More Asia, More Memory

Some seeds flower into the most astonishing color.

 

This morning I received an email from Josh's girlfriend's father, to whom I had written apologizing for having to leave his wife's memorial service early (previous post).  He filled me in on what we had missed, which included this video as his final farewell to his wife in  honor of their cross-cultural romance.

 

It is worth attending to for the entire five minutes.  And, of course, it speaks to all of us in our losses.

 

Our relationship with this family is tenuous and unusual.  But I think that many families who have lost children find themselves briefly and intensely connected to those who have in some way shared in those losses.

 

I am extremely grateful that six years later this video has come my way because of one of those connections.

Too Much

Yesterday the Huffington Post published a piece they'd invited me to write in response to a TED talk about suicide.  I decided to write about things I thought might help survivors -- not a religious post, not a post filled with pastoral reflections or exhortations - just a post about some of what I've learned, written by a mom survivor who happens to be a pastor.

Positive responses poured in.

Among them was a repost by a former teaching colleague on a memorial FB page for a former student of ours.  Unbeknownst to me, he had died of suicide two days previous.  Twenty-four years old.  What I remember is his relentless sense of humor as he failed, time and again, to turn in his work.   Jewish funerals take place within 24 hours of a death, so I missed that, but she and I will go over to the house together on Monday.

Another response came from a high school classmate, about a series of suicide-attempt related losses all those years ago.  I did not know about those events, but I recognized the emotional landscape of which she wrote.

Then, today, the wedding of our next-door neighbors' middle daughter.  I tried; I really did.  I do not want to be like the father who wrote the column a year or two ago about not having attended a wedding in the eleven years since his son died.  I want to help my friends celebrate the great events of their lives.  This was our fourth try.  We haven't made it all the way through a single reception.  Tonight's final straw came when the bride's two sisters and brother sang "Here, There, and Everywhere" to her.  Before dinner, I might add. The seven children of our combined families played together for years; both families were filled with joy and laughter.  Theirs still is.

A new friend is doing the Overnight Out of the Darkness Walk in Seattle tonight, in honor of her son who died just a year ago, on the morning of his high school graduation day.  I had toyed with the idea of going to that walk (in one of my favorite cities) - until I broke my ankle.  I wish I were there anyway.

I am completely depleted.  Whatever I wrote about finding hope, whatever courage people saw in that   piece . . .   . Not tonight.  I just want my son back. That's the only thing I ever really want.

I can't imagine how I am going to lead worship tomorrow morning.  One of these days I'm going to have to preach so far ahead of myself that I'm going to fall flat on my face.

Hymn to the Eternal Flame

My friend Rosa is making a 30-day retreat and somehow found the time to send me this amazing gift.



Josh ~ Chicago Graduation
Family ~ Arizona
Memorial Service for a Young Woman
My Mother and I
Igantius the Pilgrim  ~ Guelph Retreat Centre
Boats in Poulsbo WA
Family ~ Adirondacks
My Birthday
Marissa and Ursuline Sister Agatha
Matt ~ Law School Graduation
Heart Glass ~ Ordination Gift from Rosa
Chapel of the Martyrs ~ Montmartre
Tanner's Annunciation
Wernersville Jesuit Center
My Mother and Brother
Josh ~ Lake Michigan

Pilgrimmage Saturday

I didn't know what to expect.  My husband and I last went to Chicago five Octobers ago, for the purpose of emptying Josh's apartment and bringing his belongings home.  It was a horrible, horrible day, one on which my feet felt like lead as we surveyed the rooms that had remained untouched since the night he had died and met with the detective who had handled his "case" to extract what details we could.  My husband and a good friend (a VERY good friend) dismantled furniture as Josh's girlfriend and I sat and talked, trying to discern meaning in his belongings and from the events of the previous months.

 

And so I didn't know what to expect as Marissa and I drove west.  Would I make a U-turn as soon as the Chicago skyline came into view?  Would we check into our hotel, the same one in which Josh and his dad had stayed when he came to college (I was in Columbus, delivering his twin brother to Ohio State), and be overwhelmed by sadness at the thought of all the hopes and dreams crushed only five years later?

 

I felt as if I were constantly checking my emotional pulse, but it remained steady and strong.

 

A little last minute investigation had indicated that only one of Josh's close group of friends remains in Chicago, and he agreed to meet us for dinner downtown.  As we all talked, I began to relax and to realize that the week-end might offer the prospect of a small increment of healing.  It was wonderful to hear stories we'd never heard, to fill in some of the blanks of his college life, and to confirm that he had found joy and mischief and friendship in those years.

 

It was especially wonderful to spend time with a young man able to recall the past and to talk easily about it.  We wondered afterward if he had perhaps also been in need of conversation about his friend who had left us all so suddenly and so completely without warning.

 

Very few people mention my son Josh to me.  A couple of months ago, I broke down in the local garden center when I ran into a mom from Montessori middle school days who mentioned that she has a picture of him on her bulletin board and so sees him smiling every day. 

 

If you have occasion to share a memory or a story with a bereaved parent, go ahead and give it a try.  We miss them so much.

Non-Writing Writing Retreat

 

Yesterday at lunchtime, reeling a bit from the feelings and memories generated by the writing retreat, I suddenly realized that it had not rained as forecast earlier, and that there was nothing I needed to accomplish in the afternoon that could not be finished later.  To the marsh and the beach! ~ about an hour away.  The added bonus turned out to be that my friend Chris, who lives there, was home.  Although we live in such proximity, our schedules are such that we seldom get together. 

 

You might think otherwise.  She and I are part of a foursome of mothers who discovered one another through our blogs in the first couple of years after our children died.  We have been writing to one another ever since, first in a semi-formal blog retreat as we waded through Joyce Rupp's book Open the Door, and then in frequent emails and posts.

 

Chris made two points yesterday which have already had quite the effect on me.  I told her about my post earlier this week on Anger, and my . . . well, embarrassment, really, at having vented such a display of fury over ~ not much.  Especially after Karen, another of our moms, whose daughter died of cancer, wrote in her, as always, kind and understanding manner, to reassure me that I was not out of line.

 

"What if Josh hadn't died?" Chris asked. "How would the breast cancer experience have been for you then?"  I looked at her in surprise as I realized, "No big deal.  It would have taken a lot of time and energy and I would still have complained about the physical pain.  But I don't really care about the breast, I can do everything I used to do, and I have no reason to fear a recurrence.  I would have taken it in stride."      

 

I didn't add that my life's structure of loss was already so extensive that six months dedicated to breast cancer would not have been that difficult to endure.  (And here I apologize to all the women I am no doubt offending.  But in reading about breast cancer at that time, I realized that for many women in their fifties and sixties, breast cancer, either theirs or their mother's, is their first major experience of life-out-of-control and devastating loss.  For me, even without Josh's death, it followed the deaths of mother, brother, and two step-mothers, infertility, and a previous cancer scare.  One more thing.) 

 

For  me the trauma of breast cancer was losing a part of my body so intimately connected to the child previously lost.

 

"You have to remember," said Chris, "that all of your experiences now are through a Josh lens.  Things which would not have caused you to stumble six years ago loom large and crushing now."

 

We also talked about our challenges as a group in getting together and in maintaining any consistent writing schedule.  I commented that I think that we are each finally re-negotiating our lives and finding what they are supposed to be about. Chris reminded me that she had read an article, back at the beginning, that said it takes about six years post-child-loss to discover who you are and who you want to be.  (Since, I might add, who you were is long gone.)  Chris and Karen are now just past six years; the other Karen and I are just into the sixth year.  We have all let go of much that once seemed critical to our well being, we are all focused in our distinct ways on making the world a more generous place for those who live, and we are all learning to navigate lives in which we are surrounded by people who experience virtually every moment differently than we do, so that authentic connections seem few and far between.

 

I can't say that I wrote much this week.  But I do see more clearly why I so identify with and love Skyler White.

.

Not a Silent Retreat!

 

 

We met six years ago as would-be spiritual directors on the first night of our training program, which began with a week-end retreat.  We finished up two years later at another retreat, and with four other members of our class formed a peer supervision group ~ which means that we meet every month or so for conversation around our experiences as spiritual directors.  Some time ago, three of us realized that we would all be turning sixty this year, and this week-end we managed to pull off a mini-retreat as a way of being intentional about the "final third" of our lives.

The three of us: Two Catholics and one Protestant, two employed in church positions and one doing major volunteer work related to spiritual direction, two married and one single, six children, work experience including missionary in El Salvador, teacher, lawyer, pastor, psychiatric nurse, and diocesan staff for pastoral ministry ~ and spiritual direction, of course.

We spent a very small amount of time each of us on her own; mostly we talked.  And talked and talked and talked.  A few hours Friday night and nonstop from breakfast through lunch today.  (We never left the dining room ~ midmorning, one of the staff members at the retreat house stopped in to ask if we knew that lunch wouldn't be served until 12:15!) 

We used Paula Huston's book A Season of Mystery: Twelve Spiritual Practices for Embracing a Happier Second Half of Life, which provided a great springboard for conversation.  I think we all agreed that it was particularly relevant to the third third of life; we found the topics pertinent and helpful and challenging.  I would highly recommend the book to any group of people seeking to look reflectively and unflinchingly at these final decades and to approach them as a time in which to live prayerfully and authentically.

We didn't think to take a picture!  But here's where we went.


 

When Our Children Die

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the death of Joey Johnson.  Joey died unexpectedly, in the night, of a complication of epilepsy which I think his parents didn't even know existed.  His mother Karen writes eloquently about what it's like, at five years ~ or, at least, something of what it was like yesterday.

 

Zachary Shuck died nearly a year ago of suicide.  His father John also writes eloquently of what it's like at that point ~ or, at least, something of what it was like at 3:00 this morning.

 

I generally feel both ways.  Usually at the same time. 

 

 

 

Boarding School Years ~ Catholic

Readers here know that I spent six years in girls' boarding schools: three Catholic and three Protestant.  A treasure trove of images of each has popped up on Facebook recently, and I thought I'd share.  The following come mostly from Pavey Photography; I don't know whether Ann Pavey attended the School of the Brown County Ursulines (now closed) as a girl or Chatfield College as an adult, but her photos reveal a genuine love of the campus.

 

My own family history as intertwined with the Ursulines, in a nutshell:

 

The Ursuline sisters ventured from France to southwestern Ohio in 1845 and opened a school for girls about thirty miles north of Cincinnati.   I'm not sure when this main chapel was built ~ maybe someone will add some information in the comments ~ but it was at one time attached to a massive convent building of red brick. 

 

The nuns hired a master carver to teach them to make the intricate carvings that adorned their small chapel in the main building ~ although I think this one is from what we knew as the main chapel:

 

 

In the late 1800s, my great-grandmother wanted to study piano and, so the story goes, sold her egg money to pay for lessons and drove her buggy the eight miles or so to the convent to study with the nuns.

 

In the early 1900s, she and my great-grandfather were married and he established what would become the family grain business, which eventually developed a relationship with the nuns, who ran a farm as well as a school.  I am sure that my grandfather and father, as well as my brother and I, would count the Ursuline sisters as among our dearest of friends.  I don't think I have a photo of those who came to my ordination service, but I do have one of Sister Agatha with my daughter, taken a couple of summers ago.

 

 

 

No daughters in the family until I came along, and off I went to the Ursulines' school when I was a seventh grader.  The chapel was a good deal more ornate pre-Vatican II, but it's still there.   My family was Methodist in a not-so-much kind of way, although I am told that that same piano-lesson great-grandmother as a grown woman used to sail down the street to the Methodist parsonage on Monday mornings to offer the pastor her views on the previous day's sermon.  (Is that where the genes come from?  I'm sure he was just delighted to see her making her way down the block . . .     . )  At any rate, I was not anything in particular, religion-wise.  But I did attend Mass and various other services here regularly for three years, which meant that when I bumped into the Jesuits decades later, I was comfortable with Catholicism.

 

 

 

 

My friends and I spent an awful lot of time climbing around and through various convent locales in which our presence was not exactly sought.  I think that Ann  Pavey has done an incredible job of capturing the sense of beauty and mystery of  the buildings which I'm sure that all the women who lived there as girls still think of as "ours."

 

 

 

The school is long gone now, and so is the building which housed it.  The nuns built themselves a smaller and more user-friendly home, and the small college on the grounds, established to educate young teaching sisters, is now a vital and thriving educational institution, open to all who live near this community on the edge of Appalachia. 

 

And, while I've posted this one before, I'll close with a photo of the plaque on the wall of one of the college buildings, which reflects a gift made by my father in memory of our Josh and a century-plus of wonderful friendship and love.

 

 

 

 

 

Solidarity: Women Writing

Sometimes weeks go by with no communication beyond Facebook posts and comments.

And then ~ a flurry of longer messages and emails.  We know, each of us, that there are three other mothers out there who have ears to hear and eyes to read.  We don't have to be in the same mental or emotional or spiritual places any more than we need geographical proximity; there is no judgment, no insistence that anyone "move on," no sense of "there but for the grace of God" because, indeed, here, despite the grace of God, we are.

I'm not sure, anymore, when we met.  One of the women lives fairly close to me, and there was an article in the newspaper at the time of the one-year anniversary of her daughter's death, a few weeks after Josh died.  Thanks to that article, I was able to find her blog and somehow, over the next several months, the four of us discovered one another in writing that spoke across thousands of miles to hearts all broken at about the same time.  Today, as I write: year five for two of us, and about year six for the other two.  We have clutched one another as if we were lashing ourselves to lifeboats tossed about in the churning waters between Scylla and Charybdis.

What do mothers write about, in years five and six?

We write about God, often: wondering and wondering and wondering.  We share our stories of trying ~ and succeeding, I think ~ to live rich and productive lives, to do our work, to care for our homes and families, to love husbands and children and step-children, all against a backdrop of shattered glass and torn fabric.  We ask question about words like joy and happiness and despair and emptiness. 

We are, each of us, making something beautiful and elegant of our lives.  In very different ways.  I think it would be accurate to say that I am awestruck by what these women write and do.  Had you told me five years ago that it would ever be possible to crawl out from under the covers after the loss of a child, I would have cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West, and imagined that the best I might ever do would be to zip around Oz on my broomstick, wreaking enraged havoc wherever I went.

But as it turns out, I am always wishing for Glinda's wand.  Always wanting to restore our lives with a dash of glitter and sparkle.

Having neither broomstick nor wand, I am grateful to have friends.  Friends who write, and not angrily across the sky, but gently, into cyberspace.  What would we do without one another?

Books Books Books

I am in need of some solid and distracting reading and I asked for suggestions on FB ~ nothing trashy, but not W&P either.  And with the locale as pretty much a character.  In the time it took me to take a shower . . .  Voila'!

In case you need some ideas yourselves:

Ragtime is always one of my favorites

 

Molokai by Alan Brenneer. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.

 

Robin Craig Feel free to elaborate, folks.

 

'the gift of rain' by tan twan eng. it was short listed for the man booker prize and it's so beautiful and wonderful. you will absolutely love it.

 

In This House of Brede

 

 I enjoyed Molokai as well. I hear The Paris Wife is really good, haven't gotten round to reading it yet. But Hemingway and Paris--during the happiest time of his life-- have got to be magical.

 

The Art of Racing in the Rain or anything by Pat Conroy! Straight Man was awesome as well!

 

If you haven't read it yet, you really want to read: "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein ... takes place in Seattle ... haven't read a better book (check out reviews on Amazon)

 

I agree with State of Wonder, Ann Patchett's latest - haven't read any Rumer Goden in years, but loved In This House of Brede when I read it. Love everything of hers. I just finished The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier, which is set in Ohio, and is about the Underground Railway. Louise Erdrich's latest is an amazing piece of work, The Round House. A difficult book, but I couldn't put it down. I recently read JK Rowling's first adult novel, A Casual Vacancy - which I also couldn't put down, though I hated much about it. It is sort of the Anti-Harry Potter. The Tiger's Wife was wonderful - the location is almost the best part, Tea Obrecht. Maybe I'll send more later - don't want to overwhelm you

 
Another one I enjoyed is Marcus Borg's first noveil: "Putting Away Childish Things" ... I really resonated with the main character ... light reading, in a way, but every line filled with a theological depth that made it a nourishing read for me

 

Maisie Dobbs series....mysteries set in England in the early 1900's with a female investigator who is trained in meditation....and who always desires reconciliation as part of her agreement with clients regardless of the result of her investigation.Or mysteries by Laurie King (which I have not read but apparently are really good) or for really light weight but good, the China Bayles series by Susan Wittig Albert.

 

Julie Otsuka's two novels about the Japanese in California during WW II: When The Emperor Was Divine and The Buddha in the Attic, are two of the best novels I've read in the past year. And I read a LOT of novels.

 

 Laurie King has two series, one of which I have read, the other not. The one I have read features a lesbian detective in San Francisco, and is really gripping - the other stars a woman (whose name I forget) who works with Sherlock Holmes. So, Victorian London.

 

 Molokai is about a young girl sent to a leper colony in Hawaii. Not as depressing as you might think. State of Wonder is about a medical researcher who goes to Brazil to find the truth about her colleague who died in the jungle while visiting another doctor researching a new fertility drug for their company. Interesting ethical issues and fascinating setting.

 If you don't mind old-fashioned, I love the Jalna novels by Mazo de la Roche. :) Multi-generational family saga in Canada.

 

Anything by Diana Abu Jaber. Except Origins. Shall I stop?

 

Have you read anything by Susan Howatch? I love her!

A favorite series of mine (if you like mysteries, and the medieval world, you may like it too) is by Margaret Frazer - featuring a nun who is Chaucer's niece, and her monastic world. Lovely. I need to go see if she has any new ones I haven't read. She has a couple of medieval series, but Dame Frevisse is my true love!

 

Maisie Dobbs --definitely!!!

 

Caleb's Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks. About the first Native American to go to Harvard - very New England, very very very good.

 

Laurie King books are great! I'm enjoying "the game" right now!

Cutting for Stone

 

Cutting for Stone and Molokaii were both excellent. Just finished Once We Were Brothers--very good. Currently reading "The End of Your Life Book Club"--not as depressing as the title sounds.

 

Robin Craig Oh, you guys are great! Unfortunately Brede is not on Kindle. And KGB, I have devoured almost everything by Susan Howatch. And MES, I have almost all of the Frazer books. (Do you know that "Margaret Frazer" is really two women?)

All of Gerealdine Brooks' books are good - "People of the Book", "A Year of Wonder" and "Caleb's Crossing" - all fabulous.

*****

Do I know the coolest people or what?

I now need to get into bed with my fleece blankee and reeeeeeeead . . . .

 

 

Back to Paying Attention to Young Women

A few days ago, I got started on this topic and then made a detour, but I want to return to it to offer some specifics.

 

The impetus came from the young woman I love with wild abandon, as only a mother can love her daughter.  Mine has begun to appear via quotes in occasional newspaper articles, such as this one, because she works for a nonprofit in community development on housing issues in a city in which rampant unemployment has done tremendous damage.  Her boss is also from our home city; his mother and I are friends.  It's such a joy to see our young people as agents of change in the world.  And to watch Marissa!  She and I were just talking, for other reasons entirely, about her first big presentation -- the Montessori sixth grade speech.  She spent weeks researching search-and-rescue dogs, and she was in complete command of herself when it was her turn to speak. It's so incredibly indescribably wonderful to see her as a poised and knowledgeable professional.

 

A second young woman I'm following these days is the daughter of a friend who's taken a year off between high school and college and begun to walk the Appalachian Trial.  Her blog has been quiet for several days, so I hope that she's still out there and still safe ~ it will be another forty years before she knows what an inspiration she is to those of us who once toyed with similar ideas, but in the end stuck to the paths at home.  Thanks to her, I have been adding links to various treks to my computer and thinking seriously about a sabbatical for the Camino de Santiago, the Camino Ignacio, or the Mountains-to-Sea Trail across North Carolina.  Or maybe, eventually, all three!

 

I could mention others, but for today I'll close with Marci Glass, a Presbyterian pastor in Idaho.  Not as young as my daughter and my friend's daughter, but young-er than I by a long shot! We met very briefly at General Assembly last summer, but I've gotten to know her a bit through her blog and through RevGals.  What struck me and has stayed with me (although of course I have no idea how to find it) was a remark she made some months ago in reference to the reality that many women are deprived of a voice in this world by circumstances beyond their control. Marci said something to the effect of having an education and a pulpit and intending to use them.  My circumstances are a bit different from hers, but my resources are not.  She has given me a lot to think about and, I hope, to act upon.

 

I've been dealing with some discouraging stuff recently.  But if I plan on being Awesome at Eighty, all I have to do, apparently, is look to young women for inspiration and courage.  Here, once again, are the ones I think of as particularly awesome themselves, my daughter and her best friends from Montessori first grade onward at a college graduation party in our back yard.  These days they are working at google, preparing for grad school, teaching in D.C., and, well, you know about the fourth one!

 

Women

Two Women Seated ~ Charles Malcolm Campbell

Today's Cleveland Museum of Art Facebook Image

 

Why did this painting strike me so today?

 

I think, as I reflect upon it, of three immediate reasons.

 

Yesterday, another woman made a humorous and yet serious remark ~ we all know what those are ~ about the behavior of women in groups.  A remark which revealed an inner adoption of a disturbing and belittling stereotype.

 

A few days ago, I listened to a sermon in which a young man made a joke ~ received appreciatively by his congregation minus one ~ demeaning to women nurses.  I am sure he would be appalled to hear what he said as I heard it, but there it was.

 

And on the sites I am visiting for Lent, I am a little over-inundated by Father language for God.   OK, more than a little.

 

***

 

I've had a number of reasons over the past few weeks to consider the formative experiences of my life.  And among them, the friendship of women looms as a sunny, serious, and sometimes stormy theme.

 

In my family of origin?  Not so much.  No sisters and mother gone much too soon.

 

In my own family?  Oh, that daughter of mine ~ grown into such a beautiful and wise friend and companion.

 

And in between?  All those years ~ eight! ~ of single-gender schools.  Brilliant and funny and compassionate and effective women in almost every place and situation since.  Today, a group of women who have shared life in our community for 25-plus years, an internet group of friends who have done the same for . . .  how long? I don't know . . . and the bereaved moms who have been my lifeline countless times in the middle of the night.  Plus women here and there who have become great friends in all sorts of ways having to do with writing and birding and photography and ministry and politics and spirituality.

 

***

 

I love this painting.

 

 

Aging - II

I wondered why no one was interested in this post.  Then I discovered I'd not posted it!

**********

This morning I woke up early ~ a little after 6:00 ~ in the dark ~ after a restless night ~ stretched out in the bed my husband had already vacated ~ registered that yes, this is still my life and Josh is still gone ~ and rolled over to wonder about the process of aging.

To imagine myself twenty years from now, nearly 80.Who will I be, where will I live, and by whom will I be surrounded?

I have my ideal, of course: I will be creakier, but not much, and living in a small cottage by a large body of water.  My husband is likely to be living as well, given the longevity of the men in his family and his own remarkably good health.  In this ideal world of mine, our children will live nearby and their own children will be sunny adolescents who adore their grandma.  Whatever future sorrows lurk in the next two decades will have manifested themselves.  I can only hope for the resilience, dignity and wit of the Countess Dowager.

Dream on, girl.

What if I am, in fact, enduring a multitude of limitations of every kind? What if, God help me, like my own grandmother, I lose most of my ability to see and hear, to follow a conversation and to respond with the appropriate degree of dryness?  What if I can neither read nor listen to books?  What if I am confined to a small room with a linoleum floor, a curtain between my bed and my neighbor's as my sole remnant of privacy, and nothing but a small common garden to serve as a reminder of the great and wild outdoors?

I am pondering all these questions in large part because I spend so much time with older people.  Yesterday's post was but a list; each item thereon frames at least a dozen stories. 

I am pondering all these questions because others are, too;  Diane Roth and Vinita Wright, in particular.

I am pondering all these questions because a friend and her siblings have just had to move their 90-year-old mother to nursing care ~ a most difficult experience all around ~ and because I am trying to convince my father, a decade younger, to make some decisions now about the future.

More on all of the above coming up.

Meanwhile, a story:

I stop by a nursing home to visit an elderly gentleman at the request of his neighbor, one of my parishoners.  He is delightful.  He is from Cleveland and his name, and this is the truth, is Ignatius ~ Iggy.  I ask whether he went to St. Ignatius High School ~ he might have been in the same class with my spiritual director emeritus.  He tells me no; that he went to Benedictine.  "I guess I'll forgive you!" I laugh.

I visit him a few more times. He is longing to get home; although his house seems terribly empty since the death of his wife a few years ago, he wants desperately to see his magnolia tree in bloom.  The spring weather is unseasonably hot and the magnolias are already out; I don't think he's going to make it.

I see him for a last time in the ICU.  He has gone downhill fast and is being moved north, to the Clinic.  I give my number to his son; my church and Iggy's most recent residences are far from my home, but the Clinic is only a few minutes away.

I don't hear from them.  When I return to my church a few days later, I learn that he died in Cleveland.  He will be buried by a priest I never met.

I don't have sentimental ideas about the next life.  I'm not sure that I have any ideas at all.

But I am hoping for a cascade of magnolia blossoms for Iggy.