May 2: Gurgled and Cooed, Little Maudlin, My Brother

An unseen hand turned a master valve.  Out of the showerheads gushed scalding rain.  The rain was a blowtorch that did not warm.  It jazzed and jangled Billy's skin without thawing the ice in the marrow of his long bones.

The Americans' clothes were meanwhile passing through poison gas.  Body lice and bacteria and fleas were dying by the billions.  So it goes.

And Billy zoomed back in time to his infancy.  He was a baby who had just been bathed by his mother.  Now his mother wrapped him in a towel, carried him into a rosy room that was filled with sunshine.  She unwrapped him, laid him on the tickling towel, powdered him between his legs, joked with him, patted his little jelly belly.  Her palm on his little jelly belly made potching sounds.

Billy gurgled and cooed.

A movement in time, Billy transported from a moment of naked vulnerability as an adult to a moment of naked vulnerability as a baby.  Billy is not in charge of himself.  The decision of whether he lives or dies, is happy or sad, rests in the hands of higher powers.  His German captors.  His mother.  God.  Billy is just along for the ride.

I'm going to be a little maudlin this afternoon.  This passage about birth and life and death comes on a day where my brother is in the hospital.  Last night, he was taken to the ER where he was diagnosed with sepsis.  Sometime--either before he got to the hospital or while he was there, I'm not sure--he suffered a heart attack.  This is his second heart attack.  So, they put my brother in an ambulance and brought him to the hospital here in Marquette, Michigan, where there are cardiologists on staff.  That was last night.

All day long today, I have been waiting for news about my brother's condition.  My sister just called me.  The cardiologist performed a heart catheterization on my brother.  He has lost another 27% of his heart tissue, and the cardiologist told him that he will have to go on permanent disability.  His heart won't take the strain of daily work.

This news was difficult for me to hear.  My brother is a big man--the tallest in the family--and strong.  He was always the muscle in my family's plumbing business, hauling water heaters and furnaces out of basements, digging up sewer lines, soldering pipes in crawlspaces.  He's larger than life.

Now, he's going to be greatly diminished.  Probably unable to do things that most of us take for granted, like climbing stairs or rearranging furniture or carrying groceries.  On top of that, I would imagine the length of his life will be shortened by this event, as well.  His heart is severely damaged.

So, forgive me if I have no wisdom today.  This is one of those times where I truly am at a loss.  I feel like Billy in the passage above, powerless and vulnerable.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for his brother's life.

December 28: Without Judgement, Wife's Grandmother, "In the Nursing Home"

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My wife's grandmother spent so much of her life taking care of other people.  She gave love freely, without judgement.  I can only hope to live up to her example of compassion and generosity of spirit.  She made me feel welcome into her family from the first time that I met her.  Well, almost from the start.

She lived in a nursing home for the last eight or nine years of her life.  For the last three years, she was greatly diminished.  This past year, she slept most of the time.  At her last birthday party, I don't even remember her waking up.

I wrote this poem about six years ago, after visiting my wife's grandmother one Saturday afternoon.  I had completely forgotten about this until this morning. 

In the Nursing Home

by:  Martin Achatz

Birds sing.  Finches.  Canary and sparrow.

Saffron, green, blue feathers.

This time of year, the nests are full

Of new life, creatures smaller

Than thumbnails, blind to their world

Of glass and wood and seed.

My daughter crowds around the enclosure,

Watches anxious flit, hears mother

Birds scream to protect newborns.

Our visit will be short today.

My wife walks her grandmother

To the dining hall, keeps up

A steady monologue of news.

Our daughter's in fifth grade.

Our son's going to be three in September.

When they reach the aviary, they stop.

Her grandmother narrows her eyes

At the flutter and squeak inside.

Emmet hasn't come yet, she says to my wife.

I waited for him yesterday.

She looks up at my wife, says, He never came.

My wife stares at her a few moments.

Grandpa died five years ago, remember?

Her grandmother smiles, nods.

They turn into the dining hall, to the smell

Of turkey and steamed broccoli.

My daughter points to a hatchling

That's fallen out of its nest.  It struggles

To return to the place of food, feather comfort.

Help it, my daughter says to me.

Someone will, I say, not sure

If I'm telling the truth or not.

I stare at the tiny bird's pink skin,

At its quick, hungry breaths,

Its fatal need for love.

Someone will, I say again.

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