March 3 – Rabbit Update
Two days ago, March 1, was the first time in decades that I remembered to use “rabbit” as the first word of the day. Fecundity and felicity will be mine throughout the year. Unfortunately, I made my wife say “huh” as I alerted her to the magic word that I was to say, so that fecundity and felicity might not be hers. Could a tropical island far, far away be calling out to me?
No. After the first three or four hang-overs, the joy would be over and the fecundity spent. And so it has been these last almost-two weeks, where nearly everything, every ounce of energy, was spent.
It started with the trip up north with my son, which began with a mini adventure of its own. This involved a hotel that has been turned into a crystal meth palace, complete with the death of the boyfriend of the owner/operator, her hands twitching from burnt-out nerves less than twelve hours after the passing while she handled my credit card. Good lord, she handled my credit card! But I have not had a lingering itch since sleeping on the oddly sloping bed, so that is a celebration in itself.
The snow was deep at the cabin, the trip pretty good except for the snow storm on the way back, taxing my own nerves as I focused on the road through the swirls of snow while the snowmobile trailer wobbled behind with a mind of its own.
All of that, though, was only the tenth of it. Just before my son and I left for the cabin, my wife got a call telling her that her mother, who has been in a full-care nursing home for two years now, was receiving morphine. They thought that she might not last the weekend. My son had gotten time off from work and had been down there the month before, so we pressed on with our own agenda as my wife packed up the car for hers. I was to return and then look for a one-way flight, joining her down in the land of cotton some time the following week. Come Sunday and our return into the phone zone, we found that she had not gone. The ‘dire idiot’ light for brake failure had gone on at the Illinois state line, and back she came. It was then that I was recruited to drive her down the following morning. This would soon give me a better sense of what it’s like to be a long-hauler.
And then we were there. I can wipe away all that I have written so far for the time in the nursing home near the side of my wife’s mother. She was no longer eating and had dwindled away to starvation proportions, her skull clearly delineated in her jaw and through her thinning hair. She lay on her side in a semi-curl, the oxygen machine by her bed the only sound in the room. When we did speak, the words would float like dust and disappear. Normal banter was nothing if not an intrusion. We were there once again in the space of death.
I have written about this eerie space concerning my dying father, and the death of a teen-age girl in a car accident; I have relayed what it is like to carry that death afterword. But I have never understood it as I did for those several days down South, as a thing of unspeakable beauty. I will attempt to describe how that is now.
This deeper look into death began with a simple walk outside between visits. It was as gorgeous there as it had been dark and cold up north, and we gloried in the 70 degree weather along with the birds and the sprouting daffodils. We then did what we always do at the beginning of a hike – pray the Rosary, a habit we picked up at the Marian sight of Medjugorje. It rolled along as normal for a few minutes, and then the words became difficult to speak. I had become choked up with emotion to the point of tears. My wife followed suit, and so it continued throughout the whole series. This was natural enough considering the circumstances, but during that time, and continuing to the end of our stay, I realized that there was another reason for the heartfelt emotion besides the feelings of pity and loss.
Glory. It is with me only in memory now, but as I prayed and fought back tears, I understood in greater part what we were dealing with in this thing, this death. I understood it to be the biggest thing in life along with creation itself. It is not just a sad or a natural end, but an opening, a door into the same greatness we were praying to. It is an opening into pure awe and, yes, glory. One can nearly touch angel wings and hear their voices; one can nearly fall gratefully into the burning sun of eternity as it creates something beautiful in us after we are passed over into death.
It occurred to me: did others of old feel this, or is this something new, as the Apostles would tell us? Is it from the promise of resurrection, an historical event awakening those who had once died without a chance at rebirth? I ask this because many in the distant past have seen death as so final, so dark, but now…
Yes, it is still a dark thing and the passing of others does seem final. And so it is to us in this world. But there is more. I know this not only for the promise that was given us 2,000 years ago, but from the experience. Out of sadness and death comes a greater joy than we have ever known. This is how the world redeems itself. Not that it has to for my approval, but it does, and that makes all the difference. Existence, creation, is fundamentally not only good but a work of wonder. Of glory. We have come to be hidden from this in our stilted, half-blind passage through life, but it is there and, in the end, always has been. Life always has been good. It’s just that we usually can’t see the happy ending.
Two days ago, March 1, was the first time in decades that I remembered to use “rabbit” as the first word of the day. Fecundity and felicity will be mine throughout the year. Unfortunately, I made my wife say “huh” as I alerted her to the magic word that I was to say, so that fecundity and felicity might not be hers. Could a tropical island far, far away be calling out to me?
No. After the first three or four hang-overs, the joy would be over and the fecundity spent. And so it has been these last almost-two weeks, where nearly everything, every ounce of energy, was spent.
It started with the trip up north with my son, which began with a mini adventure of its own. This involved a hotel that has been turned into a crystal meth palace, complete with the death of the boyfriend of the owner/operator, her hands twitching from burnt-out nerves less than twelve hours after the passing while she handled my credit card. Good lord, she handled my credit card! But I have not had a lingering itch since sleeping on the oddly sloping bed, so that is a celebration in itself.
The snow was deep at the cabin, the trip pretty good except for the snow storm on the way back, taxing my own nerves as I focused on the road through the swirls of snow while the snowmobile trailer wobbled behind with a mind of its own.
All of that, though, was only the tenth of it. Just before my son and I left for the cabin, my wife got a call telling her that her mother, who has been in a full-care nursing home for two years now, was receiving morphine. They thought that she might not last the weekend. My son had gotten time off from work and had been down there the month before, so we pressed on with our own agenda as my wife packed up the car for hers. I was to return and then look for a one-way flight, joining her down in the land of cotton some time the following week. Come Sunday and our return into the phone zone, we found that she had not gone. The ‘dire idiot’ light for brake failure had gone on at the Illinois state line, and back she came. It was then that I was recruited to drive her down the following morning. This would soon give me a better sense of what it’s like to be a long-hauler.
And then we were there. I can wipe away all that I have written so far for the time in the nursing home near the side of my wife’s mother. She was no longer eating and had dwindled away to starvation proportions, her skull clearly delineated in her jaw and through her thinning hair. She lay on her side in a semi-curl, the oxygen machine by her bed the only sound in the room. When we did speak, the words would float like dust and disappear. Normal banter was nothing if not an intrusion. We were there once again in the space of death.
I have written about this eerie space concerning my dying father, and the death of a teen-age girl in a car accident; I have relayed what it is like to carry that death afterword. But I have never understood it as I did for those several days down South, as a thing of unspeakable beauty. I will attempt to describe how that is now.
This deeper look into death began with a simple walk outside between visits. It was as gorgeous there as it had been dark and cold up north, and we gloried in the 70 degree weather along with the birds and the sprouting daffodils. We then did what we always do at the beginning of a hike – pray the Rosary, a habit we picked up at the Marian sight of Medjugorje. It rolled along as normal for a few minutes, and then the words became difficult to speak. I had become choked up with emotion to the point of tears. My wife followed suit, and so it continued throughout the whole series. This was natural enough considering the circumstances, but during that time, and continuing to the end of our stay, I realized that there was another reason for the heartfelt emotion besides the feelings of pity and loss.
Glory. It is with me only in memory now, but as I prayed and fought back tears, I understood in greater part what we were dealing with in this thing, this death. I understood it to be the biggest thing in life along with creation itself. It is not just a sad or a natural end, but an opening, a door into the same greatness we were praying to. It is an opening into pure awe and, yes, glory. One can nearly touch angel wings and hear their voices; one can nearly fall gratefully into the burning sun of eternity as it creates something beautiful in us after we are passed over into death.
It occurred to me: did others of old feel this, or is this something new, as the Apostles would tell us? Is it from the promise of resurrection, an historical event awakening those who had once died without a chance at rebirth? I ask this because many in the distant past have seen death as so final, so dark, but now…
Yes, it is still a dark thing and the passing of others does seem final. And so it is to us in this world. But there is more. I know this not only for the promise that was given us 2,000 years ago, but from the experience. Out of sadness and death comes a greater joy than we have ever known. This is how the world redeems itself. Not that it has to for my approval, but it does, and that makes all the difference. Existence, creation, is fundamentally not only good but a work of wonder. Of glory. We have come to be hidden from this in our stilted, half-blind passage through life, but it is there and, in the end, always has been. Life always has been good. It’s just that we usually can’t see the happy ending.
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