HONOR

First voices, then laughter. 

I glanced out my window this noon and discovered cars lining the circular driveway and street.

A dozen-plus girlfriends had arrived for their Weekly Wednesday Rendezvous next door. Today's agenda? Put lounge chairs away and say a final goodbye to the pool, patio, rose bush and oak tree that held their secrets and laughter, worries and joys - from spring to fall - for decades.

Girlfriends had gathered to say a final goodbye to their fearless leader, Irreplaceable Woman.

On March 12, in a blog titled Landscape, I introduced you to Jane, writing: She is Pioneer. Educator. Wife. Cyclist. Warrior. Mom. Builder. Activist. Friend. Grandmother. Humorist. Tribal Elder.

Unique. Extraordinary. Irreplaceable.

I forgot to write Teacher.

Because I didn't yet know.

That in the six fleeting months after she rolled down her car window on a striking spring morning and uttered the words, "Pet. Scan. Stage. Four," Jane would become a Mentor for Mortality; a woman whose life - and death - inspired a family, a neighborhood, a community.

I didn't yet know that this extraordinary woman - whose vision and effort helped build a community library, church, and school board (not to mention a loving family and countless friendships) would become a Guru of Grace; a woman who endured the unspeakable decline of her strong, healthy body with a joyful, determined spirit, and gratitude for the gift of each new day.

Car doors soon began closing, ignitions starting.  

I finished my phone call, grabbed my camera, and hurried across our back yards.

 The driveway was empty, the pool gate closed.

Friends - too solemn to linger - had taken care of business and departed.

So I trespassed.

Into a yard.

A cabana.

A life. 

I shouldn't have intruded, but I was seeking closure.

Seeking Irreplaceable Woman.

She was there. 

 In photographs 

 

 and bicycles, 

 

                                     in straw hats,

  

 noodles,

                                       and silly signs.

  In a salmon rose, broken on its vine, but achingly beautiful.

 She was there. 

In the breeze and sunlight, and the words of her beloved daughter's eulogy that echoed in my thoughts as I closed the iron gate and headed home.

"As you all know, my mom loved this town and community... In the months before she died, many people approached my sisters and me, asking what might be the best way for our town to honor her.  Mom said she would rather not have her name on a street or building. Instead, she'd be most honored if we all continued to ask ourselves, "Have I done something today that makes me feel proud and productive?  Have I moved my body to stay fit? Did I scatter some kindness?  Have I shown up in people's lives when they needed support? Was I able to ease someone's else's pain or suffering?"

A profound mantra from my Mentor for Mortality and Guru of Grace.

Jane would have laughed, blushed, and immediately dismissed me from her company had I dared to bestow upon her such pretentious titles. She would not have approved.

But she deserves them. Just a few short weeks ago, I visited Jane moments after her girlfriends left their Weekly Wednesday Rendezvous. She tried to sit up and smile brightly as I walked to her bedside. Taking hold of my hand and squeezing with great effort, Jane asked, "Do you know the best part of accepting that you're going to die?"

Long pause. I could not think of a single response. 

So Jane answered for me. "You get to say thank you. You get to say I love you. You get to say goodbye. "

I didn't get to say goodbye to Jane.

  

But I got to say I love you. A whole bunch of times.

And I will honor my dear neighbor and friend by challenging myself each day to do something that makes me feel proud and productive, to move my body and stay fit, to scatter kindness, to show up in people's lives when they need support, and to work to ease others' pain or suffering.

A challenge, dear Reader, that I share with you.

No doubt we'll fall short. A whole bunch of times.

But so long as we channel a joyful, determined spirit, and give thanks for the gift of each new day, Jane will surely approve. She'll be honored.

On March 12, in a blog titled Landscape, QUING Hereby Decreed:  The time, most precious, is the time we give one another.

The sun has set this September 19th.

The pool is closed.

Girlfriends have departed.

And QUING Hereby Decrees: The time, most precious, is the time we've shared with one another.  

                                                              RIP Jane Williams Sweet.

                                                    

SIMPLE

Worn. Out-dated. So not my taste, and too-long secured to walls that have been smudged, dented and cracked by kids, dogs, life.

Time for change. The wallpaper has to go.

I heat water and vinegar. I spray and soak. Tug and strip.

For seven hours.

Wallpaper tears in bits and pieces. 

Whole sections, if I’m lucky.

It's a slow, sticky job that requires the patience of a saint.

Which I have not.

Except for today. Today, I channel 'saint', because Ismael is waiting.

Patiently, he works and waits for walls to be stripped of gray paisley paper, and cleansed from gobs of pasty yellow muck.

Patiently, he works and waits to repair dents and cracks in the wall. To dip brush into paint, and spread color and vitality across a room that has long languished; dreary and neglected.

Ismael is patient.

Fourteen months in a concentration camp does that to a guy.

A decision to remain with his ailing mother in a war-torn country led to his incarceration.

“Soldiers want town for their people,” he tells me. “Men, boys, 15 to 50, they take to camp.”

“I see 3000 people. More.  Executions. Every day. No one believe if they do not see.”

I try not to look horrified.  Ismael continues, “I made to carry bodies. Throw over bridge into water. Family. Friends. Many, many people.”

Ismael tells me about the civil war in Bosnia, about Serbian troops entering the region to back the ethnic uprising. I cannot understand most of what he says, but I recognize names like Karadzic and Milosevic. I hear ‘ethnic cleansing’ and remember outrage in the mid-1990s over the mass murder of tens of thousands of Muslim refugees.

Muslims like Ismael.

Husband steps into the room. He has brought lunch for me.

I offer some to Ismael. I have noticed that he smokes, but does not eat.

Accepting a plate filled with chicken and rice, he quietly says, “I no eat. Once a day only. You know why?”

I shake my head, afraid to ask. I have already learned too much.

“When I first go to camp, I no eat. For 35 days. Water drink only. My stomach shrink so small, I no eat anymore.”

I sit across the room from Ismael. A ladder, a pail, two cans of paint, and a world of experience separate me from a man who would have died in a concentration camp had NATO not implemented a campaign of strategic air strikes on Serbian targets, taking photographs of the camps where Holocaust-style atrocities were being committed.

We eat in silence. I wonder what this man must think of our homes, our toys, our grocery stores and government. 

“Tell me about ambassador,” he says.

I explain that some assailants angered by an American-made film depicting the Prophet Muhammad in an unflattering manner had killed an American Ambassador and his aides who were on a diplomatic mission in Libya. We talk about protests in Cairo and the Middle East. We discuss 911 and the senselessness of retaliating against an entire country because of the actions of a few.

Ismael asks, “What is religion for you?”

“I am Catholic,” I answer.

“And I am Muslim,” he says. “Same thing. Koran. Bible. Same thing. All begin with love of God.”

“And end with love of neighbor,” I say.

“You see?  Same. In every religion,” Ismael says. “So why we hate and fight each other?”

I smile at Ismael. He hands me his plate and reaches for a can of paint and a brush.

Hours later, I sneak into the freshly painted room, and discover walls that are so clean, bright, patched, and perfect, they glow.  

I watch Ismael reach from ladder to ceiling to paint the trim, and wish that he could brush light into his eyes.

I wish that he could repair the lines that etch his brow, and strip the memories that haunt his soul.

I wish that lunch with Ismael could inspire a simple film about a man and a woman who have nothing in common, but work together to bring color and light to a place that has grown stale and dark.

The characters speak a different language.

And practice a different religion.

But they have the same heart.

A simple concept.  Would anybody watch?

 QUING Hereby Decrees:  It's simple. LOVE. 

PREVAIL

Sky, so blue and brilliant, and Breeze carrying the scent of Imminent Fall, why must you haunt? 

This September Day?

You dawn and draft; not simply sky and breeze.

You are Face and Voice, Engine and Smoke, Boots Climbing, Bodies Leaping, Siren and Silence, Candle/Flower/Photograph, Sacrifice and Fear.

Hatred.

Hope.

Sky - so blue and brilliant, and Breeze carrying the scent of Imminent Fall, on this September Day, you cannot inspire or soothe.

You can only distress. 

"Time heals all wounds," says they.

But time will not heal Sky, so blue and brilliant, or Breeze carrying the scent of Imminent Fall.

On this September Day, time after time, they will pulse and prod: Remember. Remember.

I did it,  dear Reader!

Wrote a few sentences about It.  After a decade of avoidance.

My Uncle J. was a navigator on a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress in World War II. In the hundreds of conversations he and I had about his years in the Air Force - the many missions he flew and dangers that confronted him - he never once spoke about bombs that were dropped, or damage and death that the bombs inflicted.

My uncle's silence about the war taught me that some experiences cannot be recounted; especially those so profound that every moment, every detail is seared into mind and heart.

Like that September morning. Eleven years ago.

Today I read posts and tweets, articles and blogs both mournful and reflective. I read the musings of pundits and politicians, that fuel fears for humankind.

But the words that resonate most today are words I long ago committed to memory. The words William Faulkner recited on December 10, 1950, when he accepted a Nobel prize in Stockholm.

Half a century ago, these words were a challenge to writers and poets.

But on this September day, these words might be a challenge - and inspiration - to all of us.

"....Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice...

... I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past." 

September 11, 2001 was a day so profound that every moment, every detail is seared into our minds and hearts.

Surely it is a story that writes itself. 

A day forever synonymous with 'courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and sacrifice'.

A day to remind humankind, year after year, that we will not merely endure: we will prevail. Because we have souls and spirits capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

So long as we remember that the basest of all things is to be afraid. Then forget it, forever.

And Sky, so blue and brilliant, with Breeze carrying the scent of Imminent Fall, will once again dawn and draft, as simply sky and breeze.