In this esoteric era it’s said time is a construct, an illusion created to help mankind organize our existence, yet it doesn’t feel ephemeral turning 54. These lessons are solid. Looking back, and wandering repeatedly over familiar landscapes, isn’t where my heart lies. I am ready for new adventures outside of the same ol’, new ways of being me, new ways of relating and loving.
I can compartmentalize my life in decades,20’s being the learning years, 30’s being the building years, 40’s being the destructive years, and 50’s being the… the… maybe I will know once I am 60. I’d like to call them my “creative years” for now. I will not limit myself. Since I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at 40, I’ve been working hard to overcome limitations. Not all, in fact not most, of those efforts helped me feel better physically. RA was like an undertow and the more I fought for control, the more disabled I became. I’ve never been so angry; inside I shook my fist at the world for a few years. There is a space in unrelenting pain which whittles down a person’s focus to only the cause, and a willingness to do almost anything for it to stop. A Rheumatologist is hard to come by, a good Rheumatologist who keeps up on medical advances in the journals is harder. I knew from the beginning I’d have to read and advocate for myself. What I didn’t know is how many factors would work against me. In January of 2018 a virus teamed with my RA for a lung attack. I was 49 and spent 10 days in the hospital.
These first 4 years of my 50’s have been different, almost as if there was a reset. The Universe seems confident I reclaimed my desire to live after it tried to kill me. My new rheumatologist prescribed a different biologic after the lung incident and it’s worked up to now. I had to laugh when I learned I’d have to push the plunger on the syringe, a new challenge for a human who fought off nurses as a child, and just happens to have a tremor. I stopped caring so much about so many different things, and started meditating with a goal of not being afraid of death. 50 made HUGE goals, but this, along with other mind/body energy practices, set me on a peaceful path for the first time in my life. Many things aren’t as hard as I once made them. Embarking on the 5th year of this decade, I am writing fiction about death and the afterlife, about friendship and grief, two themes of my journey thus far. I am ready for new stories now, having released all of the old ones except for the good. I still want to wrangle this beast RA, tie it up like a trussed hog with natural healing and self-love, good nutrition and friendship, writing, reading, and laughter. Can’t hurt to aim for it, to steep myself in the Divinity and richness of my life for the rest of this one. In this moment, it is well and I’m grateful I get to be this old.
“A great portent appeared in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars.”
Revelation 12:1, The Bible
As energy within a healing tetrahedron saturated Phoebe and Shana’s souls they became thoughtless, closer to original than either had been since the first few years of their friendship, when they were new to womanhood, tried on relational influences and found safety with one another. Two green stiches closed the fissure between them, forgiveness barely begun, but Anam Chara remembrance enough to satisfy Tri-Eloh for now. The Tri, having realized a quickly escalating danger to Phoebe’s physical being, gently moved the pair from Mary’s constellation and handed them off to escorts from Michael’s Divine Army for transport to their in-between place. Emboldened by El’s interference, the Tri assumed survival of this Anam Chara link warranted favors from even the most high. The higher the angel or spirit, however, the busier the angel or spirit, as Archangel Michael reminded the Tri of their lengthening line of souls who awaited healing during this deviation from routine cosmic life. Mary’s blessing, however brief, accomplished what would have taken longer than Phoebe’s lifetime and justified the choice even if it did not entirely eradicate Shana’s shame. Tri-Eloh rushed toward their purpose with gratitude that flowed behind them in wide swaths of golden starlight and touched every ethereal being they passed. Visible in the final hour of dark before dawn, a thirty-three-minute meteor shower built upon a Spring Triangle created by the stars Regulus, Spica and Arcturus. Intimate mysteries often revealed themselves to solo audiences on earth.
First they heard “shooosh (pause) shooosh”, then they felt sand beneath their feet at the same time the water came into view, waves shining and dark with frothy remnants when the tide receded. While it possessed key elements of thousands of their summer days, the air was different, shimmering and energetic as if alive and moving on the edge of vision. Shana reached for Phoebe’s hand as a fishy breeze cooled their faces wet with tears. “I am”, they said, “I am you”. “I’ll see you again”, Shana’s whisper landed as Phoebe opened her eyes in a dim cold room. Dry prickly hands rubbed her calves irritatingly, an unidentifiable acrid smell filled her nostrils as she shook her head back and forth on a thin sheet over a plastic mattress that crackled beneath her. “Where am I?”, Phoebe snatched one foot away and kicked at the air. She wanted to go back, to go back to… damn it! She rubbed her nose and noticed the IV in her left hand. “What is going on?” Her heart began to race even as she closed her eyes tight and took a deep breath. Formaldehyde and ammonia overlaid with something worse stung her nostrils and throat and made her stomach lurch. Dry Hands let his other hand descend to her foot before she heard, “You are safe under my care at Resting Pines Hospital, Miss Monteer. You’ve been catatonic for a couple days now, so I’m helping the circulation in your legs so you don’t get bed sores.” Back to my beach dream, back to Shana, Phoebe thought, but the ambulance ride, flashes of her dead friend’s neck, questions about heroin and drug dealers crowded her mind instead. Her breath came faster as she remembered it all and wondered if she’d lost her mind, if her mother’s weakness had finally showed up to claim her intelligence and grip on reality. “Water peese”. Dr. Cooper desperately needed composure, but his body betrayed him. It was as though he watched himself rub her foot against his khakis in slow motion. Engrossed, he was blindsided when his dentures clapped loudly as Phoebe’s foot jerked away and met his chin with force. Kazmir bid the Doctor, “Make her pay. Hurt her NOW.” “You will be restrained if you can’t control yourself, Miss Monteer!”“Wow! didn’t think this one was going to come around without ECT, Doc”, a new voice echoed and startled Dr. Cooper out of what he assumed were his own deviant thoughts. “Want me to get the restraints?” Why were they turning off more lights? “Water”, Phoebe croaked. “Yes, good idea at least until she calms down. I don’t know how I would’ve managed if you didn’t come in when you did, Farwin. You are truly indispensable!” The orderly blushed with the doctor’s approval. Dry Hands roughly grabbed Phoebe’s ankles. Hard plastic straps snapped over them at the corners of the bed. She struggled in silence as Kazmir planted images of archaic electroshock methods, biteplate in her mouth, her eyes rolled back in her head. “Give me your hand and I’ll help you with a drink in a second.” Phoebe tried hard not to panic as her arms were restrained. “Go ahead and finish your rounds, Farwin. I’ll take her vitals and give her some water.” “I’m only a little behind, but thanks, Doc. Kinda surprised after that kick, but she’s lucky to have your firm expertise. I’ll check back and make some notes on her status this afternoon. Please page me if you need any assistance before then.” Minutes passed with no sound but breathing from the end of the bed, out of range of sight. A tall thin man in a white coat approached her without a word and pressed a button on the wall behind her. While the bed raised slightly, he clamped his fingers over her nose. “Open your mouth and tilt your head back”, he instructed as he held a cup of water before her face and smiled, thin lips stretched into obvious pleasure as Phoebe opened her mouth. “Further!” he snapped. The doctor let go of her nose and held her head by the hair at her nape as he poured the water. Her nose gurgled then spewed like a fountain as she struggled and the doctor pulled her hair painfully. “Let’s get those vitals now”, he said cheerily as he let her go, brushing her hair from his hands onto the floor. “You really do smell, Miss Monteer. Since your attendant is occupied with other patients now, I know just the man for the job.” Phoebe sputtered and swallowed air as her throat spasmed and her lungs emptied. I have to get out of here, she thought as Dry Hands explained how he might have to take her temperature several times to get an accurate read, but not to worry-he would insure her records were detailed. Regret that he couldn’t report catatonia for a while longer frustrated the doctor. Kazmir plotted out the next few hours for his fully-compliant gadget Dr. Cooper, another fool who’s guilt and unworthiness birthed virgin evil. The doctor opened a drawer on the table next to her where Phoebe saw syringes and a horseshoe-shaped apparatus that he removed and shoved in her mouth before she knew what was happening. She tried to free her tongue to push against it, but it was pinned. “You’ll drool, but we don’t want you to injure yourself during therapy, young lady”, his face moved close enough for her to see flakes of white in bushy brows of grey and black like dirty snow banks in early spring. The doctor moved a machine with gauges next the the bed and flipped a small red switch. He widened her eyelids with his long course fingers, thrilled as his other hand flung the sheet back and exposed her trembling body, bikini underwear her only cover. Both Dr. Cooper and Kazmir delighted at the pure terror evident in her expanded pupils before he blinded her with a tactical light he’d purchased just last week with the demon’s persuasion. Wait a sec. A shiny speck grew in three directions in her left pupil. Surprised and worried he’d damaged her visibly, Dr. Cooper’s breathing quickened and his erection fled. He could lose everything, and all because of one plain girl who hadn’t cooperated, who he’d barely treated yet. A neon green triangle pulsed and cast a glow into the dim room as Phoebe’s body stilled and her soul found itself back on the beach with Shana.
In holographic embodiments of their most recent vessels, the Anam Chara sat cross-legged and sunk into warm sand within a clear crystalline cube open to a sky bleached innocent by scorchingly bright sun rays. “There’s something I have for you”, Shana said as she took her hand and pressed their palms together. Like most of their peers, in high school Shana and Phoebe experimented with alcohol, boys, and marijuana at house parties of classmates with vacationing parents. Phoebe’s mom’s heart-to-heart talks with the girls about dangerous situations and people made little impact. Then, she hit pay dirt when she restricted them to their respective rooms for a month with a threat of additional time if they spoke to one another. Although the friends lived together, went to school and church together, and even sneaked letters to one another, loneliness for their connection far outweighed any popularity they’d gained. If anything, they yearned for their previous invisibility, rather than being known as stupid freshman who could not hold their alcohol. Cautiously optimistic about the girl’s future afterwards, Phoebe’s mother even gave them a later curfew after improved grades proved their seriousness and they talked openly about everything at dinner-time, often seeming to forget she was even there. They were able to launch their plans in earnest with Phoebe’s talent for planning and foresight and Shana’s boundless imagination. Their futures outlined, hard copies reviewed and agreed on, Shana produced a jack knife from her backpack, opened it and swiftly cut her palm to Phoebe’s astonishment. Phoebe put her hand out with her eyes closed and head turned away. Their blood mingled as they joined hands and vowed to never betray one another, just as she dreamed during their separation. In her dream they wore long cotton nightgowns, and she could not make out the details of their features, but she recognized herself and her best friend in a floral wall-papered room with a high ceiling and tall leaded windows, tree branches and a night sky wavy through thick glass, a bed with four posts she knew they shared. A dagger rather than a kitchen knife sliced their flesh and in the dream they also vowed to protect one another.
Shana’s soul recovered a soul memory of this promise shortly after they departed the in-between. Death howled with outrage at her scrap of redemption.
In this moment, sitting on the sand with Shana, a lake lapping the shore on the other side of the cube, Phoebe felt a calm strength fill her mind as her Anam Chara’s soul energy met with reciprocity, light making their joined hands glow. “See you on the flipside”, Shana smiled.
Phoebe opened her eyes to find herself on the plastic mattress again with a low pillow beneath her head and daylight filling a sterile white room. “Great! You’re awake!”, sang a sunny voice. A youngish woman with smooth skin and golden eyes approached her bedside, poured water from a plastic pitcher into a paper cup and announced, “My name is Carrie I’m going to raise the bed slowly, then help you take a tiny sip of water so you don’t spill, ok Miss Monteer?” Phoebe nodded her head. Cool water trickled down her throat and she smiled a little in appreciation. “There you go. Now you just relax while I go get Dr. Pressman. She will assess if you need any more inpatient help. You’ll like her.” The nurse stopped at the door to turn and smile with the last part before leaving. Phoebe picked up the paper cup from the tray table over her bed and sipped while she took in her surroundings. Outside the window an apple tree budded, white scrolls yet to unwind and blossom. She opened the tray table to find a comb, a toothbrush in cellophane, the smallest tube of toothpaste she’d ever seen, and an attached mirror that slid out and angled back to reflect her tangle of red hair and Shana’s golden eyes, a green speck in the left. “What the… ok, ok, Shana.” Phoebe closed her eyes and made herself take a deep breath. Had it all been a nightmare when she awoke before? As she opened her eyes and stared once again into the golden eyes she’d loved, she realized she needed a new outline for a new future. Tears welled as a sob caught in her throat.
Rarely were the Tri-Eloh surprised. In a shocking display of unconditional love even they did not fully fathom, El sent Archangel Jophiel to meet the Tri on their way to the Marys, not with an admonition as they first feared, but with the answer they sought. When Shana’s soul was hijacked by the Tri, El knew they must be frantic, a rare event which seldom existed away from Death’s realm of influence. A single glance into her soul “hidden” in a barely perceptible green star and El understood every detail of her earthly journey, and more importantly, each details’ impact on her. Shana’s soul no longer needed a hearing, rare Divine dispensation proof enough of its’ innocence . Death never submitted receipts for the worst of Shana’s injuries, and orchestrated more than a dozen demons led by Kazmir to shroud their evil in veils of toxic temptations and free will. Kazmir snuck in a few months before Shana met Phoebe, both sets of parent’s guardians overwhelmed with addictions and delusions, the demon’s ancient evil free to wreak havoc in her mind unchecked by a child’s standard guardian angel. Universal Law prevailed with perfect timing and El’s council voted “no punishment” since all beings involved could be forgiven, or not, often a choice of grievously wounded souls. As certain as El knew Doyle would forgive himself for Shana’s suicide eventually, El knew even if given a million years, Phoebe would not. Anam Chara soul bonds required immense strength to thrive despite heart abrasions and gashes on the earth plane meant to instill empathy and depth. Normally, Soul Friends travelled back home to the Tri within minutes of one another at the conclusion of each lifetime, but Phoebe was on her own for the remainder of their contract on Earth. The Tri-Eloh were dispatched to retrieve Shana’s soul and begin the healing process with a balm not gifted in ages.
Phoebe became aware of herself, barely. Simple and true nothingness is what she felt; no thoughts came to mind until darkness flowed toward a hole in the distance, thick black swirling around her and glinting silver right before it fell beyond her sight. Still, she felt deeply empty. “I am”, she whispered. “I am here”, a while later. Far off, after what seemed a long while, she heard a whisper, “I am here, Phoebe.” Who was that? What was that? As she willed herself in the direction of the whisper she unconsciously circled the hole in the darkness. “I am Phoebe” she whispered. “I am Shana”, she heard as she fell.
Into the ooze now, Phoebe realized she had no body, no limbs to flail about, no gasps for air as she sank deeper and deeper, the ooze reflective with first silver streaks, then gold, then violet. Each color strand infused her with gifts during her prolonged descent, but none would compare to what awaited her as she slipped from an opening in the ceiling of a cave. While not a body, Phoebe felt a loving peace like nothing before as her essence floated in a circular crystal cave. If heaven was comprised of just this cave, she could live with it. “Only if I get to be here with you, Silly”, she heard. “Shana!”, Phoebe squeaked. She felt there was something she forgot, for just a split second, before she hurled her ethereal self toward Shana’s essence. “Whoah, Gurl! I missed you, too! Has it been months, years, eons? Time is an even trickier bitch beyond earth. Oh Phoebe, there are so many explanations I saved up, but they all feel like weak excuses in this moment. I love you so much, please know I love you.” Phoebe was a little woozy as an image of Shana in the coroner’s drawer flashed in her memory, her friend’s golden skin washed a pale yellow. “Am I dead, too? Is that why we’re here… like this? And when did you change the strength in the belladonna tea bags?”
El arranged a miracle reunion in Mary’s constellation of pinkish vapor and neon moss-colored clouds for the start of Shana’s journey back to wholeness, an element of forgiveness pivotal in a complex equation which would ultimately decide the Anamchara’s fate. Death’s demons had entirely devoured Shana’s faith for their Master’s favor and used her love for Doyle against her bond with Phoebe. This moment, however, depended on feelings forged over centuries of saving one another’s soul from Death’s malefic traps, love tattoos on one another’s infinite self. “Here, in this forever now moment, commune and replenish”, intuited a gentle voice which drew their attention upward, a ceiling of iridescent liquid undulated and misplaced energy until both felt mesmerized and thoughtless. Red triangular walls unfurled from a single hypnotic star above to form a tetrahedron. Phoebe filled the floor with a silver triangle, seemingly with a thought.
Tetrahedrons
She felt Shana’s apprehension blossom as shiny walls snapped and pushed them closer until they almost merged, every part of one soul touched every part of the other and brought forth profound Anam Chara kinship. “I love you, Shana. I will always love you. Help me understand why. Tell me.” Shana felt a wave of warm pink infuse her essence with acceptance. “Gurl, you know I love you. There was no way I would’ve chanced losing the best thing that ever happened to me when my parents died. I wasn’t even sleeping in a bed or eating real food before you, not to mention… Your Mom only let me stay on a trial basis at first, remember? She was already freaked out by my parents, all the abuse, the drugs and filth the social worker told her about. Remember when your Mom had to remind me for months not to eat with my fingers? The look on her face when I forgot… like I was nasty. Everyone would’ve been disgusted by what I did.” “Even me?” Phoebe felt how ashamed her friend still was in this place beyond her imagining “Even you. I never deserved your friendship, and you know it.” A fissure between the two created a dark space in the tetrahedron. “NO! I don’t know that! What I know is you were my first REAL friend, the ONLY one I believed in and trusted with everything because you showed me how kind and funny and good I can be if I am just myself, if I have the balls. But… now… ” The golden light within them dimmed, and neither felt like communicating any more.
A pin pricked the bottom of Phoebe’s child-sized foot and caused a slight grimace even though the remainder of her continued as motionless as she’d been for two days, her arms crossed over her stomach with a saline IV on top of her left hand. The doctor nodded, satisfied she had at least some chance of avoiding electroshock therapy. Her status over the next 24 hours would determine the course of therapy, but for now he satisfied himself with grabbing a fist full of the young woman’s red hair at the nape of her neck. He smiled and yanked her head back as he lowered his face to her ear. “Miss Monteer”, he whispered, “Oh the things I’m doing to you in my dreams, little lady.” The old man hesitated, remembering his dream from the night before, a dream that went far beyond any thing he’d ever dared. Phoebe’s forhead wrinkled and her eyes moved behind their lids as her chin shook, only the slightest of tremors. Quickly the Dr. pulled the cap off the syringe of lorazepam with his yellowed dentures. As he pushed 2mg of lorazepam into her IV he couldn’t help but giggle in anticipation as he left the syringe hang. Over thirty years of keeping his desires at bay, and here a wisp of a thing proved to be the one who would finally undo him he thought as he pushed 2 mg more. Kazmir sneered at the size of this one’s ego. They always thought they did it by themselves, when it was choice upon layered choice which created human victimization. Kazmir always had Death’s most interesting inventory of destructive choices. Meanwhile, Doyle had his attorney draw up conservatorship papers and send them certified to Phoebe’s trust attorney who considered their arrival a blessing for a young woman with no family.
Shana’s soul trembled as it incorporated an iota of Phoebe’s light-filtered grief, sighed inwardly, and dimmed a fraction. Karma attached a magnet of endless lifetimes of obstacles and servitude, a rehabilitation price tag for murder. Every soul owned several potential exits when housed in a human, an allowance granted by the law of free will. Sequestered in their barred galaxy, Tri-Eloh sensed the friends’ soul bond shred yet hold, except for a singular ancestral golden thread unraveled at the hem of one Angel’s’ Mother skirt. Death’s triumph threatened an Anamchara, a bold attempt not tried for eons. The Tri exhaled stars into the inky center of their galactic home, then settled in the corners of a triangular cavern as light glanced off a breathing scroll of silver sheets cradled in golden fleece. Alive with a deep baritone hum, 3 ruby chains encircled the Divine scroll, each link embossed with sleeping faces of their descendants on Earth-as a newborn, as a child, as a mother or father, and as an elder. Easy to spot, the links they sought displayed a break where Shana’s older faces had been. Although expected, their prior intention of “If we find an error in Shana’s debts versus karma plus Death’s receipts, the Office of Terminations might pass her on for an audience.” quickly evolved into “We will find an extra somewhere and THEN, we will audit ALL contracts.”
A hard knock and expressionless face at the door at 3 a.m. instead of Shana laughing about losing her key again, dead-panned words in a staccato of blasts to her heart, a piece of paper shoved in her hand, all of it a living nightmare Phoebe resisted to her core. Accusing eyes scanned the loft while she sobbed, unable to catch her breath, “Shana, nooo, nooo”. The Tri’s foresight didn’t extend beyond Phoebe’s fierce denial, her wild bedhead and snotty t-shirt in sync with ugly news, the officers who tossed the loft and took her prescription sleeping pills “for testing”, and her desperation with a weary social worker who seemed stuck on repeat, “Did you and your friend use heroin together? Where do you get your heroin?”. No one mentioned towers of textbooks-biology, anatomy, European history, Spanish poetry and 19th century lit, on the dining table between them, two of each, undisturbed sign posts to their future. The next day Phoebe would go to the county morgue in a daze and identify Shana’s body per parting instructions from cracked lips and also in bold letters on the piece of paper. Further down the sheet she would see an 800 number for survivors “if needed”, and wonder how a stranger with an intact life could possibly understand her blown up world. An 800 number to heaven, she’d think, if I could just talk to her, tell her I love her, I need her. They knew she would be handed a bag of Shana’s belongings including the rose boots she’d given her for Christmas. What Tri-Eloh didn’t see were hellish visions in her mind, massive guilt about staying home, about not really wanting to be with her friend lately because Doyle was always in the mix. She’d felt too embarrassed to tell Shana she wanted her to herself for an afternoon, so she hounded her about studying together. They didn’t know Phoebe would wash her anguished guilt away with two cups of Shana’s belladonna tea, or they may have acted sooner.
Nothing and no one in the entirety of the universe escaped El’s all-seeing/feeling/knowing, yet nothing and no one could confidently relate a reliable description of El. For this reason, Tri-Eloh hurriedly reviewed Shana’s contract. “Delivering her soul in time for bandaging prior to the hearing will render this small transgression into nothing at all, you’ll see.” The other two angels intuited in tandem, “Count the addiction aspects first, then betrayals, then a sum total of abuses. We’re tallying Death’s receipts. No way we have time to figure in Karma. Those records are in The Halls under Archangel guardianship.” In truth, El forgave them instantly and moved on to universally important matters.
While hierarchy did not exist in the ethereal realms, Blissful missions and Divine missions existed as rewards, both assigned eons after a soul fully ascended.
In the underworld, hierarchy was strictly observed with brutal punishments meted out as rewards for souls addicted to pain, and admittance may be earned in as few as ten lifetimes if the soul lusted after power enough. Death, giddy at their success with Shana, asked again why the demon before him sought punishment and lowered it into the icy salt water when it tried to reply. “Kazmir!”, Death bellowed. Often sidetracked by its desires, Kaz should have returned with a report by now. One of Death’s oldest and most effective demons, Kazmir often took liberties, but also delighted his boss with tales of surprise cruelties undetected by most Guardian Angels. It was dedication like Kaz’s that drove the wheel of life downward, into unconscious competition, violence, and for the long game-thwarted dreams and grief. For a while, Death thought they might lose, but they were an ultimate pessimist. Kaz appeared before them with a rush of decaying stench. “May I congratulate you, Boss, on winning such a prize soul today”, it went on, eager to please, “Soon enough, it will be your pet”, one bulging eye swung out of its’ socket to point at a cage made specifically for Shana’s soul when she was ten years old, a cage of human bones where she often found herself in nightmares. Death would have ordered its’ construction sooner, “S” etched on each bone, but discretion was crucial when tormenting a young soul before puberty, the allowed starting line for their race with life. El disqualified an enraged Death every three seconds for cheating demons who often caused souls to cry out for El’s help. “Did you twist up the other half’s mind yet, Kazmir?” “Not only did I gift her with torture audio and visuals of an endless fiery sea, I also sent unhelpful humans to harass her, and set her up for lucid dreams tonight. Would you like to draft her nightmare?” Once again, Kazmir became Death’s favorite. “You know me so well, Kaz. Let’s involve Doyle. He showed promise, but took too long in pushing Shana to break her contract. See to it, while I console Phoebe”, he laughed.
Doyle Regan dreamed of Shana, her heart-shaped face smiled up at him framed by her raven curls reflecting dappled sunlight, her deep golden brown eyes looked into him with a smile and acceptance; love he didn’t deserve, never asked for even. She took his hand in her small one and together they walked through the park as they’d done dozens of times over the past year, down the winding path by the flowering trees where they stood as petals floated down on them. Tears slowly made their way single file to fall from his chin as Doyle saw the red and purple marks on her neck. When he awoke, the dream lingered and his guilt grew as he recounted their last conversation. In the shower, scalding water did nothing to fade the image, but rinsed away his sobs until he was empty. Doyle wondered how Phoebe was handling her first day without Shana. Phoebe seemed so capable, so responsible, so reasonable. He thought about calling, but decided instead to bring her some of the lemon chicken soup she loved from the Coney Island. Doyle had to make her understand it wasn’t his fault.
What rises, falls, and begins again. By enriching ourselves during times of death, we honor the cyclical nature of life and all contained therein, we dig deep for the bones, the teeth, and pelt crafted into tools of wisdom passed on if there are those willing to receive gifts of a crone. The depth and breadth of scar tissue from every loss, every hurt, differs, each death leaves its mark. We are all scar clan, every one of us with their own story.
“Don’t cry. Stop crying,” she commanded, as I trapped my sobs and focused on her words. “Don’t cry. You have one heart, one body, one life. YOU have to fight for it. Stop crying.” The Infectious Disease Doctor seemed exasperated with me, as if my tears were drops of weakness that made me sicker. Briefly I thought my illness must seem measly to the towering Serbian blonde. In that moment I felt so small in my hospital bed. It was day 4 and despite innumerable tests, no bacteria had been found despite the appearance of my lungs on x-rays and a CT. “Maybe you aren’t finding anything because RA is doing this to me.” “You have fever and pneumonia, all signs of infection. This is what we are treating with antibiotic, ” she waved her hand at an IV bag hanging from one of the poles next to my bed. An oxygen machine ringed in pale blue gurgled and hissed in my left ear. The night before a child with big eyes stood at my bedside wearing a dress in the same shade. Intuition said I should keep that to myself.
When I created this blog 5 years ago I was 44, and fresh off losing a tough, unfair battle for my health and career. I’d been fighting since I was a kid, for myself and sometimes for those who I thought needed a champion, and I was spent. In hindsight, other people, especially those in power, not only preferred women who didn’t make waves, but rewarded them for not fighting. Maybe if I adopted a quieter, more graceful approach during the 5th decade, life would prove less bruising. In any case, I needed time to heal. What I didn’t know is that my fighting spirit would one day be the difference between life and death.
Lying in that hospital bed a few weeks ago, I feared going “…gently into that good night”, dying of pneumonia as the poet Dylan Thomas did, but after 5 years of curbing my fighting nature I was sorely out of shape. There are dreams I haven’t realized because I laid ambition aside, trips I haven’t taken, and works I haven’t written. Death takes who it can snatch away, especially if one cannot fight. Medical professionals are often champions when we are weak, their educated treatment hitting a bullseye and chasing away mortality. And then, there is luck and those who rage; “… rage against the dying of the light” – Dylan Thomas. One physician listened to my mumbles about rheumatoid arthritis as I was sliding near intubation, the ICU, and a large sucking mudhole next to my bed (According to a study published by the American College of Chest Physicians, every day a patient is delirious brings a 20 percent increased risk of prolonged hospitalization and a 10 percent increased risk of death). Once he consulted with my rheumatology office and hung a high dose bag of steroids, the mudhole disappeared. For me, rage didn’t look like the screaming, swing at the fences anger of my younger years. It looked liked grasping, holding on and repeating my assertion that RA affects the lungs, despite feeling small and weak. A reward for my tenacity is more time to write and dig my toes in the sand. Love is sweeter now, too.
My sixth decade begins in a couple of months, time enough to regain my strength, embrace my true passionate self, and resolve to live as loudly as I want. I understand now that I don’t have time to waste. Death is funny that way.
Although how we say goodbye to the dead has evolved and varies from culture to culture, the need is as old as time, as is the belief that there is an afterlife. Even Neanderthals placed flowers in the hands of the dead before they sealed the bodies in caves 300,000 years ago. Memories rush in, clouded by love and grief, and although it is past too late, we appreciate them more when they are out of our reach forever. Honoring the ones we’ve lost cauterizes our wound, and we accept that the ceremony is for us, the living. It sets us on the path to healing, our cries resembling a release valve on an overflowing well of hurt. Living there for a few hours reminds us that death is the great equalizer and for a time we hold our living loves closer, sometimes afraid of the randomness of death, oftentimes aware of how brief even a long life is.
The days of public displays of the dead are waning, thank God, replaced by memorial services and “celebrations of life”. We turn to God, even if it is the only time we do so, for comfort and hope that our loved ones live on. You may shy away from reading this, grief being among the hardest emotions and certainly one we want to avoid. It is also common ground for every person that was ever born. January is to me what April was to T.S. Elliot. Time dulls the edges, but I hold tight to my deepest grief because it is all I have left of my son. It is mine and this public declaration is unusual to say the least. I know death makes people uncomfortable and talk of it is to be avoided, especially when we are years away from a tragedy. One of the changes I’ve experienced in this decade is that I am becoming increasingly transparent and immune to other’s expectations.
We attended a memorial service last week for Dale, an uncommon character and dear friend of my parents’. I was moved when the preacher said that Dale loved to tease, or as his wife Sue put it, “agitate”. It seems more respectful to remember him as he was. Dale’s agitation came with rewards, however, such as his outlandish stories about inventing the computer, the internet, and a multitude of other modern conveniences. He was a Navy Seal deep diver (for real) when decompression was unheard of and his heart paid the price. Only Dale would consider his chainsaw as a remedy for the dozens of situations he employed it for. He made us laugh and was an overly generous man. We received a thank-you card from his wife yesterday that asked us to remember our good times with Dale. We will.
Frederick Meijer, the founder of “one-stop-shopping” died on Friday at age 91 after suffering a stroke earlier in the day. Fred, as he was known in the community, was a free-thinker with common sense values who with the help of his friend Earl Holton built a small empire of Meijer retail stores. In 1934 Fred’s father Hendrick opened a grocery store in Greenville Michigan at which Fred worked 40 hours a week while attending high school and where he met his wife Lena, who was a clerk. In 1962 Hendrick and Fred opened the first Meijer Thrifty Acres. Every child that grew up in Michigan after the mid-sixties remembers riding the mechanical horse at the front of every store for a penny. I just noticed the other day that there is still a horse at the front of my local Meijer and amazingly it still costs a penny to ride.
My admiration for Fred was born when I went to work at a newly opened Meijer store in the late 90’s. I was hired as an “everything gal” for the store and met Fred several times during those few years. His favorite ice cream was blue moon and he would hand out pennies to children so they could ride the horse when he came in for a scoop. He always had a pocket full of pennies. Occasionally I was asked to deliver gallons of milk and other sundries to Fred’s friends’ homes when they were ill. I thought it was nice that they shared this personal information with an errand girl, but it was not surprising. I was such a believer in Fred Meijer and Earl Holton that after a year I became a Hiring and Training Manager. Earl was President of Meijer and had started at Meijer as a bag boy. Fred’s Dad Hendrick was not nearly as fond of Earl as Fred was because it bothered him that Earl always had a smoke when he retrieved the grocery carts from the parking lot. Up until a few years ago every Meijer store had a smoking break room so that customers never saw employees smoking out in the lot. Earl’s approach to customer service was inspirational. In the early years a customer asked him for a fry pan that was locked in a storeroom. The only set of keys were with the store manager who had left for the day, so Earl removed the door from its hinges to get that fry pan for the waiting customer. Fred empowered his employees and trusted their judgment because he believed that he could not possibly know everything. Thanks to his wife Lena, all of the store’s bathroom doors swing out so that you don’t have to touch them with clean hands. I’m surprised that sensible idea hasn’t caught on. Sam Walton said he got the idea to include groceries in Wal-Mart from Meijer, and several other chains followed suit.
Fred and Lena Meijer kept the company family owned, choosing not to take it public several times over the past 30 years. Their philanthropy is well-known throughout our community with the Meijer Heart Center and 125-acre Meijer Garden and Sculpture Park standing as living testaments to their generosity. I am positive that there are many individuals who remember small acts of kindness from Fred. I will always remember him as the billionaire that did not act like one, who spoke to me as if I was his equal. It may be cliché, but it is fitting to say that they just don’t make them like Fred anymore.
Crone Story Astro 