August 19: "Absence," Chunky Monkey, "Strawberry Picking"

It has been a strangely emotional couple days for me.

I woke on Sunday feeling a little . . . sad.  I guess that's the best word I can come up with.  I'm not saying that I'm sitting on the couch crying with a quart of Chunky Monkey and a spoon.  No, nothing quite so dramatic.  Just a general malaise.  A weight sitting on my shoulders.

Today, I did what I usually do when I feel a blue mood descending on me.  I kept myself busy.  I worked on my October events for the library.  Put together my syllabi for the fall semester at the university, which begins next Monday.  Helped move some things around the library (we're in the middle of a little reorganization).  In the evening, I hosted a great concert by one of my favorite local bands (two of its members are the sons of one of my best friends).

All of that kept my mind and heart busy.  Now, sitting at home, everyone else asleep, I know the blue mood is sitting on the couch beside me as I type these words.  It's like a presence and absence at the same time.

Billy Collins on being present and absent . . . 

Absence

by: Billy Collins

This morning as low clouds
skidded over the spires of the city

I found next to a bench
in the park an ivory chess piece –

the white knight as it turned out –
and in the pigeon-ruffling wind

I wondered where all the others were,
lined up somewhere

on their red and black squares,
many of them feeling uneasy

about the saltshaker
that was taking his place,

and all of them secretly longing
for the moment

when the white horse
would reappear out of nowhere

and advance toward the board
with his distinctive motion,

stepping forward, then sideways
before advancing again –

the same move I was making him do
over and over in the sunny field of my palm.

I realized about midway through today that it was the anniversary of my sister's death.  Nine years ago.  I also realized that in another day it will also be the anniversary of my friend Helen's death.  Two years ago.  It's strange how the body and heart realize things like this before the brain catches up.  Basically, I'm carrying around two chess pieces in my hand, the black and white queens.  They're both here and not here.

Don't worry.  I'm fine.  I got to spend a few hours with my friend, Jody, at the concert.  Some other good friends were there, as well.  The music was loud and joyful.  People were laughing and clapping and bobbing their heads, moving their hips.  

I think, when you are keenly aware of absence in your life, it makes you appreciate presence even more.  That was me tonight, giving thanks for all the people who were with me--important pieces on the chess board of my life.  My wife.  My son.  My friend Jody.  My friend Ronnie and his son.  And so many more.  

Life is short, folks.  If I'm lucky, I'm not going to find myself in checkmate for a very long time.  But it's important for me to remember those who I've lost.  Those chess pieces that are missing, who can't simply be replaced by salt shakers.

Marty is a lucky, lucky saint.

A poem for my sister . . . 

Strawberry Picking

by: Martin Achatz

for Sally

You took me strawberry picking
once, drove out to a farm
where we paid to squat in green
beds laced with tongues of red.
I could feel my ears and neck
tighten under the punishing
sun as we filled Morning Glory
ice cream buckets with our
harvest, each berry looking to me
like some vital body part,
an organ or muscle necessary
for life. You sat on your haunches,
fingers staining red, as if you
were some battlefield surgeon
patching up the fallen with only
your hands. Every now and then,
you would lift a berry to your lips,
eat it in a hummingbird moment,
smiling the smile of the freshly
healed at Lourdes, where miracles
are common as empty wheelchairs
or dandelions in a July field.

The days since you’ve been gone,
I see strawberries everywhere,
in a welt of blood on my lip
after shaving, a stop sign,
a friend’s dyed hair,
my son’s sunburned shoulders,
oxygen in the gills of a perch.
Last night, I stood outside, under
ribbons of borealis, watched
them glide between the stars
like garter snakes in a midnight
Eden. The Bible says that, in the cool
of the day, Adam and Eve heard
God taking a stroll through
the garden. There were probably
peacocks nesting in the pines,
a stream talking with moss and stone,
the scurry of mole and spider
in the ferns.

That’s what I believe you heard
in your last moments of breath.
You heard peafowl screams,
brook trout leaps. Grasshopper wing
and corn silk. And you heard
his divine toes in the grass, walking
along. When he came to you,
he couldn’t resist. He reached down,
plucked you from the stem. You were
ripe. Sweet. Ready. He put you
in his Morning Glory bucket, continued
on into the dew and sunlight

August 19: Saint Francis, Suffering, Anniversary of Sister's Death

Thomas Merton travelling and getting sick again . . .

Then I found the villa of the people I had met at Saint Tropez, and stayed there a couple of days, and finally, fed up with walking, and seeing that I would probably be bored with the rest of the road along the coast, I got on the train and went to Genoa. 

Perhaps the boredom that I felt had its roots in some physical cause, because the first morning I woke up in Genoa, with a bunch of Italian housepainters working on the roof outside my window, I was out of sorts and had a great boil on my elbow, which I clumsily tried to heal by my own private treatments, which did not work. 

So I cashed my letter of credit and got on another train and went to Florence, where I had another letter of introduction to a man who was a sculptor. Florence was freezing. I took a trolley out across the Arno, and found the steep road up the hill where my man lived, and climbed it in the icy silence of a Tuscan winter evening. At first I thought nobody was going to answer my knock on the big hollow-sounding door, but presently an old Italian cook came out, and led me in to the studio where I made myself known and explained that I had a boil on my elbow. So the cook got some hot water and I sat in the dry dust of plaster and among the stone chips around the base of some half-finished work, and talked to the sculptor while his cook fixed up a poultice for my boil. 

The artist was the brother of the former Headmaster of Oakham, the one who had preceded Doherty. I had seen some of his bas-reliefs which decorated the front of the school chapel. He was not as old as his brother, the ex-head. But he was a kind, stoop-shouldered person with greying hair, and had most of the old head’s geniality. He said to me: “I was thinking of going down and seeing the Greta Garbo film in town this evening. Do you like Greta Garbo?” 

I admitted that I did. “Very well, then,” he said, “we will go.” 

But Florence was too cold, and I thought the boil was getting better. So the next day I left, on the way to Rome. I was tired of passing through places. I wanted to get to the term of my journey, where there was some psychological possibility that I would stop in one place and remain. 

The train ambled slowly through the mountains of Umbria. The blue sky glared down upon the rocks. The compartment was empty save for myself, and nobody got in until one of the last stations before Rome. All day I stared out at the bare hills, at the wild, ascetic landscape. Somewhere out there, on one of those mountains, St. Francis had been praying and the seraph with the fiery, blood-red wings had appeared before him with the Christ in the midst of those wings: and from the wounds, other wounds had been nailed in Francis’s hands and feet and side. If I had thought of that, that day, it would have been all I needed to complete the discouragement of my pagan soul, for it turned out that the boil was no better after all, and that I had another toothache. For that matter, my head felt as if I had a fever as well, and I wondered if the old business of blood-poisoning was starting once again.

Merton is moving toward his religious conversion in fits and starts.  Every once in a while, he comes close to people, like Saint Francis, who might have made a difference in his untutored soul had he encountered them.  Saint Francis, the first known person who suffered from stigmata.  Francis embraced his suffering, felt that it brought him closer to the life of Christ.  Merton, with his boil and toothache and possible blood poisoning, suffers without this meaning.

I'm not saying that suffering is good.  It isn't.  It's our reaction to suffering that makes the difference.  Some people wallow.  Others place blame.  Still others seek escape.  And then, the rare few, let suffering refine them, make them better human beings.  Regardless, suffering plain sucks.  Especially if it seems pointless and arbitrary.

Today was the five-year anniversary of the death of my sister, Sally.  Lymphoma of the brain took her.  Her suffering was long and, from my point of view,  needless.  She was a good person.  Generous and loving to everyone in her family.  A person you could depend upon.  An anchor.

Now, don't misunderstand me here.  Sally wasn't a saint by any means.  She was very human, with very human flaws.  Sometimes, she pissed me off.  A lot.  There were times when we didn't speak to each other.  For weeks.  However, even in those times of struggle, she still had my back, and I had hers.

I dreamed of her last night.  Felt her with me most of today.  I wouldn't say I was haunted by her.  She's just hasn't strayed much from my thoughts.  I find it difficult to believe that five years have passed since that morning I stood near the foot of her bed and watched her take that last breath.

This year has been one of suffering for many people.  I'm not unique in any way.  In fact, I would venture to say that I'm fairly ordinary is this respect.  But, today--and tonight--I've been really struggling.  Most of my life, I've believed in the power of love to overcome anything.  It's what I was taught in catechism as a young boy.  As the old hymn goes, "Jesus loves me, this I know . . . "  Love is what saves the world.  Turns tragedy into meaning.  I've always believed that.

That belief has been shaken a lot recently.  It seems to me, on this anniversary night of my sister's death, that love may have a beginning, middle, and end.  And what comes after?  Loss?  Grief?  Anger?  Tears?  Doubr?  I will admit that my Higher Power and I haven't been talking a lot recently.  The conversation has consisted of a lot of finger-pointing and fuck you-ing.

There isn't going to be much light at the end of my post this evening.  I apologize for that.  My sister is still dead.  The pandemic is still raging.  Donald Trump is still President of the United States.  And love still isn't enough to avoid suffering.  Sometimes, all that exists is suffering, and it goes on and on and on.

I'm waiting for some kind of salvation to materialize.

Saint Marty is surrounded by ghosts.

August 19: Facebook Memory, Classic Saint Marty, "Emmaus"

This morning, when I woke up, Facebook had sent me a memory:  a picture of my sister who died three years ago on this day.  It took me by surprise.  In the back of my head, I knew it was the anniversary of her passing, but I wasn't prepared to see her face smiling at me from my phone.

I just got back from visiting the cemetery with my daughter.  It's been a long, warm, sad day.  I've spent most of it mowing grass.  In an hour or so, dinner at my parents' house.

Today's Classic Saint Marty is from three years ago . . .

August 19, 2015:  Bewildered Expression, 6:27 a.m., Maggie Nelson, Unbearably Vivid Colors

And then Ives blinked and found himself standing on the sidewalk beside his wife, across the street from the Church of the Ascension.  On the pavement, just by his feet, was a large piece of canvas, and under it a body, stretched out.   Then the officer lifted off the canvas and shined a flashlight onto the face to reveal the shocked and bewildered expression of his son.

My sister died this morning at 6:27 a.m.

When I saw her last night, she was breathing hard, each intake hitting her chest like a hammer.  I leaned over, said her name and then, "It's me.  Marty."  Her eyelid lifted, and she focused on me.  I told her about my long day of work.  I told her about classes starting next week.  Just before I left, I leaned over and whispered, "You don't have to be afraid, Sal.  You don't."

When I got to my parents' house at around 5 a.m., my sister was surrounded by the people who loved her.  My mother and father, siblings, nieces, nephews, and best friends.  We all stood around her, touched her hands and feet, told her how much we loved her.

Her breaths got slower, the spaces in between longer, and then she was simply gone.

I thought I was prepared for it.  I thought I was going to hold myself together.  I thought a lot of things.  But, in those moments following my sister's death, I felt an incredible emptiness enter me, as if I had been scooped out like a pumpkin at Halloween.  I wasn't prepared.

It has been about twelve hours since that moment.  I am still not prepared for a world without my sister.  For 17 years, I worked with her.  Eight- and nine- and ten-hour days.  I spent more time with her than any of my other siblings, and we knew each other deeply.  Trusted each other deeply.  Loved each other deeply, without having to say it.

There will be no cartoon tonight.  No laughter.

My sister once said to me, "You know, I wish I was as strong as you."

Saint Marty isn't strong tonight.  He's heartbroken.

98 from Bluets

by:  Maggie Nelson

Vincent van Gogh, whose depression, some say, was likely related to temporal epilepsy, famously saw and painted the world in almost unbearably vivid colors.  After his nearly unsuccessful attempt to take his life by shooting himself in the gut, when asked why he should not be saved, he famously replied, "The sadness will last forever."  I imagine he was right.

Loss never gets easier.  It gets more distant, until days like today, when it becomes fresh again, like grass that's just been cut, bleeding the smell of green into the air.

A poem for today . . .

Emmaus

by:  Martin Achatz

My sister lies in her bed
while her neighbors scream
in the hallway outside her door.
My sock, something’s wrong
with my sock, moans one voice.
And, Give it back, give it back now,
begs another, so full of longing
that I want to find its owner,
reach into my pants pocket,
empty its contents into
the speaker’s hands, hope
that, among the five quarters,
scrap of paper with a phone number,
burned-out Christmas bulb,
Tootsie Roll wrapper, maybe,
just maybe, he may find
what he’s lost.  My sister
has grown deaf to these voices.
She grips her bedrails,
grimaces, pulls herself closer
to me, the effot making her
shake as if some fist
is pounding on the door of her
body.  Do you want a drink?
I ask.  No, she says.
Are you warm enough? I ask.
She nods, closes her eyes.
Should I change the channel?
I ask.  No, she says again.
Then silence as she drifts
like a vagrant kite on a windy
day.  I wonder if she dreams
her body whole, climbs through
the window of her room, begins
walking down the road, between
the snowbanks, under the moon.
Maybe she meets other people
who tell her about the things
they can’t find.  Socks.  Cocker spaniels.
Birthday cards.  Wives.  Poems.
Husbands.  Photographs.  Friends.
The road is crowded with loss.
But they all keep moving, like pilgrims
on some cold Easter morning, hoping
to meet the one who will have
directions, will know how to get home.

August 19: Bombed and Burned, Two Years Ago, My Sister

Every other big city in Germany had been bombed and burned ferociously.  Dresden had not suffered so much as a cracked windowpane.  Sirens went off every day, screamed like hell, and people went down into cellars and listened to radios there.  The planes were always bound for someplace else--Leipzig, Chemnitz, Plauen, places like that.  So it goes.

Steam radiators still whistled cheerily in Dresden.  Streetcars clanged.  Telephones rang and were answered.  Lights went on and off when switches were clicked.  There were theaters and restaurants.  There was a zoo.  The principal enterprises of the city were medicine and food-processing and the making of cigarettes.

People were going home from work now in the late afternoon.  They were tired.

Dresden is a normal city in the middle of a war.  People go to work.  Streetcars carry people to shop and eat.  Theatrical productions at night.  Phone calls from neighbors and relatives.  If people get sick, there are doctors to treat them.  The citizens of Dresden go about their lives, unfazed and safe.  They have no worries, aside from whether they're going to have schnitzel or sauerbraten for dinner.

I think that's pretty much what everybody does, every day of their lives.  We get up in the morning, make coffee, eat oatmeal, go to work, come home, watch TV.  Sure, we have bills to pay, meetings to attend, birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate.  That's normal life.  We walk around, mostly oblivious to the bombs going off around the world, because those bombs aren't falling in our neighborhoods.

Those bombs can take many forms.  Car bomb.  Terrorist.  Nazi.  White supremacist.  Job loss.  Home foreclosure.  Bill collector.  Car accident.  Alzheimer's.  Appendicitis.  Bombs go off in people's lives all the time.  Shatter windows.  Destroy homes.  Wreck lives.  No one is prepared for the bomb.

Today is the anniversary of my sister's death.  Two years ago, she quietly stopped breathing at home, surrounded by family and friends.  Lymphoma of the brain.  My sister never saw that bomb coming.  Just a few months before, when a doctor in the hospital asked her what her expectations were for her illness, she said that she wanted to get better and go home.

My family and my sister's friends are still dealing with that bomb.  Sweeping up the glass and rubble.  Our lives have returned to a new normal.  Job and church and home.  However, for me, I'm always looking into the clouds for a B-52 carrying the next bomb.

Today, I will go to the cemetery.  Talk to my sister.  Tell her how much I miss her.  Leave some flowers.  That's what we do.  We build memorials at the sites of disasters.  To remember, honor, love.

Saint Marty is thankful today for the time he had with his sister.