More Than A List

Remembering may be a celebration or it may be a dagger to the heart, but it is better, far better than forgetting. ~ Donald M. Murray

I sit cross-legged on a pillow, playing tug-of-war with shelved books. I find it hidden, stacked between Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever and a large rectangular volume of maps. Dust tickles my nose as I run my hand over the linen-covered yearbook embossed with the class’s gold emblem.

Beside me, my laptop is open to a Facebook group page, Gone But Not Forgotten. It lists those from my class who have died. How many could be gone from our 450+ class of 1977? I squint, adjust the brightness of my computer’s screen, and strain to read the list. As I turn each page of the yearbook, matching faces with names, I hug myself around my waist. Sharp grief elbows my stomach. Tears puddle in the knot-holes of the pine floor beneath me.

I cover my eyes, hoping the names will fade back into the screen if I don’t peek. But, like a monster in a horror film, death doesn’t evaporate during my game of peek-a-boo. I uncover my eyes.

* * * * *

 A shy boy with smiling eyes, long curly bangs, and a slight tilt of his head stands dressed in a black jacket and tuxedo shirt with bow-tie. I imagine he is, like me, eager to pack his suitcase and throw off the constraints of high school. His name is written in a plain font on the list. I don’t know when or how he died—or why.

I remember sitting next to him in an economics class. Our marriage was arranged by a creative teacher who divided the class into married couples and assigned each a starting sum of money to work with. Every week we withdrew a sliver of paper from a bowl, on which our teacher had written a financial difficulty to test our ability to create a budget and stick to it. I gave birth to twins, had to purchase a washing machine and dryer, and my husband’s hours at work were cut back. Groans of despair, lusty laughter, and sidewise glances at my spouse filled the class hour. I was a little bit in love with my husband.

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Turning glossy page after page, images of the dead remind me how I categorized each person in my class, even the ones I didn’t know. I remember faces, voices, the bounce in someone’s walk, and the shuffle of another. Classmates resurface in my memory: the popular, nerds, band nerds, jocks, hybrids, and the ones who gathered outside a designated entrance to the school for a smoke break. Their group was known to me and some of my friends as the freaks.

Questions sometimes floated around the hallways: Do the freaks smoke weed? Do they “fool around” in corners? I mixed harsh judgement of them with my desire to join them. Incognito.

Plagued by hormone-soaked daydreams of cigarette smoke exhaled in dark corners, I thought the freaks must be bad people; some even scared me. When one, a girl wearing a frayed denim jacket and low-slung jeans, spoke with genuine kindness to me, I was perplexed. At that time in my life, God was a square: predictable, with clean corners, a deity of certainties.

* * * * *

I did not choose my first college roommate. The housing office paired me with someone from my high school class. But, I didn’t know her.

She was a freak.

The entire month before classes started, I worried. Does she know who I am? What if she doesn’t want to be my roommate? Should I call her and ask her if she wants to have matching bedspreads?

I told my mother I wanted sheets and matching curtains for my dorm room in a blue tie-dyed pattern I had seen in a catalog. While different from my usual love of pink and blue florals, I thought a hippie style would give my roommate the impression I was chill.

I remember when she arrived to our dorm room. My wooden Coca-Cola crate painted high-gloss blue was hung on the wall, filled with knick-knacks and memorabilia. New sheets were cornered tight on my bed accompanied by a matching sheet draped on a curtain rod at the window. Towers of textbooks, notebooks, folders, and magazines were already stacked on my desk.

When she arrived, she said something like “this looks nice” and plopped a bag on her bed. We introduced ourselves in an exaggerated fashion, shaking hands, and laughing about What are the chances that…?

Her smile was crooked, and she studied my face like she was mining for truth, or that’s how I felt.

“Do you mind if I crack open the window?” she asked. “I need a smoke.”

I said sure, even though I wasn’t sure of anything, except that I didn’t want to be a party-pooper.

As the semester went by, my roommate partied. Beer was a staple in our mini-fridge, and when an uncooperative breeze changed direction, her cigarette and joint smoke wafted under our door into the hall. I became the doorkeeper, listening for the approaching footsteps of our strict floor captain. Even though I did not participate in her activities, I knew I was her friend. I had her back.

When I vomited my way through a wicked stomach virus, she ran to the Quik Mart, bought ginger ale, and wedged it beside her beer in our fridge. She had my back.

God was smoothing the sharp corners of my world, rounding and rounding it into a growing, multi-colored circle.

* * * * *

I scroll down the list and stop. Her name is there.

In my mind’s eye, I imagine her in a black and white photograph. She is tipped back in her chair, legs crossed, feet up, smiling after taking a long drag from her cigarette.

* * * * *

Lisa bio YAH

 

Finding Womanhood

Dr. Tauer’s appointment schedule is shot. I wait with moist hands, survey the exam room, focus on dirt accumulated on the baseboards, and glance at the Holy Bible placed on a nearby table next to pamphlets arranged like a deck of cards. Women wearing colorful head scarves and wigs are on the cover of a small catalog. An anatomic chart shows a frontal view and cross-section of a woman’s healthy breast: nipple, milk ducts, fatty tissue, and muscle. I cup my right breast, still tender from recent surgery. I nursed my babies. This wasn’t supposed to happen. So much for statistics…

Dr. Tauer knuckle-taps the door, steps inside, and sits on a low stool; knees touch knees, warm hands cover cold hands.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” he says. “But you are healthy.”

Other than having cancer, I think. I appreciate his compassion, but I just want to get on with things. I want to go home.

“When you come in for your first treatment next week,” he continues, “you’ll have labs done first, and then on to the chemo room…” I knew all this from being a nurse, so I sort of tuned out. “…and you’ll have side effects…”

Yes, get on with it. I want to go home

“…and you will lose your hair.”

I zero in on his Brooks Brothers tie, dotted in navy, knotted even and tidy.

“Love your tie,” I say, as he glances at my life on his computer.

*   *   *   *   *

I bring my face close to the bathroom mirror. My eyebrows are my best feature: low maintenance, nicely arched, no rogue hairs, no sparse areas to fill in like old ladies do with unsteady hands, drawing wobbly, thick lines in Maybelline black.

Faint lines radiate from the skin around my eyes. I smile and the lines squint and deepen, but they aren’t too bad. Given the circumstances, I’m looking pretty good. A woman’s neck gives away her age, but mine is still smooth with just a little droop under the chin. Nothing that a dab of moisturizer won’t hide.

I raise my shoulders, take a deep breath, and pick up the expensive hair brush I bought a couple of months ago at a salon. I attack my scalp, brushing hard. Harder. Thin strands gather in the bristles.

After dividing my hair into sections, I pull each section taut, cut 2-3 inches, moving from section to section. Angry, curt scissors clip, blade against blonde. Swatches drop in the sink. Laying the scissors aside, I inspect my work in the mirror.

I look like Cate Blanchett when she played Queen Elizabeth and chopped off her hair.

No, I look like someone with a very bad haircut...

“Honey, I’m through with the preliminaries,” I call to my husband, Tom. “Just wait ‘til you see step one to a hair-free life.” I put my hands over my face and peek through my fingers as he walks into the bathroom. Dropping my hands, I burrow my face into his chest.

Leaning over the sink, I stare at the shiny drain stopper. My husband guides his whirring beard trimmer over my scalp. Dark stubble from my roots scatters on creamy porcelain.

I hope my head is a pretty shape, without too many knots. Daddy always called me a knot-head.

The whirring stops. I raise my head and look up at Tom. His eyes are edged with tears.

*   *   *   *   *

I crawl into bed shy and tentative, like a bride on her wedding night. Will my lover touch me? Will I please him? Even though the rest of my body is covered with cotton and lace, baldness imparts a feeling of nakedness. I turn on my side away from him, clutching the corner of our quilt, trembling. He pulls me in close and strokes my bare head as he would if my blond tresses were spilling over his hands.

*   *   *   *   *

I sit around a table with five other women going through various stages of cancer treatment. Scarves, wigs, and hats reflect our individuality. I’ve arrived bald, sparkly earrings dangling, wearing a peasant top reminiscent of the sixties, embracing a bit of a rebellious spirit I had secretly wanted when I was younger.

We talk about how we looked before our appearance was altered by the benevolent poison. Laughter and moments of silence mirror the way we feel inside. I describe my pre-cancer hair:  blown-dry, hot curlered, gelled, hairsprayed, and teased on top if humidity threatened to flatten it. Growing up–even as an adult–part of me thought a Southern woman’s identity was in her hair.

We each have our own tabletop mirror, various samples of foundation, concealer, eye shadow, blush, powder, mascara and brow pencil. Volunteers from the American Cancer Society give us tips for applying cosmetics while dealing with the visible signs of chemotherapy treatment.

I begin applying a lighter color of makeup along my jawline, blending it to match the pale color of my skin; a low red blood cell count has robbed me of rosy cheeks.

Oh, my Lord. I peer into the mirror and realize that most of one eyebrow is gone. A lone misshapen eyelash, resembling a small spider’s thin leg, is dangling from a top eyelid. Short, stubby lashes on the other eye are all that remain half-way across the top and bottom lids.

Brows, usually my best feature, have lost their arch. To create a natural look is a challenge. I pick up a pencil as though it were a paint brush and apply a light brown shade with gentle strokes. I call one of the volunteers over to help me.

775713_10152119807977952_1675942785_o(1)“I am afraid I’m going to mess up!” She chooses a darker brown, guides my hand with hers, and we apply it carefully, a light touch to avoid an obvious line. With only a little bit left to work with, I add as much color and beauty as possible, typical Southern woman that I am.

*   *   *   *   *

I stored my shaved hair in a Ziplock bag and tucked it away in an old cookie tin, my treasure box, to keep it as a remembrance. Every now and then, I take the tin down from a shelf in my bedroom’s wardrobe and look at the hair that was scattered in the sink on that day when I felt bereft of femininity.

I imagine someday sitting on the side of my bed next to a granddaughter with the treasure box resting on her lap. Perhaps she will lift the lid and giggle or gasp when she spies the baggie. I will tell her why I kept it, my story of hair lost, but life gained, strengthened by God, family, and friends.

I will run my fingers through her baby-fine hair and hope she’ll grow into a strong woman like me.

*   *   *   *   *

The black-and-white photo of Lisa, above, is by Cellar Door Photography, Memphis, TN.

Lisa bio YAH

Safe and Sound

Packing tape rips, the sound raging through the telephone wire, threatening to undo my best attempts not to yell in order to be heard.

“Will you please stop for a minute?” I whisper in a saccharine tone. (I read somewhere if one lowers her voice during a conflict, the other person will listen better.) Tom keeps on clinking and ripping. I imagine his shoulders hunched over a desk, counting hundreds of buffalo nickels. My heart softens. “Call me tomorrow!” I yell. “I love you!”

I’ve been married to a traveling man for thirty years. Like a peddler whose wares hang on hooks from a wagon, Tom’s road-1208298_1280wares are coins which he buys and sells from his briefcase, filling it during the day. When he is racking up miles on asphalt, his office is a hotel room. Every evening he organizes and boxes the day’s purchases for shipping to customers. When he checks in in the evening, I try not to be annoyed by clinks of silver dollar on silver dollar as they drop into plastic holders. After all, he’s settled in, safe and sound.

 *   *   *   *

When he was away working, in the early years of our marriage, before we had internet, cell phones, or caller ID, but we had two small children, I listened for the phone to ring, carrying his voice to me. Call times varied according to where he was: I’m at the Red Roof Inn in Fargo. Our back and forth:

How was your day?

And how was your day?

What did the kids do today?

Taekwondo, homework, and oh, I put a drop of soap on Kendall’s tongue because he called Barbara a penis. Of course, she probably taunted him.

When Tom heard my laughter on the other end, he relaxed. Alexander Graham Bell’s invention helped keep our marriage together in our early child-rearing days, creating moments of intimacy in the ordinary when we were miles apart.

*   *   *   *

It’s 12;30 a.m. on a Saturday night. Tom is out-of-town. I am wide awake in bed, fanning the bodice of my cotton nightgown, trying to recover from a hot, humid day. Add a layer of anxiety from mothering two teenagers; I begin a conversation with myself.

Did I tell Barbara to call me when she leaves her friend’s house…

Cautious and compliant, Barbara will drive home, glancing through her rear-view window to be sure no stranger is following her, but I still want to hear “I’m on my way home.” Sometimes she positions herself in a taekwondo pose and pops a high kick reminding me that she almost earned a black belt.

The quick chirp of Barbara’s car alarm pierces the night. She closes the side door with a gentle nudge. Floorboards creak. The kitchen water faucet turns on, then off. I know she will open the refrigerator door looking for a snack to satisfy her tummy before a good night’s sleep. Her feet tread quiet and quick up the stairs to her room.

My inner monologue turns to Kendall.

Did I remember to pray: God watch over my boy—as if God would not keep Kendall safe if I forgot? Did I tell him to follow the speed limit?

A train whistles in the distance, and I worry that Kendall will pull too close to the tracks, and the train will derail.

Boom ba Boom ba Boom ba. I hear and almost feel Kendall approaching our driveway, heavy bass blaring—beautiful music to a mother’s ears. I inhale and exhale like an expectant mother in a Lamaze class. He needs to turn that thing down when he enters our neighborhood.

Our side door opens. Hinges squeak. Slam.

My man-child lumbers down the hallway with his size 14 sneakers slapping the floor. A looming presence stops at my bedroom door: “Mama, I’m home. Are you awake?”

“Yes, I’m awake.”

*   *   *   *

“I am 56 years old. I am not an old woman,” I say to Tom. “You bought me a safe car, and I can wield this cane like an old woman fighting off a purse snatcher.”

He worries about me. I have physical challenges, and he likes to be my knight in shining armor, but I insist that I have to do as much as I am able.

“Please text me or call me when you get home,” he says with concern, “and I’ll text you when I get settled at my hotel.”

I meet my sister for dinner, something we rarely do. Our menus remain untouched on the table while we begin chatting, catching up, talking over one another, finally stopping to give the server our orders. Diners at the table next to us smile when I choke on laughter as my sister and I reminisce about old boyfriends: the good, the bald, and the portly. Struggling to recover my manners, I avoid eye contact with my sister lest high-pitched giggles conquer me again.

We are the last to leave the restaurant, carrying our conversation out the door.

“We closed the place down,” I say with a merry grin. “Let’s promise one another to do this more often.”

The evening has flown by. I pull out my phone and text Tom.

Home soon. Love L

Back home, I settle under a quilt, with a full belly and heavy eyes. Grown and gone, my children are never far from my mind, but I don’t worry as much when I’m not expecting them to come home.

Instead of listening for a key in the lock or booming bass paving our driveway, my ears and heart are more open to God’s voice. He and I have a history together, and those nights I waited up, wondering, worrying, God heard, God answered.

My phone on the nightstand vibrates and scoots, awakening me from the edge of sleep. I knock my glasses off the nightstand, grope blindly for the phone, and bring it close to my eyes.

I’m in for the night

Safe and sound  Love T keys-233368_1280

 

 

Lisa bio YAH

 

Filled With Joy

March 2011

 

“This chess pie is not setting up, I moaned. “It’s still jiggly in the middle. Bring out the soup ladle to serve it.”

“Well, it will taste great,” replied my husband, Tom. As he tried to peer over my shoulder to sneak a peek, I palm-jammed the oven door closed, leaving the pie to pull itself together. Sweet Jesus, I need this pie to be perfect. This may be THE perfect guy.

Barbara, our daughter, was bringing her boyfriend, Dave, home to spend time with us. At seminary in California, Barbara, the Tennessean, had met Dave, who was also a Southerner. He was a teaching assistant in her systematic theology class. Soon a friendship developed. Presbyterian happy hour at a local bar provided a venue for rich conversation over food and wine. Their friendship flourished and grew into a romantic relationship.

Tom and I left for the airport. I drove, muttering about the pie crust while gripping the steering wheel, so anxious I couldn’t even settle back into my seat and instead leaned forward like an old lady. Tom carried on in an aggravated voice, reminding me to just be quiet and not fuss over that pie. I didn’t hear him.

Well, I reckon I could dip the pie into bowls and call it chess cobbler. I hope he doesn’t tell his mother.

***

I spooned a generous serving of cobbler into Dave’s bowl and watched his face like he was a tasting judge at a county fair. He scraped his bowl, licked the spoon, nodded his head and smiled.

October 2011

Tendrils of vine climbed an arching trellis creating a space of shade, a sort of sanctuary, along a peaceful path. Kneeling on one knee, Dave presented a small velvet box to Barbara. Nestled within was a diamond secured in a vintage setting, a ring fitted for a girl with delicate, slender fingers whose classic style avoided flashy bling.

Phone calls to the engaged couple’s families elicited squeals of happiness from coast to coast. A virtual photo album chronicled the day, from Barbara and Dave’s arrival to the gardens at Los Angeles’ Getty Museum to a celebratory lunch at The Getty Restaurant.

338449_586951773658_723918202_o(1)Desserts were works of art, a chocolate wonder and creamy concoction presented with Happy Engagement penned in a chocolate script on individual plates. Corks were popped. Stemmed crystal glasses were filled with bubbly effervescence that mirrored the glow of the bride-to-be’s face.

I was vindicated. My pie had fallen apart, but Barbara and Dave’s relationship held together.

June 2012

Take a deep breath. Wedding planning was going well, but I was nervous about running out of food. In my own experience, after the doxology was sung at a wedding service, I’d fast-foward to the reception venue to scarf down savories and sweets and a generous portion of moist wedding cake.

Jesus fed the five thousand, but we needed more than bread and fish.

Barbara and Dave chose a caterer who could whip up a Southern theme featuring Memphis barbecue and a Cajun shrimp boil. I joined them at the caterer to sample the options.

We tasted barbecue sliders oozing with sauce that slid into the pulled pork before it dripped down our chins, and mini-onion tarts—savory, well-seasoned, baked in flaky crusts.

I clinched my napkin into a wad and asked the caterer when she would need the final guest count. How would I know? Not everyone RSVPs. If I under-estimate, the food will run out, like the wine at the wedding in Cana…but I won’t have Jesus around to ask him to miraculously refill the appetizer trays.

I remembered one of my favorite paintings, The Peasant Wedding by Bruegel the Elder, a Flemish Renaissance painter. I had viewed it at the Kunsthistorisches in Vienna in 2005, studying it, staring, imagining myself in the setting.

In Bruegel’s typical fashion, he painted a crowded scene in which individuals transport bread from oven to table on an old door, a child sits on the floor, musicians stand close to the table where several guests are eating. The groom appears absent. It looks like a sixteenth century “Where’s Waldo?”

Seated discreetly in the back of the scene is the bride. Although many experts think she looks passive or unhappy, she appeared to me unfazed as she observed the festivities. Food and drink were plentiful; guests were satisfied.

Barbara thumps my arm and startles me.

“Mama, she says they can do individual pecan pies instead of a groom’s cake. How many do you think we should allow per guest?”

September 15, 2012

The visitors’ center at the nature preserve provided a warm, inviting reception venue. Strings of clear lights were suspended from the vaulted ceiling creating a sky of twinkling stars. Outdoor terraces overlooked a dark, woodland landscape. Soft candlelight and arrangements of magnolia leaves, eucalyptus, white roses and woody stems graced round tables.

When I arrived—Tom had gone ahead of me to welcome our friends—guests were mingling, sampling the hors d’ouerves as waiters moved unobtrusively through the crowd. I don’t remember who greeted me, but I remember the joy that welled up when I saw out-of-town guests scooping out grits and loading their plates with chicken and waffles.

All I have needed, thy hand hath provided.

I only got a glimpse of the groom’s pies, but everyone raved about them. With a sheepish grip, one of my friends confessed that she had eaten four.

September 16, 2012

Dancing until a late hour left my back aching. I stretched from side to side, brewed my morning coffee, and opened the refrigerator door. Leftovers in ziplock bags did not look appealing for breakfast. Then again…pecan pie would be good with my coffee.

I opened several food storage boxes stacked on the kitchen counter. Cake. Cake. Cake.

The pies were perfect, absolutely perfect. And we had run out.

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Lisa bio YAH

Obstacle Course

Dirty towels are stacked on the seat of my walker. An empty coffee mug, water glass, two rolls of toilet paper, and a bottle of Windex are perched on the top towel. The walker is equipped with handlebars; brake lines run from the handles to the wheels. After releasing the brakes, I roll from master bathroom to bedroom. Books, file folders, and black garbage bags, fat with fifteen years of receipts to shred, occupy a corner. I sweep a lonely group of monthly bills ready to be paid from my dresser into a grocery bag, loop and tie it around a handle.

Steering with one hand and steadying my load with the other, I turtle down the hallway. Bath tissue goes to the guest bathroom. I roll past the den into the kitchen. Coffee mug and water glass join the breakfast dishes in the sink. Sticky spots on the floor cause me to cringe, but cringing is followed by dramatic sighing. In my best Scarlett O’Hara voice, I say aloud to nobody: Tomorrow is another day.

Curving around the corner, I enter the laundry room, only to become entangled with my ironing board—it’s the kind designed to store in the wall, but never stays stored in mine. I encourage the walker to duck under the board, pulling, pushing, jerking, and yelling. I’m stuck. Blue liquid spatters from the fractured spray top of the Windex bottle as it smacks the hardwood floor. Like a basketball player trying to hit multiple shots, I hurl the towels one by one toward the rim of my top-loader washing machine. I’m zero for ten.

FullSizeRender(41)*****

My orthopedist glances down at the floor as though he’s taking time to gather his thoughts to convey unpleasant news. He looks up and says: “There’s nothing else I can do for your back. Curves greater than sixty degrees (off center) will most likely deteriorate one degree yearly, so in ten years, you can expect greater pain and disability.”

My S-shaped spine glares at me from an X-ray film illuminated by light. He continues, “I don’t do adult scoliosis surgery, so I think it would be best for you to see the neuro man here in town who can follow you and determine if you need surgery now. And help you better manage your pain.”

Since I was twelve years old, I’ve had multiple visits—visit sounds pleasant and benign—to orthopedists and physical therapists. After forty years, you’d think I’d be used to hearing state of my spine speeches. Today, all I hear is finality: “There’s nothing I can do for you…”

*****

“Your spine is curvy,” says this short, curly-haired neurosurgeon dressed in a coat with buttons straining over his paunch.

I can’t suppress a giggle. “My husband says I’m curvaceous.”

“Oh, that’s a good one.” We hit it off like two vaudeville comedians.

While looking straight at me, he asks about the severity of my pain on a scale of 1-10. He takes my hand and helps me descend from the exam table. I stretch and try to touch my toes as he runs his fingers along my spine, tracing from top to bottom, a squatty, fat “S.”

“If you are functional, I prefer not to do surgery until you are well into your sixties. You can’t fool around with the spinal cord. We must ask: when do the benefits outweigh the risks?

I nod, listening. He continues, “I could make you straight—straight in your coffin.”

*****

I sit on my walker to rest after preparing dishes for our Thanksgiving meal. As I stare across the kitchen island’s glossy, black surface, I think of my grandma who had a holiday menu a mile long. My menu has shrunk from feast to famine: one meat, two vegetables, rolls, and store-bought dessert. I feel deficient. My dead grandmother is disappointed in me.

I am a mess. My vertebrae are like a stack of plate-spinners’ china: swaying, unbalanced, ready to crash. My body will not move like I want it to. Thoughts are scattered in my mind. My prayers bounce between Help! and Thank you!

I can, in most moments, stash negativity in a dark corner of my mind and will myself through the messiness of life. But, today, I am depleted. I’m taunted by sunlight streaming across the floor, highlighting dried splats of liquid. Crumbs fill cracks between the floor planks.

Then, I glance up and see light and shadows dancing with the colors of glass in my kitchen window. I laugh at myself. Oh, the absurdity of letting specks of dirt impair my vision.

FullSizeRender(42)Images by Lisa Taylor Phillips

Lisa bio YAH

Laughter Gives Life

On the day before my mother-in-law’s move to an assisted living facility, I had to meet the nurse supervisor to discuss details of the transfer. When I walked into the unit, a petite woman I’ll call Sallie approached me dressed in stretchy maroon pants and matching knit blouse, with perfect hair and deep maroon lips. Sallie took one of my hands and asked me my name. Then, she motioned me to lower my head and put my ear close. lrs1656In a conspiratorial, low tone of voice, she informed me that she runs the place, so come to her for anything I need. Sallie disappeared for about ten minutes, then returned, making a beeline for me, and repeated her introduction. “I run the place,” she said in a loud whisper.

The wait was long; the nurse was in a meeting. I sat on a sofa in the well-appointed gathering area. Across from me, a group of four women were sitting in a circle conversing—or at least one of them was. I waved—as I am liable to do to strangers—and the talkative one waved back and asked if I was moving in. She paused, looked at me again, and giggled.

In the meantime, a skinny-as-a-rail lady with pigtails, a crooked gait, one sneaker on and one off, approached the group of ladies and asked, with impaired but intelligible speech, if anyone could help her tie her shoes. Every one of them looked at her like she was crazy, except for the outgoing one, “Dorothy,” who said she would, but she didn’t think she could get down low enough to do it.

I called over to the lady with pigtails and told her I would be happy to help. She walked over, repeating: “You are so nice. You are so, so nice.” I wanted to tell her that my time is coming fast to have my shoes tied for me. I thought about Peter, and the Lord’s prediction about his old age: …when you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you…

She plopped down on the couch; gravity robbed her of a slow, graceful descent. I got down on my knees, because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get up if I bent over. I stretched the shoe she didn’t have on yet and got it about halfway on her foot. This was no Cinderella fit. While encouraging her to push her foot, I slipped a finger in the heel of the shoe. I took a deep breath to hide the pain of her heel pressing against my finger and the shoe, cutting off the circulation. She pushed her foot and I wiggled the shoe, sliding my finger out at the same time, and we did it. We got it on. I looked up. Her face was so close, our foreheads almost touched. She said thank-you with her eyes.

After tightening and lacing her shoestrings, I straightened up. “There you are,” I said. I silently thanked God, because he knew after weeks of stress what would fill up my empty well: Kneeling. Tying shoes. Smiling.

Dorothy came up and began talking a blue streak. She moved into the place one month ago and was eager to give me the low-down. “The food is good,” Dorothy exclaimed. She patted her belly like Winnie the Pooh.

At least five times, Dorothy told me a wonderful story about her farm, which was eight miles due east. She described cattle and chickens and the house she lived in alone for many years.

Dorothy’s face radiated mischief and joy. She said her family tells her that her memory is failing. She laughed: “Well, what do you ‘spect ? I am 87!” She walked toward one of the hallways. “I hope I can remember which room is mine. I’ve only been here ’bout a month.”  5907960975_de4c3564c8_z

Diminished mental faculties and physical deficits have not stopped the laughter. Dorothy found lots to laugh about. The lady in pigtails whose altered fine motor skills kept her from tying her shoes—smiled. Sallie enjoyed her job as greeter—the doorkeeper who served with purpose.

Theologian Karl Barth said: “Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.” I saw it that day. I felt it. And I laughed—not at them, but with them.

*****

Top right photo via Google Image, Creative Commons License

Lower left photo by Colin Gray, via Flickr, Creative Commons License

Lisa bio YAH

Scents of Summer

“Watch out for the cow piles,” my grandmother said as we headed to the barn for milking. I skipped behind her, hopping over and around the cows’ contributions to the fertilization of the earth. Even a smidgen of one of these smelly deposits on my shoe would necessitate a thorough scrubbing to remove the odor.

Nannie stepped briskly in her black rubber boots, leaning forward with her bonneted head two feet in front of her body. Two wooden telephone poles, lying flat and butted up against one anotherFullSizeRender(27), formed a bridge across the creek. A thick wire was attached to the trunk of a tree on each side of the creek to grab hold to as we walked across.

Nannie made short work of walking the telephone poles, without using the wire, and continued the trek to the barn. I pulled up short, clinched my teeth, clutched the wiry life-line, lifted one red, dirt-stained sneaker, and stepped on one of the poles.

On the opposite bank, Nannie must have smelled my fear because she turned and coaxed me across in her low, comforting voice. “Don’t look down.”

I looked down. The crawdads were having a party in the water below, skimming and swirling along the silty bottom. Lazy leaves floated like tiny, green boats. It seemed miles lay between my feet and the life of the creek.

I sat down. Relief slowed my breathing. I sucked in air, exhaled, and began vigorously chewing the petrified piece of Juicy Fruit gum tucked in the back of my mouth.

Splinters posed a hazard to my palms and tender behind, yet I chose to scoot across. I pressed my palms and lifted my bottom, inching across until my fingers squeezed Nannie’s outstretched hand. I fell into the folds of her faded, calico work-dress, breathing in the fresh scent of washing powers. Together we walked to the musty barn where Granddad already had the cows attached to their milking machines.

My assignment was to stand sentry beside a large plastic bucket and shovel, its blade as wide as a toilet seat. Cows warned of impending bowel action by raising their tails. I watched. At the ready. Tails twitched. Lifted. Action! I moved with the shovel; the heft of it almost pulled my slight, eight-year-old body down. Granddad joined me. Leaning over, his hands gripped the handle above mine; we joined forces to catch the imminent splat.

The deadly odor of the thick, greenish-black ooze, coupled with the straw-dust tickling my nose, provoked a fit of spasmodic coughing and laughing. Delivered of her load, the cow mooed. I mooed back.

We maintained distance between excrement, barn floor, and milking machine. Teats—freed from the suction cups attached to them—dangled from udders, no longer swollen. I looked on as Nannie and Granddad poured the creamy milk from clean buckets into tall galvanized cans.

Granddad released the cows from their individual stalls and gave a holler to the line of bovine. They filed to the pasture to laze in the shade and chew on sweet-smelling grass.

***

Laundry was done once a week—more often during stifling Southern summers—after early morning chores. Soil, sour sweat, and animal smells wove into the fabric of garments, socks, bandanas, towels, and washcloths. Nannie’s washing machine was an old-fashioned vessel, large and round, situated in the center of her small, screened in back porch. I imagined it as a tub in which cartoon characters were riding the rapids.

Nannie fed sopping wet laundry through a wringer between two rollers that pressed out the water. With my bare feet planted on the smooth stone floor, I caught flattened pieces as they came through and tossed them in a basket. Nannie toted, I followed and watched as she pinned a parade of color to the clothesline.

***

Nannie ran a bath for me at bedtime. Splashing in the tub, I created an ocean of bubbles with a slippery bar of ZEST soap. Capturing it in my washcloth, I gave myself a vigorous scrub from head to toe, then grabbed the stopper’s shiny beaded pull and watched as dirty, brown water swirled down the drain, exiting with a loud gurgle.

Days lingered long those summers. Friday evenings, Granddad reclined in his easy chair and listened to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio, while rubbing his sore hands with Cornhusker’s Lotion. As strains of Bill Monroe’s fiddle drifted into my bedroom, I grew drowsy and snuggled under the sun-kissed sheets. Nannie’s moonflowers hugged clapboard along the side of the house. Blossoms opened large in the lunar light, offering their incense as a benediction to the day.

Scan 3Nannie and Granddad’s barn—worn by disuse and time— photographed in 1984 by my mother. 

Photo (above right)

Nannie’s Bonnet

 

 

To See Through A Different Window

She was sitting in her rocking chair facing a large picture window overlooking a wide field with a break of trees in the distance.

The late afternoon sunlight traveled from sky through window, spilling over the pale, green floor which had been polished to a high glossy sheen by the kind janitor with his buffing machine.

There were clean linens on her bed, and the top sheet, blanket, and quilt were folded at the end. Clean incontinence pads, used to protect a bed’s mattress from bodily fluids, were stacked on the lid of the potty chair at her bedside.

“Aunt Mary, how are you today?” I pulled up a chair. “I’m Lisa, your sister’s grand-daughter.”

“Hello Mildred,” she said.

She raised one of her hands to her brow, as though she was trying to grab the tail of a thought before it flew away.

“Donnie and the boys better come in from the field. There’s a bad cloud moving in.”

* * * * *

It was the summer of 1979, and I had completed my first year of college. The beakers and bunsen burners in a college chemistry lab, and the cultivation of bacteria in petri dishes were prerequisites for a nursing degree. I longed to interact with patients—human beings—who were more than sodium, potassium, Staphylococcus, or Clostridium.

Though I did not have the credentials to work in a hospital setting, an administrator at a local nursing home was willing to interview me. She struggled to maintain a consistent staff of caregivers. The work was hard and the wages low. She may have been desperate for help, or perhaps my stories about growing up with my maternal and paternal grandparents convinced her of my regard for the elderly.

The following week, I arrived to work the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift, dressed in a freshly pressed uniform, hoping to present an image of a confident caregiver. The only registered nurse who worked those same hours—the rest of the staff were L.P.N.s and aides—gave me a brief tour of the facility, showed me the hall of patients for whom another aide and I were responsible, and sent me on my way. She walked backwards away from me, rubber-soled shoes squeaking, and told me to holler if I needed help. With a quick turn, she waved and trotted to the nurse’s station.

* * * * *

I stuck my head in the door and called: “Mr. Charlie, did you have a bowel movement today?”

“Come in here, pretty girl,” he replied. I stopped the beverage cart at his door.

Mr Charlie treated me like I was his daughter, using affectionate names and grilling me about the boys in my life. A short conversation.

His room was dark except for the flickering fluorescent light above his bed. Mr. Charlie was seated in his brown, suede recliner with his walker stationed nearby. He was clad in a two-piece set of men’s pajamas and corduroy, sheepskin-lined slippers.

As I checked his water pitcher, we chatted about the events of the day: bingo in the activity room, another patient’s fall—and the death of Mrs. Sally.

Mrs. Sally was a spunky presence on our hall. Her hair was a fluffy, white coiffeur spritzed daily with Aqua Net hairspray stored in the top drawer of her bedside table. In the afternoon, I often used a pick to fluff her hair, heeding her instructions to cover up the thinning spots on top. We’d giggle like teenagers as I guided her trembling hand while she “painted” her lips with her favorite color.

She walked the hall by steadying herself with the handrail on the wall and a cane. Her laughter drifted into every room, and I wondered if the bedridden patients—knees drawn to chest in a fetal position, diapered, and fed with a tube—heard it.

Earlier, I had found her during rounds, unresponsive on the floor. My supervisor came running after I pulled the emergency cord and called for help. Mrs. Sally had loved to talk about the “stepping over” that was ahead for her. I imagined she had died with an easy, girlish step.

Sadness shrouded the room. I squeezed Mr. Charlie’s shoulder, placed a Styrofoam cup of water on his side table, and pushed the beverage cart to the next room.

* * * * *

Aunt Mary sat on the side of the bed as I pulled the flannel gown over her slight body, then guided her matchstick arms into the sleeves. We sat in the silence; I took her small hand, put it in mine, and gave it a kiss.

The soft, shallow lines on her face seemed like the delicate stitches of her quilt, wrought by hand when her fingers were nimble, unhindered by degenerative disease. As I tucked her into bed, her blue eyes, still unclouded by age, looked into mine. I was not Mildred, but she knew I was someone who loved her.

After securing the bed’s side-rails, I walked to the window and closed the blinds.

FullSizeRender(25)Photo by Lisa Phillips

A Still Life

A small antique dining table, repurposed as my writing table, sits by a large window in the breakfast room. The cherry wood has a smooth rich patina ripened by age and signed by watermarks from a continual parade of tea cups, coffee mugs, flower pots, and leaky bud vases.

Out the window, the arborvitae along the fence line sway in the breeze like a happy gospel choir. Sunlight from the east plays with leaves hanging on high branches; light darts in and out between the green like a hummingbird searching for nectar.

The sudden appearance of a chipmunk perched on the head of my garden statue—the sculpture of a little boy sitting cross-legged with a rabbit in his lap—startles me. I gasp. The chipmunk’s bushy tale drapes down the side of the little boy’s head like a furry hat. The animal blends into the concrete. A still life.FullSizeRender(20)

Cardinals, sparrows, and house finches engage in a noisy flurry at the birdfeeder. With an abrupt turn of his head, the chipmunk pauses, perks up like a meerkat, and scampers into the low-lying shrubbery.

A male cardinal, proud and red, with a wisp of red plumage atop his head, wins the battle for position at the feeder. His female counterpart is thin, grayish, and pale. He—I named him D’Artagnan after the most valiant of Dumas’ characters in The Three Musketeers—pecks at the safflower seed in the hanging wire silo, captures a seed in his mouth, cracks it with his sturdy beak and passes it to his lady, like a lover giving a gentle kiss to his beloved.

With a swoosh, Mae West, a round-breasted mourning dove, alights on top of the feeder, causing it to sway as she sashays about with her full bustle. Because of their size, the doves hold the keys to the coffer of seeds. They make merry and dine and grow bloated with time. There are no leftovers. Not one crackle.

*****

In early 2013, I was diagnosed with cancer. My world went still, folding in on itself like useless bellows.

The chemotherapy I received was a benevolent poison; while killing the unhealthy cells, it attacked healthy cells, also, resulting in extreme fatigue, an inability to concentrate, and a weakened immune system.

Words became hazy on the page of a book; it was hard to read a whole paragraph and understand it. The computer screen’s light altered my vision; tears salted my cheeks. It was as if someone had stuck me in a tightly bound book, slammed it shut, and shelved it.

My husband installed birdfeeders in our backyard outside the breakfast room window. He stocked them with thistle seed and safflower.

I watched and waited.

Every morning, I crept toward the kitchen, grimacing when the old wood floors creaked, hoping not to scare away my first visitor. A study in red—D’Artagnan—was perched at the feeder one morning as I tiptoed around the corner from the den.FullSizeRender(23)

On subsequent mornings, brilliant goldfinches, chickadees, tufted titmice, and doves arrived. The rare appearance of indigo buntings and a rose-breasted grosbeak—his chest splashed with red like blood from a dagger wound—pulled me from my chair. Adam must have felt the weight of words when God said: Name them. 

I sat down. With a shaky hand, I scrawled fragments of sentences in my journal.

*****

A small young dove slow-steps along the brick window sill. As I rest my elbows on the table, its old joints creak. The bird stops, turns his slick gumball head, considers me with his black bead of an eye, and with his slender beak commences a gentle tapping on the glass. Tap. Tap. Tap.

He is not looking at me, but at his own reflection wrought by the play of light on the glass making a mirror image of himself. His kinfolk arrive and with a whistling of his wings, he shoots away to the trees.

My blank computer screen stares at me. My journal is open beside me on the table. I begin to type: In early 2013, I was diagnosed with cancer….

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 Images by Lisa Taylor Phillips

Backbone

I stared at the prosthetic arms, legs, and other fake body parts displayed in the shop’s front window beneath the steady glow of a neon sign advertising: ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.

Mama and I walked through the front door of the shop. A short man dressed in a white jacket approached us. He was a hairy man; hair was sprouting above the top button of his shirt, and his arms were hairy all over. His name was Leroy Cook.

I was in this house of horrors because I had been diagnosed with scoliosis—curvature of the spine. An orthopedist had prescribed the treatment, a Milwaukee brace, a monstrosity of metal bars, screws, belts, pads, and hard plastic. This thing would be my closest companion 23 hours a day, corseted tightly around my hips and pelvic area with anterior and posterior bars attached to a circle of metal outfitted with a chin-rest in the front. My head would be thrust upward and backward, changing my field of vision.

Mr. Leroy led us back to a space resembling a large garage. Artificial flesh-colored body parts were resting on workbenches. Pails the size of paint buckets sat in the corner.

Mama and I followed him into an examining room. Mr. Leroy asked me to hop up on the table covered with white, crinkly paper.

“I don’t want to embarrass you, but you have to undress and put this on, so I can make an impression of your body.” He handed me a long length of stretchy material the color of an ACE bandage. “Pull it up under your arms and pull it down below your bottom,” he said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Mama turned her head away while I undressed. The mini tube dress accentuated my flat chest and protruding shoulder blades.

Mr. Leroy re-entered the room and instructed me to lie down on my back. He held a fancy ruler and a Sharpie-like pen. He gently explained what he had to do. Inked marks were drawn at the lowest part of my abdomen, lower than the waistband of my bikini underwear.

The next step in the process would be the plastering. It would be spread over my body like smooth icing. I would hold my arms over my head while keeping a firm grip on a metal bar to ensure a full extension of my torso. The plaster would dry while I stayed in the stretched position. A small round saw—it would not cut me—would cut the cast. It would come off like a rigid dress, and Mr. Leroy would make my brace using the sculpture of my body as his guide.

I looked at my mother at the end of the table. I will not cry. I will not cry.

*****

It took Mr. Leroy two weeks to complete my Milwaukee masterpiece. I spent a second morning in my underwear in his exam room learning to slip on the brace like it was a casual piece of clothing. Arm to the left. Arm to the right. And the wide, rigid bar in the middle separating the two “armholes.”

I learned to secure the Velcro straps, linking the back bars to stabilize my corset. I was stuck.

*****

The Captain D’s restaurant was bustling with the lunch crowd. It had been a difficult morning, and Mama wanted me to enjoy my favorite meal: fish and chips. Perhaps, she thought it would be a good place for me to experience my first public appearance wearing a brace. School was in session; there was little chance I would be seen by one of my classmates.

The hot and flaky fish refused to stay on my fork, sliding down my chin onto the cold metal bar jutting out from beneath the top of my blouse. When I lifted my drink to my lips, I couldn’t maneuver the straw to get it into my mouth. I was thirsty. The straw could not bend, and neither could I.

Pushing back hard from the table, I rocked front to back, plastic on plastic, attempting to propel myself from the unforgiving chair. I pitched forward, hit the edge of the table, and wobbled backward into the chair.

I shoved my food tray to the floor. Fish and french fries flew from their paper basket. Coca-Cola spattered on my pants. Mama grabbed napkins and knelt to soak up the Coke. She looked up at me.

“I want to go home,” I pleaded.

*****

I flopped down on my bed, relishing the feel of my green, chenille bedspread beneath my back like a cat rolling around on a warm, asphalt driveway. The late afternoon sunshine filtered through the sheer window curtain splashed with orange, green, and pale pink flowers, creating a kaleidoscope of shapes on my wall.

I caught the glint of light off metal. My hour was up.

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photo by Lisa Phillips