Dust to Dust

I read her obituary with sadness and despite her age - a feisty and still tack sharp 98 - a deep sense of loss.  I remembered when we had teased her about hooking her up with another patient, a widower of 97, and how she had given us a wide and mostly toothless grin before asking if he was well fixed. 

Ain't got the time or inclination for a poor man! she'd said and given her walker a brisk shove.

Amen, Mama! her daughter, a spring chicken of barely 72 had wholeheartedly agreed and they had both laughed.

There's a lot we can learn from our elders.  We ought to respect them and listen to their stories and lessons.
They're not as irrelevant as we so casually think.

For most of her life, her daughter told me, she'd cleaned white folks' houses to put food on the table.  She rode the bus as she was too poor to own a car, cared for a disabled husband for some 40 years, and raised six children.  She loved her family and her church, hated taking charity, and didn't have much time to worry about the world's problems.  If it was past her own front door, the Lord would provide or it would take care of itself.
She'd loved Martin Luther King and the Kennedys, home grown okra, old Baptist hymns and porch sitting with a mending basket in her lap.  She didn't drink, didn't smoke - except for the occasional chaw of tobacco which she said eased the pain of ill fitting dentures - and didn't hold with divorce or sex before marriage.  She'd voted in every presidential election since 1928 even when no one made it easy or fair and she made her own decisions.  She worried about being black in a white world but she didn't let it slow her down.  She remembered race riots, was horrified by drug use, thought courtesy was an underused commodity and would't stand for sass no matter the source.

Whether you live to 98 or are struck down in your prime, what matters is that you lived and made a difference in someone else's life.  We remember, we celebrate the lives of those who leave us and some way or another, we find a way through the sadness.

For my daddy, death was many things - an adversary, a fact of life, a transition, and a business.  He met and confronted it on a daily basis, comforted the victims it left behind and helped them grieve.  I often wondered how he could do such a thing and still find the strength and courage to stand straight. 

We are all dying from the very moment we're born, he used to tell me, If you're granted enough time, you get used to the idea.

And if you're not? I would ask, If you're a child or innocent or the time is stolen?

And he would smile and tell me not to worry my pretty little head about such things, we all come from dust and we all go back to dust, there is a plan and a heaven and no one really leaves us if we keep them in our hearts.

And this comforts people? I demanded rudely, Hollow words?

No, he told me gently, but it does help us get through the worst of it.  A little.  The rest we just learn to live with.

The idea that death is a natural part of life is supposed to be comforting.  We're taught it's just the last step to the next level - harps and angels and eternal life if not the pit - and much as I want to believe that, as much as I want to embrace some kind of acceptance, all I can find to be grateful for is an end of suffering.  The act of dying is an evil and multi-faceted creature that takes joy in pain, thriving on misery until death becomes a mercy.  I've learned to live with the loss of people I loved but I will never forgive or forget cancer's handiwork in taking them.  It's an offense and an obscenity on every level and I find no comfort in the idea that all things go back to God.

Each day I find myself waiting for the inevitable telephone call that will tell me my friend David's battle is over.
Yesterday I stood my his bedside remembering the gifted, vibrant, truly out of the ordinary artist he had been such a short time ago - nimble fingered, long haired, deep voiced - so content to live quietly with his painting and his music, never really at ease when spotlighted.  His wife tells me how glad she is that she's well enough and strong enough to care for him, how grateful to discover how much he is loved and admired.  And just as a reminder that life goes on, a litter of kittens plays just outside the door, learning to scramble up steps and attack innocent flowers.  They are bright eyed, curious and unafraid of this new and mysterious world.  Jean picks one up and holds it to her cheek, whispering encouragement, praise and comfort.  And she smiles.

We live, we learn, we get through it.