee?
A: Depresso
The other day when I made my coffee, the filter folded over and the coffee didn’t drain properly into the pot. When I went to pour my first cup, I got watery grounds and a mess in my coffee maker. I read that spilling a cup of coffee is the adult equivalent of letting go of a balloon. My situation was the equivalent of multiple balloons disappearing into the sunrise. I felt like crying.
Thankfully, I live in a land of plenty — plenty more beans to grind, plenty more filters, plenty of water.
And plenty of electricity.
Still, I hope my sister’s electric comes back soon — if for no other reason than for the sake of coffee.
(And air-conditioning.)
“Quite frankly, God,” I said, “I’m getting a little tired of working on this patience thing. Could we move on to something else?”
Yesterday morning, I had been awakened by my father’s whistling. It’s happy whistling — “O Danny Boy” — evidence of his penchant for Irish music, that tells me he’s up and getting ready for the day.
Most days I listen for it. “Time to get to work,” I say to my girls as I get off the couch and head for the kitchen to fix his breakfast.
But yesterday, I heard it on the monitor in my room. It woke me up.
“O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…”
Sometimes he sings it. His singing reminds me of Lee Marvin in “Paint Your Wagon.”
I rolled over and looked at the time. 2:45 AM. Ugh.
When I went down to his room, he was laying out his clothes.
“What are you doing, Dad?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said, turning to look at me.
“It’s not even 3 o’clock in the morning,” I told him.
“I know that,” he said — but I don’t think he did.
“Don’t you think you should be sleeping?” I asked.
“That sounds like a good idea,” he replied.
After helping him get back to bed, I went upstairs to my own. Laying there, looking at the ceiling, listening to the monitor, I could hear him rustling around for a few minutes, then quiet, then the heavy breathing of sleep.
I wished I could do that, but sleep never returned for me.
Some time after 4, I came downstairs again and made my coffee. My ever-growing pile of books that I’m working through beckoned me. In addition to daily Bible reading and time with Lancelot Andrewes, my current morning reading consists of
St. Francis irked me yesterday. He said,
Among the virtues we should prefer that which is most conformable to our duty, and not that which is most conformable to our inclination…
My inclination is not towards patience. Mercy, maybe, but not patience. I’d like to swoop in, do some little nice thing for someone who’s hurting, and leave.
This long haul of caregiving is the opposite.
And my patience is in short supply these days.
“Lord, can we move on?” I prayed — but I knew the answer.
I began a good work in you. I’m going to complete it, He replied.
So, when I heard “O Danny Boy” for the second time that morning, I made his breakfast, took his blood pressure, gave him his meds, found the puzzles in the newspaper for him, and tackled another day.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 