Family Icon

Icon 2

Why the scent of turpentine summons the spirit of my Father

Hanging on the wall in the part of our kitchen that is now Ella's one room school house is a painting of my Father's. It is one of my most prized possessions. Not because it is a great painting. It is not my Father's best, however we were together when he made it. He set up our easels side by side at Scales Lake State Park by one of the small lakes just off the road that circles the main lake on a warm Fall Saturday. He painted with oils. I had finger paints. He had just returned from his third war and now the art lessons that had begun two years before could begin in earnest again.  He painted trees by the water. I painted "baby trees" just Autumn colors with no trunks or branches,  swirls of yellow and red and green. I was just seven, but I remember the feel of the plastic paint between my fingers and the paper and the scent of my Father's turpentine.

Ella was asleep on our bed when Rowena presented me a page of her day's homework and shattered my illusion of control over what the future shall be. The exercise was to diagram the "hidden lines" in the painting Bathers at Asnières by Seurat. On the page were two lines that not only perfectly illustrated the internal composition but recreated visual impact of the original through their weight and sensitivity. My daughter has the eyes of an artist. The hands of an artist. She has an artists soul. Until I saw these lines on the page something inside me had hoped this was not true. For a year Ella has told everyone that she was going to going to be a Veterinarian. Yes, please, I thought to myself; be a Vet and your life will be easier than mine has been.
"This is my Son. He's an artist." There was never any equivocation when my Father said this. No parent has ever introduced their Daughter the investment banker or Son the engineer with any more pride.  In the decades since his death I told myself that he just didn't know how hard it is to be an artist. He didn't know about the doubt and derision. I wondered, how the oldest Son of a coal miner that quit school after sixth grade to labor plowing the fields behind the family mule would want me to work through the poverty and struggle to scrape up money for paint? Now I know. Two lines on a sheet of paper later I know. My Father wanted many things for me, but my Father knew me. My life was never going to be easy. I am too deeply in love with struggle and I do not readily accept the things I cannot change.

Ella has a finely tuned sense of Justice. She lives an honest, truthful, loving way and I know that because of this her life will be difficult. There is nothing I can do to ease her way, short of changing the world. So I will do what I can do. I will show her beautiful ways to see the world. I will give her ways to show the world what is inside her. I will set up our easels side by side in a quiet place, and together we will paint the world around us.

To Witness: Prologue

It was gray Mid-Winter when I stepped into my back yard and a flock of 20 or so sparrows burst from the ground and formed into a tight formation at full speed. As they came to the Maple they spread without collision to pass through the barren tree without touching a single branch. On the other side they formed into a flight not much larger than myself and disappeared into the cold landscape beyond the fence. As I watched all these beautiful souls pass through another beautiful soul I felt a familiar presence.

To Witness

I want to thank organized religion for three gifts. First I would like to thank the Catholic Church and specifically Pope Urban VIII for the persecution of Galileo Galilei. Scientific matters aside, it was the motivation for Rene' Descartes writing of Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences. Millions have created their intellectual structures on the foundations made possible by this treatise, exclusive of the Holy Roman Church's designs. Thanks to Urban VII I have only one possession - my own consciousness as the creation of dialog between the world and my own existence. My life is: what I see, what I hear, what I think, what I choose.

I would like to thank the Deacons of the Baptist Church my family attended when I was a child. When they discovered that wine was consumed at dinners with our family and the Pastor they fired him. I loved the Reverend. I enjoyed the conversations between him and my Father. I knew it was a great injustice and it severed my attachment to religious institutions permanently. He was then free to become President of a local university and I was free to look for God on my own. 

The most profound gift I received from a church, however, came during Sunday School just before our exile from the Baptist Church. The lesson was about the Creation and I was moved by the idea that God had desires. There was something that seemed strange about God needing something more than what he is so I asked the teacher" Why did He make us?" Her name is lost to me but her answer is not: "Perhaps he was lonely. He wanted someone to share with all the beautiful things he had made. God needs us. He sees the world through us. We are his eyes and his ears on Earth." The meaning of the moment was amplified perhaps because it is where my conversation left off with religious institutions. But it was the way she said it. She spoke directly to me. Her voice soft. Her words were complete the way a subtle gesture is complete.

Adults become conditioned to loneliness, but survival has instilled a special discomfort for this feeling in children. Lonely. A child understands another child's grief in solitude. A child would create the universe to not be lonely anymore. In my child's mind God was a child like me. One that loves to make things and to tell stories. He was inviting me to play with him. My life, the act of living, was part of Him. My seeing. My hearing. The tasting of fresh milk and my Grandmother's Pie, the feeling of my fifth grade girlfriend's hand in mine. All of these things an essential part of God's knowing and dreaming. And in the moments that I was conscious of the connection I wanted God to see the best of me.

                                                                            ***

"Yes, I'll sit by you. I love you too, I love you with all my heart. I am so proud of you. Be careful climbing that. AAAAAaaare you OK? Your knee? Yes, I'll blow that part a kiss. Great daddy take down. Sure, let's watch Ratatouille again. No I didn't know that Painted Lady Butterflies had ten thousand eyes. They migrate a thousand miles! Read that for me again. I'll read one for you too. Again?!? Great ballet jump. I love to see you dance!"

She wants a witness, and until she finds the one inside her I will witness everything she has to offer. In my adult’s mind God, a child like her, is the vessel that contains all of her experiences. Within God is the culmination- the full measure of everything she has seen, heard, tasted, felt, thought, feared and loved. My wife's years before we knew each other are there. The perfect life of the child, unborn, we mourned but I never met. We are there together - along with the singular, complete experience of every living thing there has ever been in the expanse of space and time. The flight of every bird, the stretching of their muscle and the flowing of wind across feather. The breathing of trees and the sense of what it means to flower. The sight from ten thousand Painted Lady Butterfly eyes on a thousand mile journey. 

Now that I am constantly aware of the connection I want God to see the best of me; for us to see the best of each other. "Yes God, I will sit with you. I like to paint flowers too. What a beautiful story. My friends tell stories - I need to take Ella to hear them. Great sunset! Remember the one I did for Little Shop? OK I'll keep trying. Yes, very proud of her. I love you too. With all my heart. I love to see you dance!"

Hard to Mow the Grass

It's is Sunday morning and the grass is well past ankle deep and shaggy as Ella and I play "Pitch and Catch" in the front yard. But it is hard to mow the grass now that I'm a Dad, especially early in the spring. The backyard is covered in little flowers. Violets identical to the ones on the dress she is wearing. The tiny blooms that as a two year old she gathered in tiny hand fulls. She cupped them to her nose to sigh in rapture. Buttercups that proclaimed her sweetness when held beneath her chin. Tall spindly flowers she calls Daisies whose blossoms are smaller than a dime with white petals as fine as her eye lashes. To my child the back yard is a Garden graced with all that word can offer.

And then there are dandelions and the hummingbirds. At a lecture about being good friends of hummingbirds we learned dandelion seed tufts are an important to the construction of their nests. They help hold the other materials together. We know now that they fly thousands of miles a year and always remember where they have been, who was kind with bottles of syrup and soft trumpet shaped flowers. They will return every year. I would love for them to each become a regular visitor so it seems I should work to promote a supply of natural nesting materials. Ella will help in this effort, seeding the world one puffball at a time. The tufts float through the air like the animated musical notes whistled from pursed lips.

On my way to the storage shed I pass our honeysuckle bush. There was one in the back yard of my child hood home. The boughs swept into the lawn like the crest of a wave leaving a curved hollow cave just boy sized. I loved to hide there and pull the flowers inner string to release the sweet drop of nectar within. I fill the mower with gas with little enthusiasm. It had quit running at the end of last years mowing season, but I hoped It would just work long enough to keep the neighbors from revolting in reaction to my sloth. To my chagrin it roars to life. Perhaps it was just tired in October. I let the self propelled front wheel drive help drag the machine  towards the front yard where I traditionally start this effort. When I reach the deck I turn to look behind me and stop in my tracks. Laughing out loud. The mower has merely temporarily pushed the "Daisies" over and they stand tall once more. The violets have only been topped and countless purple and blue flowers lay in the swath where I have just passed. It seems that a 250 pound man with a 6 horsepower rotary knife can only claim limited dominion over the beautiful things that yield and persist. 

I am so Happy.

My Mother is Dying

People who do not believe in demons have never seen a disease remove someone they love. Not kill them, but take them away slowly by destroying their ability to love the world around them. Arthritis has tormented my Mother for decades. The comfort everywhere within her where bone meets bone has dissolved. Joints that were once straight are now jarring angles. As her ability to walk in this world fades, as her ability to hold it in her hands fades her attachment to this world fades. There is little left of her consciousness but need, and fragments of dreams. When I sit beside her I can feel it coming; the world that does not contain her pride, the world without her love for her children, for animals, for the taste of sweet things. It is coming as sure as the earth is turning.
The only sudden thing in this process was my realization that there would no reckoning of the child's accounts of all the wrongs she had ever committed. I had carried them with me until it was to late for atonement. Too late for her even to say "I'm sorry". An accidental act of mercy. I have carried this ledger long enough to fear my own transgressions towards my child. To fear all the good I can do will be shattered by the wrong word an undeserved or ill considered comment, by doing nothing when something was needed. So on the pages where I have listed the debits to her character I will add ; She created children who love God and God's creations. A caring spirit is a rare and special thing and the formation of one is no accident. If you have this as as a possession there a debt is owed to those who love you. I will use this ledger now to light the pyre for all the things that never should never have come between us. To cleanse this world. To clear the way for her passage.
 A child knows what mother says is truth. It is their definition of the absolute that cannot be questioned. As you find yourself this is lost. But it is no easier to find the truth within yourself than it is to find your way in this world alone.Mother is the only objective truth you will ever know. Truth is in the dark months in the womb where there is only her. Truth that all the world is only one thing.

One and a Half Miles

It is the middle of November 1972. My Father and I leave this home on South 7th Street in Boonville Indiana for our thrice weekly mile and a half jog.  Well, it is a mile and a half of walking and jogging for me. When I cannot go with him he runs for three miles. You can take the man out of the Rangers but the Ranger never leaves the man. He loves to run, loved leading PT as a Drill Instructor. On a trip to see my Mom's family in Louisville he and I drove to Fort Knox to see one of his old friends, a Major who had flown helicopters with him. He pulled off the road to watch some soldiers do drills with what looked like half of a telephone pole. He watched them in silence. I could feel the weight of the heavy beam in his memories as we sat together on the bench seat of our 68 Chevy Biscayne. He was very pleased in their efforts. "That's the way it's done Son. That's how you learn to work together and trust each other."

The first 150 yards are always easy down the gentle slope of the street. Just where it levels off the the vacant lot where all the local boys play football. This is not touch football. The teenagers rule the field. Injuries to the smaller kids are always accompanied by insults, and laughter. But if you play without fear you get your own shots in. Without fear the game is worth playing. We go Fifty yards more yards and we pass over the railroad tracks, the finish line for our bike races. Eight and nine year olds racing hell bent for leather towards heavy machinery. Our parents knew about this, and thought little if anything of it. It was the time when in small towns mothers would hold the door open and state without equivocation "You are going outside to play"  The only safety guideline we had to honor; " Be home before dark!"
The tracks are where I always slowed to a walk. "Walking is as good for you as running as long as you walk like you have somewhere to go" My Father always said. It was a way to make me feel better, as well as the truth, but I noticed he would always run.  A misty rain had began to fall, cooling me down, and I kept jogging. "Two counts" he said as we reached the bottom of a short but steep hill. It was a breath control trick he had taught me. You exhale in rhythmic puffs in tempo with your strides. Never more than four counts. If you were struggling on two counts it is time to ease the pace or walk. The shot of oxygenation helps and we keep going past the crest, down the rest of seventh street, take right were the streets Ts and start down the long hill that leads to City Lake.  By the time we reach the lake I am puffing on four counts again.

I spent countless days of my childhood at this park. The swimming area was where I learned to blow bubbles in the water, to dog paddle, the backstroke and the Australian crawl. The right to go to the high dive was earned by swimming the width of the pool and back without stopping under the watchful eye of the superintendent and the life guards. My first jump from the 15 foot height was a disaster that knocked the wind out of me. But by the next Summer I was could manage a reasonably good swan dive and if I entered just right I could touch the muddy bottom.
We jog past the swimming area down the steep hill to Third Street and turned left following the levee that is the western border of the park. My Father asks me questions about chess strategy. He knows what I am trying to do. We are at the half way mark and coming to another hill. If I can talk I can keep going, if not we will walk. We pass the hill and turn left on Lake Shore. On the left is the spot I caught my first fish. I was using my Gramps' cane pole with a red and white bobber and a worm from Nanny's garden. Gramps and my Father chuckled when I declared the four inch blue gill to be "a keeper" My Grandfather took the fish off the hook and lowered it back into the lake."We'll let him grow grow a little more cowboy" One of the tough things about being a kid is triumph and despair so closely follow one another.
The rain grows heavier as we continued down the winding lane to the road  on the eastern border. I had read in one of my Outdoor Life Magazines that "Lunker Largemouth Lurk Beneath Lily Pads"  This side of the lake is very shallow and covered by water lilies with enormous maroon and white flowers. I will spend many hours here and never catch anything. It is here I learn the bond between silence and beauty.
"Can you keep going?" My Father asks. When I say "Yes" things change. Before there where two sets of footfalls. Now there is one. His breathing  syncs to mine.  It feels like I am half of a powerful machine. I am drawing not just from my father's strength but his instincts. There are none of the normal small stumbles in my strides. I am running with confidence and purpose. We are doing this together. We glide past the railroad tracks and up the hill towards home. The last half mile is passed without a word between us, but we have never been so completely connected. His hand clasps my shoulder and squeezes at the base of my neck."Good work Son"
Now that I am a Father myself there are many times I stumble. There are many times I feel I do not know the way forward, but as my confidence grows and I overcome my fears I can feel the connection.  My Father is beside me; step for step and breath for breath.

Visions of Anger and Sorrow

I think I'm having a miscarriage. Please come home" So began of one of the darkest periods of my life. Many people tried to tell me why it happened, chromosomal damage and other pointless facts. My truth was that I should have been able to keep it from happening. I should have done something differently. I should have been a better person and then I would have been worthy.  The only thing I heard from anyone that made a difference was "It happened to us too"  
With the passage of time I gained some control over the inexplicable sensation of  falling, the seemingly random opening of the earth beneath my feet. I had even begun to venture on to the golf course, one of the few places where I could successfully focus on something completely external. It was not unusual for me to have the course to myself, or at least a big chunk of it. I have never been part of a regular foursome and I like to play late in the day when others don't. At this time in my life that was handy because I was incapable of the small talk.The Sixth hole of my "Home" course is a par three with the tee shot over water to an uphill green. The lake is heart shaped, from the Southern tip by the tee to the North shore bordering the green it measures no more than hundred yards. Cattails line the Eastern shore, but it is the Northwest corner that had become one of my favorite places. A garden of Weeping Willows has sprung from a single ancestor claimed by the tornado that ravaged downtown Nashville and the East side years before. It was the home of a pair of Red Wing Blackbirds. They were loud and proud of their flowing green home and if I passed by without seeing them I felt lonely. One day I hit a  flush 8 iron that landed just above the hole and rolled back to  a nice up hill leave of about 10 feet. I was pleased with myself as I put my club back in the bag and turned to take one more look at the green to see if the ball had remained on the steeply banked lower portion of the green. A large black bird emerged from the willows flying straight for me. A moment later it was followed by the Redwings.
I had watched them defend their territory from threats large and small and real and imagined but never with such fury. They closed the gap in an instant, clutching, tearing at the crow. Screeching, I will carry to my grave the voice of their terror, and with it the image of their nestling in the crows beak, feathers half formed and sparse. It was alive and struggling. As they flew overhead my voice joined theirs. For a moment I was out of my body flying with them, twisting, diving,  but, I fell behind. Then I was back within myself on my knees weeping without sound, impotent in my desire for violence, watching them fly over the trees and disappear in the valley beyond. 

 

Omens are supposed to come before the peril. Their protection is in foreshadow, our ability to understand what we have seen and believe in what we see.  Instead, I am given this cruel visage of the incarnation of my agony, too late to save myself.  I have carried these images with me now for nearly a decade and thought perhaps too much about their meaning. Perhaps the omen  was a warning about anger.  Within my experience that day was crystalline fury. I wanted to kill, to kill for the killings sake. If I had been an angel I could have destroyed the entire world in the pursuit. I could have done it knowing the destruction of my beloved. I could have done it knowing the consequence, of the death of innocents. In that moment was the essence of Satan's fall. 

To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail,  and anger was my hammer. I was so wounded. I was so  harmed, and I had this blunt weapon for protection. Anger keeps people away. It makes those that stay with you keep reacting to you, and thus channeled and predictable. For my soul, it was what I had to tear at the dark wall between all that could have been and all that has been taken from me. 

* * *

It seemed that Lewis did not want to be a house cat. We had erected a bird bath in memorial to Simba a Siamese we had rescued from the hallways of the high rise we live in on 5th Ave in Downtown Nashville. Lewis came several times a day to drink. We noticed he had a problem with one of his eyes, but we could not get close to him. But as summer bloomed I started grilling out and the fragrance of roast chicken got his attention. He started getting closer and we noticed he had a hideous infection. It took weeks of  gentle coaxing with bits of chicken and pork tenderloin to get him close enough to touch. It took another week to arrange our plan. We got him used to a morning treat and one day grabbed him. Stuffed him in our cat carrier and it was off to the Vet. They treated him. We needed to keep him inside for a couple of weeks however, and that was a difficult proposition. He was not happy with us. Apparently he was quite attached to a couple of things the Vet had removed, and took our imposition personally. One day I kneeled down to get a look at him under the table in our guest bedroom and he flew at me wrapped his front legs around my arm and using his claws to get a purchase sunk his teeth as deep into my flesh as he could manage.

After that we became the best of friends. We could not push him out the door. He was a "By God" house cat. He slept beside me. Just far enough down that my hand fit naturally on the nape of his neck where he liked to be scratched.  We had 9 years together, we were tight. In some ways we still are.

Lewis developed a form of feline intestinal malady that made it difficult for him to digest his food. The end was hard, it took months. His suffering ended 49 years after the day I was born.

The Morning was dark grey windy rainy and Lewis could barely lift his head. He was stumbling.  It was time to to take him to the Vet and end his suffering.  We all went together. Rowena, Ella and I were with him when he passed. When we left the windowless room the Sun had come out. The rain was gone. The air was still and birds sang.  Rowena and I noted the drastic change, but even when you know you had done everything possible to prolong life, and that going on was cruel, it was hard to accept such a poetic Technicolor transformation seemingly on cue.

We drove home in silence. When we got home the ritual of going through the heavy gate of the privacy fence as a family unit was made a little more difficult by my attempt to be reverential as I carried Lewis' remains in the cat carrier. As we closed the gate we were confronted by an huge black and yellow butterfly hovering in front of us. Time seemed to hang as he fluttered there. He then made two tight circles around us and confronted us again. He flew to the spot where Lewis had laid during our walks together, landed and lingered for a moment. He danced back into the air, passing through the fence and into the back yard. Then,  he was gone.

We buried Lewis under the Dogwood tree, which was a memorial to the Father of the family that lived here before us. He lies there with Simba, Fable, Fritz, and Sheen. 
As the Sun set Rowena and I took our accustomed in front of our lap tops across from one another at the dining room Table. The looking over the edge of monitors Rowena looked at me  and said both our words in her voice. "The butterfly was Lewis come to tell us that everything is all right. He is no longer in pain. We don't have to be sad any more. We can go on." 

As those Words floated in the air between us I went to the Nashville Humane Society's  web site and on the first page was a picture of a 9 month old black tomcat named Lewis. The caption said that all he needed was a place where he could sit and look out the window of his new forever home. He is a very happy cat now. We are happy too and proud to claim another rescue pet for our family. As I write this he is laying beside me in his box on the table.  We watch the sun come out in the world just beyond our window, together.

* * *

Ella and Rowena are laying in bed beside me. Sleep is not easy for in these days after Lewis' passing. The house is quiet and dark. As I close my eyes I am still awake when I find myself on a dirt road on a plain of wheat. Before me is the Pre Raphealite vision of two spirits. I know them. They have walked with me since I was very young. Sorrow is  pale, her features diffused by a soft internal glow. Anger's skin also pale white but has chiseled dark eyes and raven hair. Sorrow's finger tips trace the wounds across my heart, Anger the ones across my eyes,  the scars of our communion. They have come to say farewell. They will be near, but they will no longer lead me. They have been my guides since my fifteenth year, when my father in his long dying illness told me he believed I wanted him to die. It was the day my struggle against thoughts of nothingness began. As they turn and  walk into the distance I feel barren. I feel lost. I begin down the road alone, but as the vision fades I feel the warmth of hands joining mine.

* * *

My child's life joins these images together. Her life may not have been possible at all without the miscarriage. Some doctors believe the cells from children lost in this way help heal their mothers. We had given up hope of having a child before this unborn spirit's passing. Ella's birth is a miracle. All life is. Life cannot be stopped, you can only join with it. Now I know I can protect her only as I protect myself and weapons like anger destroy those that wield them. 

As a Parent my way through life will be fashioned in the way I treat and what I teach my child. My map of the world will be seen in the life our family. The clearest evidence of this was in Ella's efforts to console me about Lewis. Be prepared. Your child believes what you tell them and will continue to as long as you make your own words true. If your child tells you a departed soul has gone to a better place, you must know in your heart that that he lives now in paradise. If you teach her to love life and be open to all it has to offer you must be ready to open your heart to wonder. These lessons are no longer for your child's sake only, they are for your own. 

Visions: Prologue

In a study about the belief in "Luck" participants were asked whether they consider themselves to be either Lucky or Unlucky. In one part of the experiment they were asked to walk a course on the college campus.  Along the course was placed $20 bills where they would not blow away but could easily be seen. The participants that considered themselves to be Lucky almost always saw and picked up the bills. Those that considered themselves to be Unlucky did not. It is not that the Unluckyists keep their heads down in their maudlin stupor, their world does not include the possibility of random beneficial events, so no $20 to be seen. The Luckyists believe in fortune, in positive happenstance, and therefore $20 bills are manifested. Both present themselves with that in the world they are looking for: what they desire and what they need.
Vision is a complex process.
I have lived through my eyes. The visual experience is a personal artifact, one in which I have been willing to place a profound significance. Between the world and the seeing of it, vision and the experience of it, the experience and the meaning with which I endow it, my universe resides. When I see what I define for myself as an Omen; it is a gift from my own better angels. And when my mind is quiet, after focusing on an image,  visions come to me. They are the life I have been unable to express through my own living. They are my soul's familiar.
I want to offer those that will bear witness my testimony; some of what has passed before my mind's eyes. If after these three posts you consider me to be insane, assuming you do not already, that would be altogether appropriate in today's world. I find my life to be equal measure of absurdity and meaning. I fear neither and embrace both with fervor. In fact I find no reason to separate them and little enough reason to find their borders. If this defines madness, so be it.

Transcendent

We are greater than any one moment flowing past the here and now. We are infinite beasts that can only be grasped by the surface. All our yesterdays are here. Every sunrise to come is here. I am forever a child in my mother’s arms, my father’s heart. My hand grows still as I feel my passing from my daughter’s waking dream. I lay beside my lover, soul in soul, in excess of creation. All this is alive, nothing that can exist will ever fade.

Goals

I have three goals.
To raise a child that smiles easily.
To live a faithful life devoted to my family.
To create a home where god exists as a vessel with the potential to contain the ocean. The ocean filled with life. The ocean that we have not fathomed. The depth of wonder. A home where what can be known is numbered like the stars in the skies. The sky that wraps around all the mountains of the earth and the moon. I want to live in a home where the very timbers still carry spirits of the trees from which they were hewn. Where everything that has a voice is heard. Where respect and joy share the same source. The source from which all souls flow; from god's infinite vessel. To do this I must live a faithful life devoted to my family. And Ella will have reason to smile.

Family

I would hope that people would treat their American Brothers and Sisters the way they treat their Brothers and Sisters. Perhaps they do. I have known a Brother that killed his Brother.I have seen people trade their Family's best interest and their faith for a supply of cash that will last them half a year. I am sure it happens for less. I have seen people lavish their Families with insults and degradation. I have seen people turn their backs on those that love them most and forsake the love of generations.  I am watching this within my Nation today with no less horror.
My American Brothers and Sisters I offer you what I offer my own. When you suffer I will be with you. When you need I will provide for you. When you are in danger I will protect you. When you fail I will fail. We are here together and every tribulation we will face together.
When you strive we will grow together. When you learn we will become greater. When you achieve we will rejoice as one. You are my Family.

Silence

Rowena can hear the voices of the silent. And I listen to hers. A few months ago our one eyed black tomcat, Lewis, was little more than a ragged piece of fur placed loosely over bone. He had been wasting away for weeks; unable to digest his food. At one point he was unable to hold his head up. He leaned his head against the side of water dish to drink. I had come to terms and was ready to take him one last time to the vet. Rowena had spent many hours sitting beside him through his suffering, the way a Christian does, and although she had come to terms with his end as well she said that he was asking her not to give up. He wanted to live. He was trying. Since then Lewis has put on a full cat's weight. He has bad days when the suffering continues. But like all of us he is still trying to live.

One difficulty we had in during his recovery was a sudden desire, on his part, to go outside. After we first took him in, rescuing him from a grizzly death, he shunned the outer world. He run away from an open door to hide in small spaces in his new home. But now he tried to escape every time we let the dogs out. We were afraid he wanted to find a place to be alone to die and we would not let him go. But our faith in his actions has renewed along with his health. This morning he and I went outside together.

We have fenced our entire yard so he is safe. His big tomcat head is too big to fit through the fence and it is too tall for him to jump over at this stage in his return. He walked around the perimeter by the street and our neighbors driveway while I sat on the porch with my coffee, but when he headed for the back yard I decided to go with him just in case there was a place in the sub fence that divides front from back that he could squeeze through. We moved very slowly together past the Hydrangeas and Day Lilies then the Dogwood until we came to the Crepe Myrtle that blossoms over the fence, softening what had once been a sharp edge. Under the Myrtle he sat, crossed his legs neatly under himself in warm dirt of the constant shade.

I swear in the wind I heard "this is the spot" It was not a spot I would have chosen. No place for me to sit. But Lewis has his own point of view about perfection, so I sat my cup down on the fence post and took a good lean against the gate to take in the welcome mutual silence that can only be appreciated with a good friend.

 Four young squirrels played in the Pignut Hickories; eight of them tower above the quarter acre expanse within the 6 foot red cedar privacy enclosure behind the house. Each has nurtured and sheltered dozens of generations of grey squirrels. After all their leaves fall their nests can be seen in the highest limbs forty feet above the ground. But on this early September morning the long limbs are a playground and the young are chasing each other with sheer abandon jumping from branch to branch in a race that would claim a mile if on the ground. After sampling each tree's playful possibilities the game moves on to our neighbor's yard and then the next until the hummingbird's drone drowned out the sound of their antics. We have a feeder on the deck and the little birds dive from the shelter of the Huckleberry tree to sip. It seems like there are a dozen of them but perhaps only two busily taking turns. Only after they have their fill do I notice the huge brown spider spinning it's web. It's a Garden Orb Weaver and in the 20 minutes I watched it create a masterpiece 5 feet in diameter. When I was younger, but not much, I held a great antipathy towards spiders and I would have quickly dispatched both web and weaver. But Rowena and Buddhist Monks have convinced me that I can live in peace with them - so I take and the last sip of coffee and consider that one day a spider may have something to tell me; if I can share its silence.

When I turn to look at my feline friend, he winks (could be a blink but since he only has one eye it can be taken either way) as if to acknowledge what we just shared. It's about time for my family to be waking up so I sweep Lewis into my arms. He purrs in heavy draughts as we walk to the front door and the sleepy Sunday morning waiting for us to share with our family.

 The world has never asked me to be silent, but it rewards me when I am.

Listen

"Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. "

Dr. Joyce Brothers

Everyone thinks they listen. We rarely do. We hear. We pose while our mind wanders. We make a decision three words into a sentence where that person is going and plan our reply. Listening is an act of commitment; an act of faith.

To get get a feel for listening try overt action in a low pressure, temporary relationship. For example. The next time you go shopping in a store that employs service people and the employee comes to ask you if they can be of assistance turn to face them, look them in the eye as they speak. Wait for them to finish and let the sound of their words resonate in the air. Be honest with them. Let them do what they are paid to do. Ask them a question about why they chose a particular item over another. Keep eye contact with them. Do not rush and do not interrupt. If they do not have what you need or like ; thank them for their time and leave. You have risked nothing and you will learn much about your ability to be patient and accept the thoughts of others if for no other reason than the idea that those thoughts exist.Eventually this will seep into the relationships that matter to you.

Rowena talked for years against the public school system and for home schooling but I did not really listen. I heard only enough to make a decision about why this was important too her. I was wrong. Wrong to discount huge blocks of her arguments. Wrong about what was important to her. She had made clear, thoughtful, well researched, conclusions and I had been unwilling to step outside my preconceptions. The act of listening and accepting her thoughts, her good will, and her wisdom has rewarded me with a peaceful home filled with beauty and potential. Ella loves to learn and Rowena is a Teacher in the most wonderful ways. My life is better. Better because of simple acts of Commitment and Faith.