you are what you leave us to read about you

my dear friend says that when she dies, she wants the following in her obit: her name (not her age), her funeral arrangements and her survivors. period. no mention of the fact that she knows how to castrate a bull — wearing her evening clothes under her coveralls if she has to — play a concerto and the showstopper from Mame with the same fervor, or though she dislikes most sports except fox hunting, she has been my cheerleader since the 8th grade.

i am a student of the obit. ever since i can remember — even before i became a journalist — i would scan the obits looking for interesting people. because in the paper, that's where they all are. not on the front page, not in the crime stories (however interesting those are) or on ET or any of those celebrity shows, but there, in the back of the B section, inked in black on gray paper that crinkles when you lean on it.

some days the obits make me chuckle. like one of my very favorite obits, which included the line: and she died with her favorite child at her side. Other parts of that now infamous obit include a father who was so distraught an invention of his had been stolen that he put his head in the oven on thanksgiving, ending his life. but the family ate the bird anyway. What. They were hungry. and this was not his obit, but his daughter's.

i remember being in the shower when my husband came upstairs and said: you have to hear this. (we are both obitophiles), and when I called AB to share it with her, she thought I had written it. (high praise indeed.) that one garnered what felt like dozens of letters to the editor, outrage at the newspaper for printing such a thing, (because the obit not so subtly implied that the unfavorite daughter was gallivanting around the globe while her mother took her last breath (really). other letters came from neighbors of the deceased, who knew her to be just the kind of woman who would poke fun at her own death, with the blessing of her children — favored or otherwise.

Sometimes the social announcements provide fuel for a chuckle, too. Like the couple who after 50 years of marriage, decided to renew their vowels. I saved that one because it spoke to me somehow. All those old vowels have gotten a pretty good workout over the centuries. It's about time somebody renewed them.

but in the obits, i have met some remarkable people. i wish i could tell you about them all. like the man who felt his lasting impression should be the fact that as a boy he got to view the car where bonnie & clyde were shot to death. or the seamstress who had made wedding gowns, setting every single seed pearl by hand.

just today, a woman named pearl was known for sending beautiful pressed flower cards to her friends. and barbara, bless her heart, made memorable icicle pickles. shades of aunt bea, (sort of)

last week, though, an obit touched me like no other i can remember. first of all, it was for a couple.

clem and mary crossland. self-described country mice, dr. crossland and his wife raised five children, among them the physician who would care for them in their end days. they died four days apart, dr. c, quite clearly, of a broken heart. the first line that struck me was this:

"they left as they lived — together, with the lady first."

well, that had me weeping.

and this: "they raised five healthy children whom they lived to see become educated and contributing adults, something that is denied to so many mothers and fathers."

about their mother: "throughout her life, our mother reminded us daily of the admonition from St. Luke: 'For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.'"

my mother never said these things directly to us, but she has lived it.

and then: about the good doctor:"he was an intellectually brilliant and personally humble man who was a superb diagnostician of conditions of both the body and soul."

well. but that is my father. plain and simple. beautifully said.

the obit ended with this:

"there are some debts that are so enormous that they can never be repaid in full, even in a small measure – and the devotion of one's family is one of those. In honor of our parents, we ask that each of you pay it forward by treating your own loved ones with dignity, kindness and compassionate care for as long as you have the strength and resources, for you will not regret a day that you do so."*

of course i was sobbing by then, handing the paper to my husband, who sat across the breakfast table from me, his eyes blinking. 

i found myself thinking all day, and the much of the next: what would my children have to say about me? 

dr and mrs crossland have not left me, not yet. i didn't know them, but i thank their children for giving me a chance to try.

read the full obit here 

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dear me

i opened my trusty old mailbox that sits at the street and 

found among the junkyard of paper, three letters. 

letters. handwritten. stamped. 

all addressed to dear me.

all in one day.

letters from three of my favorite people, 

each thanking me for the small gesture of friendship,

on an early spring day

blueberries in hand, i visited two of my friends the week before,

for no reason in particular, except i had not seen them in awhile.

we sat, listened, laughed, remembered

and the gift was mine —

time to study not the clock but their faces, time to meet not a deadline but our minds, after an extended absence.

what treasures these friends are to me, i thought as i drove home,

unaware that both would that day 

set down on paper in their own scrawl what 

my gesture meant to them. 

and send it on.

the third note, filled with colorful squiggles 

drawn by my favorite three-year-old (and the pen of her mother) 

was in celebration of something good we had done together.

those squiggles on envelope and note tell me that  one day when that funny three-year-old can write words,

she, too, will set words to paper in 

her own scrawl, seal, stamp

then send it on, 

for someone dear to find 

in a rusty old mailbox at the street,

for no reason in particular

which is reason, well enough

 

sbr

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oh, i can't help it...

I have been watching my peony stalks raise their red heads out of the warming early spring earth. They can't help it, that reaching for sun, any more than my bluebirds can help their nesting, the moon can help its phases, the dog help his barking when he hears a leaf drop. It is what they do.

At our retreat two weekends ago, we were asked to create a "takeaway" filled with quotes and images that captured our time, to take away with us and keep handy, to use for inspiration. Two of my cards speak to a similar thing: trust what you are led to do — and its flip side: what do I know is mine to do?

What.

Today, I was reading a very cool blog, and came across a quote by poet David Whyte: “We are the only species on earth capable of preventing our own flowering.” 

::

I wrote to my friend today who created our takeaway craft — and who has just begun in the past two weeks to CREATE art, something she can't help, but has somehow kept herself from doing for a lot of years.

The quote: How beautifully said and exactly right, I wrote to her. “Sounds better than 'we are our own worst enemies,' ”  (which I tend to say a LOT.)

I look out at my peony stalks, now already close to 10 inches tall, find the nest already constructed in the bluebird box, and know what's coming. They can’t help the doing because they know nothing else.

The blogger said: imagine the energy it would take for a flower to try to keep itself from doing what it was created to do.

Yes, imagine. That's a whole lot of energy, and I have sometimes felt spent out just fighting myself from the same thing.

Imagine. That my Alexander Fleming peony  (I think that's what she is), which always blooms much earlier than any others in my yard, imagine if she fought with herself each day she was growing into something incredibly beautiful, saying: no! I can't help it, but I can't. I shouldn't brag. Or throw my scent around. And besides, I'm just not pretty enough and my stems are going to break under the weight of all that flowering and a late frost will probably get my blooms anyway, so I should just stop where I am and be done with it. That kind of thing. You've probably never thought those things yourself, but she has. And then all the other peonies will stand around laughing and blooming, saying why in the world won't she do what she is meant to do? It would be so much easier on her, on us. Us! And just think of how much happier the bees would be if she would just be herself.

How hard that is, sometimes. But what if we all looked at our creative souls and said: I love what I am created to do and be and I can’t help it!... instead of:  I'm sorry, but.. I can’t help it, I just don't have it in me — when we fail to create as we should? What if?

That is how I feel about writing sometimes, that I can’t help how the words tumble out no more than I can help my need to write — and when I don’t try to self-edit, they end up being pretty good words at that. Sometimes. But more often I say the opposite: I would love to, but I can't help it that this or that gets in the way of my writing at all, or writing what I really want to.

Though this has never happened to me...I imagine for some, whether they are born to create art, like my friend, or create relationships or children or a safe place for dogs or to save sick babies, to run or make great food or a garden or to heal or to sing or play the piano or help others — or to just help themselves — that they say: I want to, but I can't help the fact that I am not equipped. But I think just thinking they should but can't for some reason means they are. Already. Equipped. They can't help it. We, can't help it.

::

When I was in college, my friends and I loved a singer called Janice, flocking to see her whenever she was in town. One of the songs she sang had these lyrics: Oh, I can't help it, I just wake up smiling...

That's what I need to do. Wake up smiling, saying oh, I can't help it, I wake up smiling, just thinking of what I was meant to do. Can't help but trust the fact that I have been created to blossom — somewhere, in some way — if I would just look up at the warmth of the sun and say: help me grow.

sbr

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something tells me...

a shoot

a bird

a flower

a celebration, each

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ide-a-s of march

Reverb 11: If March 2011 was your last month to live, how would you live it?

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The Honey Pot

When my husband was growing up, his mother kept a blue pottery cache pot beside her stove to store her bacon grease. 

Honey, as her grandchildren called her, was a master at bacon cooking, even when she resorted to the microwave. Crisp and perfectly brown, her bacon was third only to her Honey-baked ham and her toast. Try as I might, I have never, in almost 30 years of marriage, been able to make those Honey things for my husband, just the right way. Though he does admit to my discovering — if not a better way — at least an as delicious (and healthier), way to make her okra and tomatoes. She was famous for that, too. 

When Honey died, her only son got the Honey pot, and for more than 10 years it has been the place where we hold not our bacon grease (there is little of that), but sweetener for our coffee.*

I love this pot. Each morning when I come down to make my coffee, it is there, pretty much the same color as my kitchen, and more than once I have felt Honey's presence as I take the top off to sweeten my coffee. **


Yesterday morning, I came down to breakfast and found this:

(Forgive me, grandchildren, sisters-in-law, for not letting you know earlier. I just couldn't tell you.)


I looked at my husband, his head bent not over the newspaper, but looking up at me, and all I could feel for him was heartbreak. He had been wiping out the residue from an empty pot, and it had slipped from his hand.


I hope he will forgive me for saying that his only comment was: I almost cried. 


Me, too. 


This was Honey's pot. 


"Can we keep it?" he asked. 


Of course we could. Even in shards.   I stood there, trying to figure out what we might do with it, then I began slowly placing the pieces back together. A puzzle, it might just work.


Maybe we can find some really good glue, he said.


That morning at work, I consulted my friend Meta, a potter. Her advice: Super Glue, with a caveat: pots were not meant to last, but when they break, they can be used in other things. Biblical, she said. Shards can become something new.


As much as I know that, Honey's son is not ready to relinquish his Honey pot, which is not yet in shards. Perhaps that's for the next generation, to make something else of her pot, when it is no longer useful for storing his memories. It is one of the few things around our house left of her, beside pictures. She used it every day. As long as he knew her. ––No, we are keeping this pot.


Years ago, when we told my husband's parents we were planning to marry, Honey took her engagement ring off her finger and handed it to me. It had been his grandmother's, she said, and this was the tradition.


I cherished that tradition. We had the ring reset, got married, and the small diamond was the perfect size for my finger. 


One Sunday some years later, as I sat in church next to an older woman who always shared our pew, I admired (ok, coveted)  her GIGANTIC diamond, imagining what my hand might look like with the same. That afternoon, as I grated cheese for a dip for a party we would attend, I looked down, and the diamond that had been my mother-in-law's (and my grandmother-in-law's) was missing. ( I never make that dip now without thinking of that moment.)


We searched the garbage disposal, the trash, the dip... the diamond was never found.  I was heartbroken, and could not possibly tell Honey what had happened.


A few months later, guilt got the best of me, and I did tell her the truth. She looked at me, reached out her hand and said: It is only a stone. It is not your marriage... A thing. Not so important as what it represents.


Still. 


We love the Honey pot. And though it is a thing, it is a symbol for my husband of all the best in his mom.  Our Honey Pot may be a little bit broken, yes, but if you turn her to her best side, no one would know. Aren't we all like that? Hiding, on the good side? But turn us to our broken side, and well, that's where the story begins.


* the photo was taken after the pot was broken
** it is Oxford Stoneware, made in the 50s... not 'valuable' per se, but irreplaceable for our family.

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