Mary Oliver honors her neighbor . . .
August
by: Mary Oliver
Our neighbor, tall and blond and vigorous, the mother of many children, is sick. We did not know she was sick, but she has come to the fence, walking like a woman who is balancing a sword inside of her body, and besides that her long hair is gone, it is short and, suddenly, gray. I don't recognize her. It even occurs to me that it might be her mother. But it's her own laughter-edged voice, we have heard it for years over the hedges.
All summer the children, grown now and some of them with children of their own, come to visit. They swim, they go for long walks along the harbor, they make dinners for twelve, for fifteen, for twenty. In the early morning two daughters come to the garden and slowly go through the precise and silent gestures of T'ai Chi.
They all smile. Their father smiles, too, and builds castles on the shore with the children, and drives back to the city, and drives back to the country. A carpenter is hired--a roof repaired, a porch rebuilt. Everything that can be fixed.
June, July, August. Every day, we hear their laughter. I think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair. Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over his eyes.
I find this poem beautiful and heartbreaking, as most things are in life. Oliver's neighbor is very sick, "walking like a woman who is balancing a sword inside her body." Oliver doesn't know if this woman is dying, but the whole summer is filled with children and grandchildren, swimming, and sandcastles. In August, the last month before the slow descent into autumn and then winter, these neighbors seem to be seizing the days of sun and warmth and togetherness before everything changes and loss sets up shop in their home.
Today is the eighth anniversary of my sister Sally's death. Hard to believe she has been gone that long already. Of course, her going from us was long--over a year of ambulances and nursing home stays and hospitalizations. Up until just a couple months before her passing, we didn't even know what was wrong with her, and that staved off the process of saying goodbye. We all existed in a space of hope for a very long time, believing she would eventually return to us, whole and loving once more.
Most of you reading this post never knew Sally, but you may have had a Sally in your life. No-nonsense and generous, always full of compassion and support. The kind of person who remains calm in a crisis and always makes sure everyone is fed before sitting down to eat. Not a saint by any means, but always striving to do the right thing, no matter what the cost.
I tried to be a Sally today. Spent the morning and early afternoon rehearsing for the church services I have to play this weekend. Then took my puppy for a walk. Got a haircut. Tonight, I took my wife and son to see Barbie.
If all of that sounds pretty mundane, perhaps that's the point. Being a Sally doesn't mean performing miracles every hour of every day. I don't have to multiply spaghetti to feed five thousand people. Don't have to kick a demon out a anyone's body, unless you count my surly 14-year-old son. Being a Sally is more about making the best out of even the quietest, most boring moments. Fixing what can be fixed, as Oliver says, and accepting what can't be fixed.
And, above all, feeling blessed, even if everything is wrong and there's nowhere to go.
The night before she died, I leaned over Sally's bed, kissed her forehead, and whispered into her ear that we were all going to be okay. She didn't need to worry. And I thanked her for being my sister.
Saint Marty will spend the rest of his life trying to be a Sally for his family and friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment