A Eulogy For My Mom

On Easter Sunday April 5, 2015 my mother Harriet Alda Burns left this earth to be with her Maker. The story of the days leading up to that moment, and that moment itself are yet to be written down, what follows, however, is the eulogy that I wrote and delivered at Saint Charles Borromeo Church the day of her funeral. It was a packed church. And mom's spirit of faith and joy was present in all of us. 

Eulogy for Harriet Alda Burns, March 3, 1935 - April 5, 2015 

Mass of Resurrection, April 11, 2015

(written and delivered by Leslie Burns Patient) 

I’ll let you all in on a secret. I volunteered to do this. My mom and I used to talk a lot when I was in grammar school about how I wanted to be a priest because I just really wanted to give homilies, from this very pulpit, actually. I’m not sure I’m going to get through this without choking back some sobs, but I knew that I couldn’t pass up this opportunity mom handed me to get up here at the lectern in my childhood parish and offer some words of wisdom. 

My mom was unhealthy for quite a while now, so it’s not exactly as if we could say this was sudden, shocking or unexpected, but she had been in and out of hospitals for the last few years, the operative word, however was “out.” Mom always made it through and she’d be back home and we got more time. We didn’t take it for granted, we all cherished every extra moment we had with her, as I’m sure many of you did as well. But it’s not unreasonable to have wanted even more time. 

As soon as I thought about that idea of “time” it made me realize, that if I were to speak of the Lessons my mother taught me, one of the first things about Bunnie Burns that I know she taught all of us here was that

Time Doesn't Matter When You're with family and friends.

I learned this lesson very early on when Tracie and I were young,  Mom would say she was going to get some milk and eggs at the store, and would ask us to watch John. We learned quite quickly that though the store was only a five-minute drive, that getting milk and eggs should only take about another ten minutes, Mom would inevitably see someone or some many people she knew at the store making each aisle at least a half hour conversation. Oh, you laugh, but I am looking out here and some of you are the very culprits that kept us from our mom. Yep—Mom going to the store “for just a few things” meant that we had a good three hour babysitting window to work with.  Later in our lives, my husband learned this lesson in “Bunnie Time” when we’d stay over night and then he’d ask what time we were leaving in the morning and I’d say, “Oh, around 10.” Steve learned pretty quickly that in “Bunnie Time” that meant we were most likely going to still be there for lunch. But that’s leads into the next important lesson I learned from my mom:

Always have a large kitchen table.

You know, because real “Bunnie Time” is about sitting at the kitchen table and talking, and laughing, and talking some more. And if your table is big enough then there can be lots of people there. And there always was. The welcoming spirit of my mom was so pervasive, we had high school friends come over, college friends, grad school friends, every one ended up sitting at that kitchen table talking to my mom. Just yesterday I got a text from a friend of mine from Japan who now lives in Ohio who mentioned how she remembered sitting at the kitchen table talking to my mom. Even this past November, I was running the Philadelphia Marathon and invited a friend from Denver to come stay with us so we’d be near the city for our pre-dawn starting time. The night before we sat around that kitchen table laughing with mom and carb loading. So it’s not hard to see how when you’re working on Bunnie Time around the large kitchen table how the next lesson I learned from mom came into play:  

Anyone who stays overnight is family.

This could perhaps have been mom’s rule because she wasn’t ever a very early riser. So she didn’t necessarily want the pressure of having to cater to “Guests” in the morning—if you made everyone family, by the morning they could get their own coffee.  More often than not, the people staying at our home were already family anyway, at least our adopted families, our California Moms, our surrogate older brothers. This sense of keeping people in your life was very important to Mom. She taught us to gather friends from every era of our lives. Childhood friends, classmates in college, neighbors from Air Force Bases, friends from her “first set of kids” at St. Charles and Holy Cross, friends from her second set of kids at Cinnaminson Middle  and High School.  Friends from costume crew, choir, Women’s circle. Mom taught us that you

Keep at least one good friend for every era of your life

and if you’re lucky you’ll have even more.

You may think that with this revolving door policy, that Bunnie was from a large family but she wasn’t. She was an only child who never knew her father and had a mother who sent her to boarding school when she was only ten years old. I say this not to add gravitas or drama to her narrative, but to give you some perspective on how Bunnie purposefully built this world of friendship and family in her home, not because it was something she came from, but it was something that she desired to always have in her life.

If anything I learned from mom it is that

Perseverance over adversity is a virtue and

Humor is necessary when the tears get too tough.

She purposefully crafted a family. The family she never had. She even defined herself as a mother well before she had children. I know this because when I was having my “night before my wedding” mother/daughter talk I asked my mom “how did you know that dad was the one” and she answered, “Because I knew he would be good father.” At that time, I was a little let down. I wanted to hear about some kind of fireworks and about his sparkling blue eyes, but she said “because I knew he would be a good father.” And she was right, especially in her goal to have this strong family and to define herself as Mother. I remember kind of fighting against this as a college student and my mom, God love her as we know God does, humored me this one day as we sat at a diner while I was on Break and I was spouting all my women’s studies dialectic and “why do you let dad do this and say that, and why don’t you strike out on your own, blah, blah, blah”-- all that twenty-something “somehow I have the wisdom of the world when really I don’t know anything” attitude. And mom smiled and said, “That’s very nice, Leslie, I’m glad you’re learning so much in college.  But I’m very happy. I really am.” And considering she had a five year old and thirteen year old still at home, I’m glad she was. Happy. She showed me

There is great virtue, great glory and grace in defining oneself as a mother.

By the same token, though, she also taught all of us another really important lesson in compromise, when she was moving to Caribou, Maine from sunny Los Angeles, when she was moving back to Arkansas with an infant or back to New Jersey where she never really wanted to live again, when she was canoeing through a marsh in the middle of a summer storm with three kids under eight, when she was hanging on to hot air balloon tether lines, or dressed as a rabbit under a box in Canterbury England, Mom taught us the ultimate lesson of compromise and that is—

Sometimes it’s a whole lot easier just to do the crazy thing

that John E. Burns says than to fight it.

Lest we think that Bunnie Burns let John make all the decisions for her, they acted more as a cohesive unit than I think I ever noticed until I got married. My mom called a lot of shots and one of lessons that grew from her deep and lasting love for her family was this:

When your kid is on stage you have to at least be there,

but you should probably also make the costumes.

Mom was involved for decades in our lives at five different schools, four different colleges, four grad schools and a law school and she was adamant to my father that they had to support us in everything we did, every graduation, show, recital, even to the point where she made costumes for my students even after I was already teaching for six years. Mom was adamant about showing support to her children and her grandkids going to more recitals and school musicals than you can imagine. Only two weeks ago today, while she was in the hospital she demanded that my father go to an elementary string orchestra concert, because she wanted to make sure that she at least gave her surrogate support to my youngest daughter, Kiri.

        

The one thing I can tell you is that when Mom meant business, she meant business and I never saw this more clearly than when it came to her Catholic faith. I remember being in seventh grade and we were starting the forms and information about our Confirmation and mom sat me down and said, “You know that this is serious, right, Leslie. This is a commitment and you’re the one who is making it. If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it just because others are doing it. If you chose to do this, you need to mean it.”  My mom’s faith was a foundation for her whole life and that sense of commitment to family and faith not only bolstered her, but I know for me my mom’s commitment to faith has helped me through many, many hard times. My mother taught me that

                                               Prayer is real.

Even as a woman of scientific medical knowledge, my mom put a great deal of credence into the power of prayer. I can remember being in the middle of a crisis of faith in college, as many college students find themselves, and I thought that maybe I would just stop going to church and my mom very gently told me not to do that, she told me that Fr. Paul, a priest friend from her younger years and someone I knew too (because as a parenthetical aside, one thing Mom taught us was that

                            priests and nuns make awesome family friends)---

so she said that Fr. Paul said to her when she was having a teenage crisis of faith, he said, “Keep going to church and the faith will come again.” A kind of 1950s “fake it till you make it” advice, I tell you, though, this was a pivotal conversation with my mother. The faith she instilled in me is what is helping me right now, because the faith she gave me tells me that she is here right now, and she will be here the way that Jesus is here in the Eucharist as we celebrate her life together.

        

I leave you now with some final Bunnie-isms before I close. Mom loved liturgical music, she was in choir for over forty years, she always said singing is a higher form of prayer—so it was important to her that we always sing out during Mass—at least that’s what she told us, although somewhere along the line I figured out the added benefit she sought was for us to sing louder than our dad. But that is something I ask of all of you as we celebrate this Mass,

                            Pray your song and Sing Your Prayer

(and go ahead and do it louder than Johnny.)

Finally, I leave you with the lesson my mom taught me on Easter Sunday this year. Even though she was unable to speak, she could not see us, but she showed us clearly that she knew we were there. My mom was kind of a big “should” person. I should clean out that laundry room. I should hem those pants. I should get those cobwebs. But that evening last week what mom taught us loud and clear was

The only "should" that really matters is to love one another.

Harriet Hillebrand-HD (720p) from Leslie Patient on Vimeo.

Cradle of Humankind

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CRADLE OF HUMANKIND by Leslie B. Patient

            In 1938 Dr. Robert Broom, because of the cave digging escapades of a seven-year-old schoolboy, began excavating the fossils that would solidify theories of human evolution and delineate the Guateng Valley of South Africa as the “Cradle of Humankind”. Broom would pay the boy a shilling each for the ancient human-like teeth, but the discovery would cost the boy so much more.

Gert Terblanche was picking a particularly crusty snot out of the edge of his right nostril when he heard Mister Van Rooyen’s booming voice shout from the front of the room.

“Terblanche! If you please.”

Gert dropped his incriminating hand, the booger still lingering on his pinkie. Gert stood up and his wooden chair toppled behind him. The crash sent the other Grade Three boys into convulsive guffaws giving Gert an excuse to bend over, pick up the chair and deposit his nose contents under the seat with its many predecessors.

Mister Van Rooyen looked at a yellow memo from the main office as Gert shuffled to his desk. “Terblanche, did you send a letter to Dr. Broom of the Transvaal Museum?” The schoolteacher belied no hint of the laudations or reprimand that would follow an answer.

Gert blinked. They wrote the letter nearly six months ago, before Kimi had gone. It was her idea, and she was ten and knew all the big words. They used her mother’s typewriter. Kimi said Gert should sign the letter alone. Her name was Hausa and she was a girl. Museum people, she reasoned, would be more likely to reply to an Afrikaans little boy. Remembering his promise to his mother, Gert accepted sole authorship. “Yes, Mister Van Rooyen, sir. I did.”

“Well, whatever you wrote has intrigued the doctor. He’s paying a visit to the school at week’s end.”

Gert was still unsure as to whether this visit was a cause celebre or grounds for a month of detentions.

“Sir? Dr. Broom is coming to Kromdraai?”

“Indeed, Master Terblanche. Well done.” The young boy began to see the glint of a smile in Mister Van Rooyen’s eyes. “Dr. Broom will be the most interesting person to arrive in the Gauteng Valley since Prime Minister Smuts crossed through seven years ago on his way to Port Elizabeth for the election of ‘31. But you wouldn’t remember that.” The school teacher tussled the boy’s white gold hair. Gert looked up at his teacher with wide green eyes. “Well done, Terblanche. You’re going to put this valley on the map, you are.” The schoolteacher went in for a proper and hearty handshake with the small boy who prayed there were no remnants of his earlier nasal indiscretion on his hand. “You’re supposed to bring the teeth you found, Terblanche. The doctor wants to see the teeth.”

           

Gert and Kimi met the first day of break last June.  Most of his Grade 2 memories had begun to fade making room for the History of the Boer Wars, writing in script, and pages of long division. Gert’s memories of Kimi, however, burgeoned forth unpredictably like bubbles in a pot of boiling mealie-meal. On the rare occasion that he still explored the caves he imagined her flitting in her loose green and yellow cotton dress among the limestone stalactites, her lantern flicker making her golden brown skin gleam like treasure. Gert seared Kimi’s image and all his moments with her into his mind with more vigor and determination the moment his mother had him swear to never mention the girl again.

Supper was lively that night after the announcement. Gert’s father congratulated him on his scientific fervor, his mother praised him for his initiative but questioned Dr. Broom’s Darwinian tendencies. No one mentioned Kimi, of course. Gert was the first and last one to have ever said her name in the Terblanche house. A regret, he thought often, that would follow him well past Grade Three.

Gert prepared for bed early and closed the door to his room firmly behind. He pulled a small wooden box out from under his bed. He sat cross-legged on the mattress his woolen blankets scratching at his short trousered knees.

Unwrapping the cloth, Gert touched the soft, worn, fraying edges of the square of green and yellow gingham. The teeth, five large brown-grey pebbles, lay firmly in the palm of his hand. Gert and Kimi had read about fossils in an article by Dr. Broom from a decades old Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.

“What does ‘Permian Reptiles’ mean?"

Kimi was always patient with the younger boy. “I don’t know. I think it’s something about the dinosaurs.” She read old pamphlets and magazines all the time. Her mother told her they were better than school.

“Here he says ‘. . . the change in the jaw frame is the evolutionary sign that distinguishes the primate from the hominid. When we find a creature with more strength in the rear jaw, we will know they were using tools’.” Kimi had grabbed Gert’s hand excitedly, “We have to write to Dr. Broom and tell him about our skeleton!” She got mock serious and looked directly into Gert’s eyes holding the teeth to his face. “What if these are the missing link?” The two laughed their heads off as they always did.

Gert had no words for the feelings he was having at the moment as he looked at those teeth in the green and yellow cloth. It certainly was an honor. Dr. Broom was coming to his school, to meet him, to collect the teeth. Yet, Gert could not explain the lump in his throat.

Gert was supposed to go to the caves that first day of summer break with his mates, Deiter and Markus. But the two other boys abandoned the idea in favor of swimming at the Koringspruit Bend with Deiter’s older brother and other Senior Phase schoolmates. Gert went along to the river with them once that week, but the older boys’ vulgar and boisterous antics made the small boy relish the quiet climbing and digging in the caves.

He had never been in the caves alone before but he felt emboldened that first day of summer. He’d soon be entering the last year of Foundation Phase at Kromdaai and, in his seven-year-old mind, that meant he was practically an adult.

He heard her scuttling first then saw her lantern from a small crevice the first fifteen minutes of his solo exploration.“Who’s there?” Gert’s heartbeat throbbed in his ears. Every shadow of her lantern became another spear-wielding Zulu ghost.

“It is I. OKimma Buhari of the West! And who are you so rudely disturbing my royal lair?” Gert shone his flashlight on a skinny brown leg emerging from where the still echoing bold voice had originated. The rest of the cave crawler emerged from a slit in the limestone that looked too thin to accommodate an arithmetic book. She stood on the ledge above Gert, feet bare, arms akimbo, a green and yellow gingham frock hanging on her thin frame like priestly robes. Gert stared in awe. He had never seen a coloured girl. He had seen some blacks once when he and his father rode to Queenstown to get feed during the winter drought. But this regal vision surrounded by the glow of limestone, was mystical. Her hair, kinky and brown, had a thin gilded layer. Her skin, too, seemed the color of the autumn hills at sunset in Guateng. Her brownish eyes reflected Gert’s flashlight with a piercing emerald glint. Suddenly she shone her lantern into Gert’s face. “I found some bones. You want to see them?”

When only two days were left of summer break, Gert asked his mother if Kimi could have lunch at their home. He had spent many afternoons with Kimi and her mother in their little corrugated shack eating mealie-meal cakes and the occasional small roast bird if Kimi could knock one out of the enormous shade tree on the edge of the cave with her slingshot. Gert loved to listen to Kimi and her mother argue in Hausa. The quick rhythms had a light and tripping feel. Gert felt that when people were angry in Hausa it was never the same as angry in Afrikaans which was heavy and slow and bore down on you like the air before the summer storms. Gert’s mother’s voice had that weightiness now.

“Kimi? Buhari?”

“Yes, mama. We’ve played in the caves all summer. We found bones and teeth and she can shoot a slingshot and she speaks three languages and reads giant science books that her mother gets from the Quaker missionaries. Her mother has a typewriter. It looks just like the one papa used to have. We wrote a letter to one of the professors in this dinosaur article who said he likes fossils, that’s what we found in the cave. Fossils.”

“That’s who you’ve been playing with?” Gert could see his mother’s hand shaking as she called out the window to his father who was filling the cattle trough with fresh water. “Johannes, come in here. Now!” Gert had never seen his mother’s face so red, her lips so tightly stretched across her teeth, her eyes so full of hate.

The next day when Gert went to see Kimi to say his mother wasn’t feeling well so they’d have to eat lunch at her house again, Kimi and her mother had disappeared. Their little tin house was completely empty inside save for a small green and yellow gingham piece of cloth, the pocket of her dress, wrapped around five ancient fossilized teeth.

Komdraai Primary was in a state of frenzy during the few short days leading up to Dr. Broom’s arrival. Tiles were scrubbed, blackboards were wiped, yards were swept and flattened. The Gauteng Gazetteer were scheduled to send a photographer and a reporter. Every student was inspected and spit washed before the black Rolls Royce came rumbling down the dusty road to their humble farm school.

Dr. Broom’s vigor was supernatural. The creases in his face said he was an old man, but his crisp dark suit and his arrow straight posture told a story of perpetual determination and infinite curiosity. He stood at the podium of the small assembly hall looking out at the steely but eager faces of the rural schoolchildren.

“I am a paleontologist, lads and lasses. I used to be a medical doctor. I helped deliver babies, in fact, in Scotland where I grew up. That skill allowed me to travel the world. When I came to South Africa many, many years ago I was fascinated with bones and fossils and the origination of man. I’m quite sure that origin is right here in this valley, my wee ones. And one of your classmates has helped me a great deal. Gert Terblanche, laddie, I think you have something to show me.”

This was all staged, of course. Dr. Broom had met privately with Gert and his family earlier that morning to see the teeth. Gert asked his mother if she had a handkerchief he could wrap the teeth in. “You know something a little nicer than this old rag.” Gert suprised himself with how real his feigned disdain sounded. But he didn’t want his mother to know he planned to keep that ripped pocket as a keepsake.

Dr. Broom made a show in front of the crowd, exchanging Gert one shilling for every tooth. And then with an entourage of university students equipped with shovels, pick axes, and sifting tools he said with a flourish, “Well, my laddie, how about you bring us to that cave where you found these glorious teeth?”

The War halted funding for the excavations for more than eight years. The skull, jawbones and teeth of Paranthropus Robustus were finally ready for display at the Transvaal Museum’s “Cradle of Humankind” exhibit one Sunday in 1948. A tow-headed teenaged boy stood next to the erect and robust elderly museum director who pulled the golden rope unveiling the bones of almost man. The lanky seventeen-year old fiddled with a scrap of green and yellow checked cloth in his pocket. The museum patrons, some of whom would vote the next day to codify the hate the boy once saw in his mother’s eyes, pressed their faces against the sparkling new exhibit glass.

Poetry Challenge 2015

On Monday night our school's literary magazine will host a poetry reading night. I told the students they could write prompts and put them in a hat this week. I told them I'd pick out of the hat on Friday and have to write and perform that poem for Monday.

Here's the prompt:





Here's the Poem:

THE EXTRA CREDIT POEM

You clamor for extra credit

Like seagulls on a greasy Italian sub wrapper

Mine, Mine, Mine

As if these piddly points are the difference between

heaven and hell

grace and damnation

Yale or jail

You are so focused on the two hundredth percentile point increments

That you may be oblivious to the subversive intentions of your devious instructor

to get you to think.

You want extra credit?

Ok.

How about you listen to a full hour of Radio Lab

Spend some time with my idol Jad the MacArthur Grant Genius

Or you could write a poem

better yet, how about a rap about rhetorical devices

And a power point

You know you could watch this documentary about language and its effect on the world?

Will I get Extra Credit?

How about you go watch your peers performing

Then review the show like you are Ben Brantley.

You don’t know who he is?

Find out.

But will I get extra credit?

Sure! Prompt writing challenger, find that out and you get 1 point higher on that paper you haven’t even submitted yet.

You sure are creeping your way to that ninety. Happy?

If I get extra credit.

You know, truthfully, there is, at least I believe,

and good thing, too, because of my chosen profession and all,

There is this thing called

Joy in Learning

Let me say that one more time

Joy in Learning

That’s with an L, people, like in my lovely name

and in words like library, lucidity, laudable, and life.

Joy in Learning

Not earning

percentiles on a spreadsheet

composite scores on college boards

plaques and cords and one more line on my activity sheet

What would happen instead if you

filled your head with knowledge

Not for a grade

Not for extra credit

But just because you love that feeling of synaptic explosions and connections

The cerebrum vibrating into barium induced glowing kaleidoscopic rainbows

Fireworks of intellectuality blazing a trail across the corpus callosum

Making sure that your Right Brain hadn’t Left that Brain Behind

Everyone needs incentives of course

Because who in their right mind or left brain would sit up on a Friday night and write a poem

If there wasn’t some kind of payoff

Like a 100 test grade

or some freebie points added to that quiz you probably should have studied for in the first place

I mean honestly.

No one’s going to do that for nothing in return.

Except maybe for a little polite applause.

A couple raucous huzzahs, perhaps.

Dare, I say, a standing O.

For Extra Credit?

Short Story Challenge 2015: Action/Adventure, A Prison Warden, Fishing GO!

So, the aspect of this challenge that I'm most proud about is that I actually sent my story. It didn't feel done. Not at all. But I worked on it (in my head) for a whole week. I just didn't have enough time (grading midterms all week long) to really make the ideas in the head come to the right fruition. However, participating in this exercise is so good for me, because I work best and most creatively with parameters and deadlines. Of course now, there are these two characters, Digger Brown and Clint Casey who are saying, "Don't leave us in this crapass story, we deserve better than this. . . . " And so, like Paulina Bellini and Reenie Sutton, and Layla Solomon, well, kids, all I can say, is hang tight . . . .This might be the summer for one of you to stop having only half a life. . . .




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Digger Brown unfolded the scratchy blue blanket and pulled it from the foot of his cot. He considered whether he would refold it tomorrow morning making sure there was no crease, no wrinkle. Out of habit, he probably would, though it would be the last time. His execution was scheduled for 9 a.m. He laughed to himself thinking he might sleep-in tomorrow rather than waking at dawn like he usually did. Tonight everything made him laugh. A low sardonic “humph” laugh that got caught in a hardened lump building in his throat. He had that mixed-up feeling only twice in his life and neither was when he killed that cop nearly twenty-five years ago. There was no mixed-up feeling then. That cop was bashing his son’s head into a brick wall. Digger would have killed any motherfucker doing that and still willingly pay this same price. No, he had felt that ice and fire mixture, the bitter defiance facing death melded with the desperate, urgent clinging to life ten years ago. Digger was about to kick over the chair, sheets snugly around his neck, a letter from his estranged wife about his son’s recent fatal overdose gripped in his fist, and that damn new guard walked in and life won. But what Digger remembered most right now was that first time he felt that conflicting life and death pull, his last day in Vietnam. He remembered the feel of the sand on his face as he lay supine looking longingly at the edge of the green and still lake. Peaceful lapping waves pulling him toward the water, grappling real hands pulling him and what was left of his leg into the chopper. By denying the governor’s commuted sentence, by choosing the needle instead of another twenty-five years in this hell hole Chillicothe, Digger decided he might feel those peaceful lapping waves again.

“Digger!”

Digger was startled by the guard rapping on the metal door.

“Digger! Warden’s here to see you.”

Would no one let a dead man get a good night’s sleep? Digger swung his good leg to the floor, lifting the dud one with his hands, the confident sound of the Warden’s footsteps echoing in the cell block.

“You gonna let me see you in that suit and tie?” Digger couldn’t help an odd sense of fatherly pride every time he got a visit from Warden Clint Casey, his former cell guard for the past ten years. “Nice of you to visit.”

“Been busy, Digs.” Clint stood close to the locked door. “It’s hard work pushing all that paper and bossing people around. So, you denied the commutation.”

“That’s old news, Warden Casey.”

“Hey, Kleinfelter!” Clint Casey shouted to the end of the hall. “You going to give me access or what?” He heard the electronic bolt shift and slid the heavy door on its track, the metal scraping loudly.

“I told you if fuckin’ Navy won again I was going for the kill.” Digger still sat on his cot as Clint entered. The former Green Beret and Navy Seal never shared a battle field, Digger’s memories in a humid forest, Clint’s on the shores of the Persian Gulf, but the two vets shook hands like they were old comrades. But it wasn’t their time scrambling their hearts and minds for Uncle Sam that held those two together, it was walleye and Lake Nipissing.

“Also old news. Months old.” Clint cupped the older man’s brown wrinkled hand in his own. “I wasn’t going to sign the injection order. Your lawyer threatened to sue me.” Clint looked intently into the old man’s face.

“I might have stuck around if you hadn’t gotten that promotion, shithead. Got no one who’ll listen to my stories down here any more.” Digger stood up, still tall and strong in his frame despite the mangled left leg.  “My time has come.”

“We’ll see about that.” Clint clapped on the old man’s back and got close to Digger’s ear. “Don’t put your earplugs in tonight old guy.” Clint turned on his heels, scraping the metal door behind him. The bolt silently clicked back into place.

Digger wasn’t sure at what point he was asleep or awake through the night or how long Clint had been in there, but the old man’s reflexes weren’t so dull that his eyes didn’t pop wide open the second Clint covered Digger’s mouth with his leather gloved hand. Clint motioned to Digger to stay silent. Clint looked like a ninja, covered in black from head to foot, crazy goggles on his face. For a moment Digger thought he might be hallucinating, but as his foot hit the cold linoleum floor he knew everything about this was real and the blood rushed through his veins as Clint zipped Digger into a black jumpsuit and plopped the infrareds over Digger’s eyes.

Clint reapplied an oily solution to the track of the door as he slid it back into place. Digger had never watched that door shut from the other side before and the thought of freedom propelled him behind Clint who had strapped a kind of pillow shoe to Digger’s hobbly foot. He slid freely and silently in the darkened hall.

Digger had no idea there were so many back stairs and cubby holes in that place. They finally got to a small side door, more of a delivery chute and Clint motioned to Digger. He made a horizontal opening motion with his hands and then repeatedly jabbed his index fingers down. Despite the adrenaline Digger’s clouded mind could not make out the meaning, until Clint slowly opened the side door and slid Digger through. He landed in the opened trunk of an old silver Volvo sedan, his pillowed foot hitting with a muffled thud. Clint came down the chute slowly holding his body taut with his arms so he wouldn't slam into Digger. Clint quickly and deftly pulled off his own and Digger’s gear and handed the now fugitive criminal a water bottle and a pillow and shut the trunk. Digger could see just before the lid closed, Clint was still in his blue suit and striped tie.

Clint took a deep breath as he got into the driver’s seat. A slow scuba breath, fill the lungs. 1-2-3-4. Exhale. 1-2-3-4. This mission was riskier than anything he had ever done before. Riskier than Nasiriya or even Ramadi. He started the car, his precious cargo tucked tightly in the trunk. He maneuvered around the industrial dumpsters near the service entrance timing each turn with the light and camera sweep he had studied during his five months in his “desk job”, a job he was ditching right now with every turn of the wheels on the pavement.

Clint wasn’t sure at what point he made the decision. It started as a wild hidden day-dream after that night when Clint saved Digger from his own destruction. It took form as the seed of a real idea five years later when Digger kept Clint from a similar, though messier fate. But Clint wasn’t conscious that vying for the Warden position five years later still was all part of bringing the plan to fruition. Not until the day he watched Digger from the monitor. All day. Clint watched the old guy meticulously fold his cot blanket. Do crunches and pushups on the cold linoleum floor. Sit at the rickety little desk and read from the Bible. Write in a tiny palm-sized journal with tiny ant-sized script. For chrissake, the leathery old turd did yoga poses at night, trying his best to balance despite his crippled leg. That’s when the idea of the mission burgeoned fully out of the realm of fantasy into tactical operations. When Clint saw the purchase order for the pentobarbital on his desk, he knew it was time for real action.

Clint drove slowly, calmly through the staff parking lot. “Good night, Officer Dryden.”

“G’night, Warden. Always burning the midnight oil, aren’t you?”

“Still new to all that paperwork.”

“I hear you’re taking a few days off.”

“Going up north for some fishing.” Clint smiled and gave a mock salute as the razor wired gate rolled back. He wished he had thought earlier to rig communications between the trunk and the front of the car. Clint wanted to let Digger know the very millisecond he was crossing that threshold, but he’d have to wait until they got to Centerville and switched cars.

Clint calculated they had approximately one hour before Smith would check on Digger and the shit would hit the fan. If they were at least halfway to Sandusky already he’d feel a little better.

“Holy crap, Casey. Don’t forget I’m sixty-two years old. Almost died back there.” Digger was shaking his arms and pounding at the sides his legs as Clint helped him out of the trunk. “I’m all pins and needles.” They were in an empty K-Mart parking lot on North 104. Digger could see the truck and boat trailer across the lot. “Are we going in that?”

Clint grabbed a bag out of the Volvo and handed it to Digger. “Got you some Civvies.”

“How you know my size, Casey?”

“You forget I sign every P.O. for every little thing at Chillicothe. Who do you think bought you that orange jumpsuit.”

The two men walked silently, but swiftly across the lot. Digger’s pillow foot not-so-smoothly slid on the blacktop until they got to the truck.

“Can I take this pillow off my foot, now?”

“We’ve got three hours to go. You might want to use it for your head and doze off.”

“Doze off? You just sprung me from the slammer who’s going to doze off?” Digger was dancing a lively but erratic jig around the truck. “Hello, KMart! Hello, old red truck! Hello. . .” Digger stopped dead in his tracks as he looked at the ornate script on the back of the small fishing boat hitched to the back of the truck. “Well, hello Philomena.” Digger put his arms out to the boat and kissed its side like a long-lost lover.

“Come on, Digs. You gotta get in, we need to hit the road before they discover you’re gone.” Clint revved up the engine and the two peeled away from the parking lot.

It didn’t take long for Digger’s deep breaths to emit from the passenger seat. Clint’s mind drifted to the night he first met Digger. To the night this plan first hatched.

“Don’t leave me, Guard. Please, just talk to me a little more.”

“Ok. You know I should get you to psych.”

“Don’t do that, please. Besides, you took everything out of here what am I going to do, bite at my wrists to the vein.”

“I don’t know you, dude. You might. This is my first night on. And you got it all complicated.”

“My name’s Digger.”

“Where’d you get that name?”

“I’m good at digging for worms and nightcrawlers.”

“Like for fishing?”

“Exactly. You like fishing, Guard?”

“Yep. Don’t do it enough. But it sure is relaxing.”

“That’s probably the thing I miss the most. More than anything. Fishing.”

“More than your wife?”
            “Aw, she left me before I even got in here. Fishing’s better than sex anyway.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Trust me. You’re young yet.”

“So Digger, where’s your favorite place to fish.”

“Small lake in Canada. Spent many a summer there working off a small fishing charter. Only thing that kept me sane when I got back from Nam.”

“You and I are twins. I’m a vet, too. Desert Storm. We also used to fish in Canada. Lake with a funny name. Something ‘pissing’. ”

“Nipissing”

“Yep, that’s it Knee Pissing. That name used to crack me up all the time.

“That’s where I worked every summer. Lake Nipissing.”

“Shut up.”

“Uncle Milt’s Charter Boats. I was first mate for years.”

“Milt Casey?”

“Yes.”

“That was my Uncle Milt. I mean great uncle, but we called him Uncle Milt.”

“Everyone called him Uncle Milt. But no shit. Good old’ Milton Casey.”

“I inherited his boat. The Philomena.”

“Oh. Yes. The Philomena. Love that old boat. What’s your name, Guard?”

“Clint.”

“Like Eastwood.”

“I was apparently conceived at a drive-in during The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”

“Good thing they didn’t name you Blondie.”

As they were just coming out of the north end of Columbus Clint’s cell phone rang. Like clockwork. It was Smith. “Sir. I’m sorry to wake you up, sir. I don’t know how to tell you this. But I can’t not tell you this. It’s pretty big. We haven’t had a break out here in decades.” Smith’s frenzy was making it much easier for Clint to keep his cool.

“What’s going on, Smith?” Clint could feel a long lost smile breaking out on his face.

“It’s Digger Brown, sir. He’s vanished.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Clint looked at the sleeping Digger and felt more sure than ever that this was best mission he ever launched.

“He’s not in his cell.”

“Well, look, you’ll need to follow protocol. Sound the alarm. Call the local Police.”

“I never thought the old man had it in him.”

“He might be on grounds somewhere. Maybe he wanted to end things on his own terms.”

“That’s true, Warden. We’ll start there. But I’ll alert the police just in case.”

“Ok, Smith. Good thinking. Tell Jordan all about it when he comes in the morning.”

“Jordan? You’re not coming in? Can’t you postpone your trip till this is figured out?”

“Smith. I’m already on the road. Halfway to Sandusky.”

“You’re fishing Erie?”

“Well, there and other parts.”

Digger and Clint launched at Dock of the Bay heading due North to the St. Clare River. Clint made sure to hug the Canadian shoreline as much as he could. Digger’s eyes were wide with childish joy as the sun began to show its red sliver on the horizon. It was close to 7:30 in the morning before they hit the opening into Lake Nipissing. The younger man let out a whoop.  The older one had a tear in the corner of his eye.

“Kneepissing, elbow shit, life’s worth nothing ‘less you fight with it.”

Digger looked over at Clint. Wind spray hitting their faces. They sang together.

“Kneepissing, armpit cum, life gives you nothing ‘less you grab at some.

“Get that walleye, bag that moose, life’s worth no kneepissing unless it’s what you choose.”

Norma Hopkins Wallace: A Lively Spirit Flies

I received a phone call today at work from my brother. We don't
talk on the phone all that often, so seeing "Johnbro" on the cell screen alarmed me a little. It's kind of that same way when I see the "MomandDad" incoming call these last few months. Important people in our lives are "getting on" as it were. My mom, for one, has been in and out of the hospital. We lost my grandmother in July, but she was 102 so one can hardly begrudge the Lord for calling her home. If Victoria had her way, that homecoming would have happened years prior. But I was so grateful to have had the opportunity to hold her hand and kiss her on the forehead only hours prior to her demise.  I still get a lump in my throat at times when I look at the brown shelf that had been in her room, or the scarves that my daughter used to dress up in to entertain Gramma when we'd visit. These scarves have become part of the "dress-up" box, but they still feel and smell of Gramma, and so produce a little welling tear every now and then. But then I remember that I really did get to say goodbye.

I did not have that same sense of closure today when my brother called to let me know that my second California mom, Norma Hopkins Wallace, had passed suddenly from a heart attack. I was sitting at my school desk in disbelief as my brother relayed the news. In fact, for a few moments after I hung up the phone, I continued to stare at the essay I had been grading and for a flash of a moment I thought I had just hallucinated that call. The rest of the evening has gone the same way. If I just go about my regular routine, Norma's still alive, no phone call received. All is well with the world as long as I just do the dishes or the laundry or grade another essay. But then I needed to articulate this news. To my daughters as we drove from school, quite late post-soccer games.
"Do you remember Norma?"
"Yes! Is she coming to visit?"
"No, she just died today."
Silence.
"But didn't she have another amazing trip to go on?"
"I think so, she always kept on moving, didn't she?"
Tears. More silence.

This is where distance creates such a confused state of grief. I felt very much this way when my first California Mom, Peggy Secor died over two years ago. When you do not see someone very often, but this someone has helped to form your soul and heart and has been with you in mind and spirit for as long as you can remember--when a person such as this passes away it's a grief that comes in waves. It is easy to have moments imagining that this is not true. It is not as if we spoke every day, or I drove to her house every Sunday. So what changes? Everything.

When I was at USC, Norma's home in Simi Valley was my freshman year "family dinner destination." And Norma was someone I could call (and did on many occasions) to help me work through my feelings of how annoying my Gramma (who I also saw most weekends in CA) was being about the clothes I wore or how I looked fat. Norma's way was to accept the world just they way it is, to love people right where they were. And while she might believe you could be better or work harder, she let you do things in your own time.  She learned this way of calm, I know, from her mother Grandma Jennie, a Norwegian-blooded 4 foot 9 inch spitfire, who also had a verve for life and way of making everyone feel loved, even if she was disappointed in you. Grandma Jennie passed away many years ago, and I remember writing to Norma and thanking her for sharing her mom with our family. Norma was my mom's roommate at Mount St. Mary's in Califorinia, so my mom had been adopted whole heartedly into the Hopkins family. It was a natural progression for me, then, to feel adopted into the Wallace family.

And this, I suppose is the pain I feel from Peggy's passing a few years back, and then Norma's passing today. These women were family to me. Because they helped me grow and challenged me to think of my direction in life, and inspired me to look at the world with wise, energetic and curious eyes.  They watched me become a person-- from toddler to teen to young woman to mother. And I watched them go from "friends of my mom" to "my California mom" to counselor, friend,  to beautiful elderwomen from whom so much could be learned.

I saw Norma last Eastertide. She was stopping by my parents for a couple of days between visiting her relatives in D.C. I don't live all that close to my parents, but she was only around for a weeknight, and I knew I wanted to see her. I didn't necessarily think that would be the last time I would see her, but, to be honest, I had a very carpe diem sense in my mind about that trip. I get that every now and then, a radical priority shift that says seeing family is more important than gas or time or finished work or sleep. While I cannot reconcile that visit as any kind of closure, I can add it to a slew of wonderful warm memories of an incredibly special woman who taught me that there is very little time in life for criticism, but all the time in the world to love from the depths of one's heart.

Norma, I will miss you. And I thank your beautiful children Jimmy, Allison, Stacy, Janelle and Chad for sharing their mom with me, too. I know there is quite likely a party at the gates of Heaven right now. Grandma Jennie is probably doing the funky chicken and you're giving little Noah big grandma hugs and kisses.