Back Decks & Balance Sheets

On for what is in Louisiana, an uncommonly cool July morning, I let the dogs out and follow behind them to spend a few early minutes on the deck.  They trot happily off to investigate the mysteries of the grass, the fence, the weeds - and I sit and listen to the bird songs - it's the third day of a holiday weekend and we are having a spell of truly unseasonable weather.  It makes me think of all the places I've lived over the years, all the mornings on all the back decks in all the different states and all the time that's gone by.  Life is what happens when you're making other plans, John Lennon wrote.  And then one day, here you are, caught off guard by the ridiculously surprising notion that you have more to look back on than look forward to - as if you didn't know it would happen.  

Except of course that there's always the chance that some of your best days haven't happened yet.

It may be no more than wishful thinking, but I wonder if we aren't driven by hope more than any other emotion.  Hope for a long and happy life with a peaceful passing.  For being remembered and missed.  For making a difference in some small way.  For transition and reclamation, the possibility that there's more than darkness and nothingness and - if there is - that our good deeds will outnumber and matter more than our sins.  I'm not exactly expecting an afterlife but I'm hoping for one with the blues in the background and a reuniting with the animals I've loved and lost.  If expectation is the root of all heartache, then surely hope is good soil and new seeds.  

And then in the midst of this early morning, back deck reflection with only the bird songs for a backdrop, the stillness is shattered by the choppy, unwelcome first breath of a lawn mover.  My next door neighbor, an early riser and a dedicated amateur landscaper, is up and about and there will be no letup.  He will mow, trim, and edge himself into a frenzy before this day is done.

So much for philosophy and deep thoughts.

Hope is a good thing, a constant thing, but it can't compete with the song of a riding lawn mower on a summer morning.  It can, however, outgrow the grass.

The last thought I spend any time on is the news that my old and dear friend, Henry, is now in a psychiatric hospital for a 15 day day stay after threatening to kill a fellow resident of the nursing home where he's lived for the past several years and where in all likelihood, he'll die - alone, miserable, abandoned, half paralyzed -
his mind and soul as atrophied as the left side of his body.  I think of visiting.  I think of taking the little dachshund and sitting in the shade for a half hour, talking and catching up.  But there's nothing to catch up on, his life has only become more lonely and more grim since the stroke and while I hate the thought, it still edges cautiously around the corners of my mind - it might've been more merciful if he'd died - and if I visit, he will try and drag me in again.  He has a wife and a daughter, I remind myself, he is their burden.

Not even the riding lawn mover can drown out the guilt and shame at this thought.  I will myself to hope that it will pass.