August 1: Lowest Boughs, In-Between, Sharon Olds, "Close to Death," New Cartoon

In the back of that police car, he [Ives] remembered a four-color ad he had drawn one Christmas, about 1954-1955, for a toy company:  in it, a young sleepy-eyed boy, newly awakened on Christmas morning, stands before a richly decorated tree, gasping with delight over an electric train set, an illustration he had based on his son.  The boy looked just like Robert, and Ives could see him crawling around the floor of their old apartment on Fiftieth Street and exploring the lowest boughs of the Christmas tree, strands of tinsel, lights and ornaments glowing like majestic stars above him; his son reaching up, his son's fine lips slightly parted, heavy-lidded eyes wide.

In this passage, Ives and Annie are on their way to identify the body of their son, still sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the church where he was gunned down.  They are a little numb and shocked.  They're not sure how to behave.  I think that, in some part of themselves, they're hoping a mistake has been made.  That another boy is going to be under the sheet when it's pulled back.  A huge void has suddenly opened in their lives, and they don't know how to fill it.

It's an odd situation in which to exist:  that state in between anticipating tragedy and confronting it.  Until they lay eyes on their son's body, Annie and Ives can still believe that Robert is alive.  There's a certain disconnect with reality.  For most of the summer, I've been in that state.

A good portion of my sister's treatments have been done at the University of Michigan.  The last time I saw her at the nursing home, she was still thinking and talking clearly.  On Memorial Day weekend, I brought a friend to visit her, and my sister spent most of the time throwing up in an emesis basin, apologizing in between bouts of sickness.

I know my sister is very ill.  Every time I get a text, I experience a moment of dread, knowing that the text could contain really bad news.  That's how I found out about my sister's diagnosis--a text.  I get texted pictures of her.  This morning in the picture, she looked as if she was drenched in sweat.  She wasn't.  A priest had just visited and administered the Sacrament of the sick.  Her forehead was coated in chrism oil.

I don't know what I'm trying to say with this post.  I'm surrounded by family who are anticipating something all the time.  Good news.  Bad news.  My sister who's been visiting from Washington has suspended her return home indefinitely (her train tickets are now for the end of January, 2016).  I think that's the proper adjective for life right now:  indefinite.  Is the chemo working for my sister, or isn't it?  Is my sister coming home, or is she staying downstate?  Will my 14-year-old daughter love me today, or resent the fact that I'm still breathing?

Saint Marty is in limbo.

Close to Death

by:  Sharon Olds

Always, now, I feel it, a steady
even pressure, all over my body,
as if I were held in a flower-press.
I am waiting for the phone to ring,
they will say it and I will not be ready,
I do not have a place prepared,
I do not know what will happen to him
or where he will go.  I always thought
I had a salvation for him, hidden,
even from myself, in my chest.  But when the phone rings,
I don't know who he will be, then,
or where, I have nothing for him, no net,
no heaven to catch him--he taught me only
the earth, night, sleep, the male
body in its beauty and fearsomeness,
he set up that landscape for me
to go to him in, and I will go to him
and give to him, what he gave me I will give him,
the earth, night, sleep, beauty, fear.

Confessions of Saint Marty