A handful of people dear to me are going through some extraordinarily tough, extremely adult, and pardon my language but there is no other word, shit. On the surface this story is a bit more "Pass the Absinthe Please," but really for me, the experience was a reminder that I can hang my head and shed some tears for a little while, but I have to keep my eyes open, too. Even in the middle of the muddle of life’s circumstances, there are glimmers and garnishes scattered through our days, often in the most unexpected places.
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July 2010
I had to pick up my dog's ashes today. I waited until the last possible minute, and even though I had made peace about Molly-Girl dying, the idea of her incinerated and put in a little box made me jittery, haunted me even. One of my stall tactics was a six-mile walk in a stiff and stifling heat. I stopped to help a woman with her groceries, and as I turned back to the sidewalk, a hornet – the size of a hummingbird – stung the back of my knee. Reeling sideways in agony and fearing a second attack, I then somehow caught my lower leg on an exposed and jagged barb of a chain-link fence. The crease behind my knee swelled and throbbed, and blood streamed down my leg and soaked through my sock. I could hardly breathe, panicked that an allergic reaction was underway. It wasn’t, though. The little lady in her wide-brimmed hat said, “Darling, sit down on my steps, and I will be right back with some lemonade, a cigarette and gauze.”
I think it took her ten minutes to get that out of her mouth, and I felt in addition to the sting and the gash, that the hot, painted-black concrete was searing the skin from my thigh. All this, I tell you, for helping someone take their bags inside. She returned, cheerily, broke the cigarette in half, spit on a clump of tobacco and handed it to me for the sting. She then gave me the gauze, which had yellowed from the smoke of years of a bad habit kept indoors. She didn’t have tape so I just tied the bandage like a tourniquet. She sat down on the steps and sipped lemonade with me, from delicate, etched glasses that she had garnished with mint. Something about that garnish, that touch, was beautiful, better than a hug, better than a clean bandage. I would be fine, even if I did lose my leg eventually to gangrene.
I made it home and surveyed what more could be done to avoid my task. I settled on baking a cake for a friend’s forty-first birthday. I thought she would like a particular cream cheese pound cake, which calls for inordinate amounts of butter, flour, sugar, eggs and yes, cream cheese. I was not sure I had enough of everything, but I started creaming and sifting and beating anyway. I poured the batter in a Bundt pan, put it in the low-heat oven and calculated whether or not I could make it to the Emergency Vet and back within an hour and a half. I decided I could and left. I was dizzy from heat. I was dizzy from pain. I was dizzy from the fragrance of friendship in the form of a cake cooking in my kitchen.
I manned up, though, and made my way to the clinic. I immediately saw a woman crying, rocking in a chair, waiting for news about her Pug. I sat with her for a minute and held her hand. I was this woman a few weeks ago. We hugged and I then headed to the front desk. In a hushed tone (trying to keep that poor woman from seeing one of the darker possibilities), I told the receptionist that I was picking up Molly Petty’s ashes. She rifled through a bin, pulled out a box, checked a certificate and handed it all over. I slipped out of the building and into my car. I just put everything in the passenger seat and turned up the music and rolled down the windows, headed home to get back to that cake.
Before I turned onto the Interstate, my phone rang. It was the vet. They gave me some other dog’s ashes, so sorry for the inconvenience, please come back, etc. I turned around, blinked back tears, but couldn’t keep them from coming. And oh Lord, did they, and I, fall. I parked the car, took some deep breaths and wiped my face dry. I headed back in. Take Two: Buck up, Sister. The woman who had been crying about her Pug took one look at my red eyes and streaked face, and she just fully decomposed, sobbing like someone in one of those evangelistic churches who is on the verge of being healed. I hugged her again and tried to say something helpful. I then switched the boxes and my gears. I left and started to worry and wonder about that damn cake.
I got home. I unlocked and opened the door. The answer slapped me in the face, hard and charred. Burned up cake, burned up thigh, burned up dog. I might have been burned up, too, but for Miss Ida’s mint garnish. Better than a hug. Better than a bandage.
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Dish out some happy and be kind, good people. More later.
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July 2010
I had to pick up my dog's ashes today. I waited until the last possible minute, and even though I had made peace about Molly-Girl dying, the idea of her incinerated and put in a little box made me jittery, haunted me even. One of my stall tactics was a six-mile walk in a stiff and stifling heat. I stopped to help a woman with her groceries, and as I turned back to the sidewalk, a hornet – the size of a hummingbird – stung the back of my knee. Reeling sideways in agony and fearing a second attack, I then somehow caught my lower leg on an exposed and jagged barb of a chain-link fence. The crease behind my knee swelled and throbbed, and blood streamed down my leg and soaked through my sock. I could hardly breathe, panicked that an allergic reaction was underway. It wasn’t, though. The little lady in her wide-brimmed hat said, “Darling, sit down on my steps, and I will be right back with some lemonade, a cigarette and gauze.”
I think it took her ten minutes to get that out of her mouth, and I felt in addition to the sting and the gash, that the hot, painted-black concrete was searing the skin from my thigh. All this, I tell you, for helping someone take their bags inside. She returned, cheerily, broke the cigarette in half, spit on a clump of tobacco and handed it to me for the sting. She then gave me the gauze, which had yellowed from the smoke of years of a bad habit kept indoors. She didn’t have tape so I just tied the bandage like a tourniquet. She sat down on the steps and sipped lemonade with me, from delicate, etched glasses that she had garnished with mint. Something about that garnish, that touch, was beautiful, better than a hug, better than a clean bandage. I would be fine, even if I did lose my leg eventually to gangrene.
I made it home and surveyed what more could be done to avoid my task. I settled on baking a cake for a friend’s forty-first birthday. I thought she would like a particular cream cheese pound cake, which calls for inordinate amounts of butter, flour, sugar, eggs and yes, cream cheese. I was not sure I had enough of everything, but I started creaming and sifting and beating anyway. I poured the batter in a Bundt pan, put it in the low-heat oven and calculated whether or not I could make it to the Emergency Vet and back within an hour and a half. I decided I could and left. I was dizzy from heat. I was dizzy from pain. I was dizzy from the fragrance of friendship in the form of a cake cooking in my kitchen.
I manned up, though, and made my way to the clinic. I immediately saw a woman crying, rocking in a chair, waiting for news about her Pug. I sat with her for a minute and held her hand. I was this woman a few weeks ago. We hugged and I then headed to the front desk. In a hushed tone (trying to keep that poor woman from seeing one of the darker possibilities), I told the receptionist that I was picking up Molly Petty’s ashes. She rifled through a bin, pulled out a box, checked a certificate and handed it all over. I slipped out of the building and into my car. I just put everything in the passenger seat and turned up the music and rolled down the windows, headed home to get back to that cake.
Before I turned onto the Interstate, my phone rang. It was the vet. They gave me some other dog’s ashes, so sorry for the inconvenience, please come back, etc. I turned around, blinked back tears, but couldn’t keep them from coming. And oh Lord, did they, and I, fall. I parked the car, took some deep breaths and wiped my face dry. I headed back in. Take Two: Buck up, Sister. The woman who had been crying about her Pug took one look at my red eyes and streaked face, and she just fully decomposed, sobbing like someone in one of those evangelistic churches who is on the verge of being healed. I hugged her again and tried to say something helpful. I then switched the boxes and my gears. I left and started to worry and wonder about that damn cake.
I got home. I unlocked and opened the door. The answer slapped me in the face, hard and charred. Burned up cake, burned up thigh, burned up dog. I might have been burned up, too, but for Miss Ida’s mint garnish. Better than a hug. Better than a bandage.
---
Dish out some happy and be kind, good people. More later.
"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto me." Matthew 25:40
ReplyDeleteYou *lived* the Word--consistently--on a day the like of which many of us would rather withdraw and allow ourselves to be in the way of doing so. This story of a day in the midst of grief encouraged and blessed me. May the Father continue to supply you with strength and unassailable peace.