Rainy Afternoon in A Small Town

I walk into the corner drug store to pick up my prescription.  Well, first I try to pull a door that's clearly marked "Push" because the doors are hung backwards and they always mess with my brain, despite that I've been to this store a million times.  Behind the back counter, which is ten steps from the door, Brenda smiles at me.  We exchange pleasantries. She invites me to the next Lion's Club event and reminds me, “We always need good new members!”  Unlike Walgreen's, when I go to the Corner Drug I never have to give my name and address or tell the cashier whether I'm picking up or dropping off.  Brenda already knows

Standing by the register, Frank Crowe leans on the counter looking at me sideways and nods a hello without speaking.  I give him my tight lipped smile--the one where I don't show my teeth, then stick my debit card into the machine which takes an incredibly long time to complete my transaction.  I stand impatiently, tapping my foot as I wait for the beep that tells me I can retrieve my card.

Behind me, I hear the door squeak open again, Betty Looper.  I swear she's always in the Corner Drug.  Always picking up some prescription or another. She’s old.  No one knows really how old, but no one remembers a time when she wasn’t around either.  She’s like a permanent fixture here, just like that statue that stands crumbling and decaying in front of the court house of some old Civil War hero on his horse.  Nobody knows when it was erected and nobody knows when it will finally finish falling apart, but we all can see that its inevitable demise is nigh. 

 How many medications can one person even tolerate, anyway, before medicine is no longer a good thing?

Finally, Brenda hands me the little white paper bag, stapled at the top, with my bottle of pills inside.  With it in my hand, I turn and head out the door.  The pills rattle as I shift the bag to my left hand and start digging for my keys in my purse. I can feel old Frank's stare at my back.  Betty, ignoring me, presses onward, Brenda now turning her focus to her. 

“Now Bettty, you ain’t give us ten minutes to get that medicine ready before you come runnin’ over here.” She says to Ms. Looper, trying to sound like she’s teasing, but I can tell she’s more than a little put out.

Standing by the door, thumbing through some dusty old greeting cards, Estelle Cantrell looks up as I pass.  Her gaze is quick, but measuring.  She looks me up and down, making her judgment fast and sharp.  I don’t know what she thinks of my outfit or my hairstyle today and that’s probably a good thing.  I wonder what she’ll tell people about me?  I can just hear her now.  “She was in that store and out of it like she was on her way to a fire or something.  Ain’t no sense in anybody being in that big of a hurry.  If she put near as much time into ironing her clothes and fixing her hair she might not still be single.”

Honestly, I feel violated, like the simple act of refilling my blood pressure medication should come with some degree of anonymity or at least without judgment. But then in a small town, you tend to get the illusion that everyone knows too much about you.

You come to accept it, expect it after a time.  At first I found some comfort in being recognized, and in knowinmost every face I see.  It was almost like the feeling of home--like walking in every door to find family and a big casserole dish full of mac and cheese that everyone intends to share. Fresh gossip, thinly veiled as concern would fill the air with a familiar chatter that almost made you feel like you’d gone home for Sunday dinner.  I felt I sat among my own, adopted into this motley crowd of small town folks--hometown folks, only it's not my hometown.

They all seem to eye me in a sidelong way, even the ones who've adopted me.  They seem to accept me, even care about me, but then I remember the thin veil that covers most everything here. I’m recognized but not truly known and that confuses me more than the backward-hung doors at the Corner Drug.  

If I speak up too often or too loudly, I feel their eyes narrow and their lips purse with disapproval. 

"You're not from here." They're thinking.  

They say to each other, "She's not from here. She has no clue what she's talking about."

As if one small town in the South is so different from any other. 

 There's a kind of Southern pride, a false sense of originality that every little tucked down here below the Mason-Dixon wants to claim as theirs.  Like the way we all drink sweet tea, or the way most of us think grits are breakfast food only. 

"If you ain't from 'round here, you caint understand our way o’ life." They all say.  "We don't need no outsiders a comin' in, tellin' us how to do things."

Sometimes I think if it were up to Southerners we’d all still be using privies and drawing our water from backyard wells.  We’d be sending our womenfolk down to the river to wash clothes and making them cook on one of those old wood cook stoves.  To the chagrin of many, the Yankees somehow succeeded in modernizing the good ole South—even the small towns out in the middle of nowhere, like this one.

Progress is still a dirty word in the South and in small-town Southern America in particular.  If you speak the language of change, you are marked.  In the old days, you'd have been run out of town on a rail. Nowadays, you just get gnawed to pieces by gossip.

Along with the overblown sense of pride and originality you'll find in every tiny town, you'll find at least a fair amount of poverty.  On hillsides and hidden behind thick stands of pines, trailer parks stand like ancient ruins, their roofs tarred over, the windows held together by duct tape and a Sunday morning prayer.  They, and the people who occupy them are the landmarks of true Southern living.  Dirt driveways with deep ruts dug out by rain.  Clunker cars that just barely get folks to their jobs and back every day and  kids that spend too much time home alone...this is the reality of life in the Ruins.  

It wasn't always so.  Many years past, there was commerce here.  Factory jobs, hardware stores and green grocers, a post office and a cafe.  Now, shuttered and crumbling store-fronts sit empty, save for the ghosts of the past that dart with quick shadows across the sidewalks, specters of a place that used to exist.

Change came here, but it came like a thief in the night.  No one discussed or planned it.  It just came.  When the shoe store closed, everyone just drove on to the next town, to Wal-Mart or to Sears, where they could buy shoes and a dress in one place.  When the post office closed, a church moved in.  Slowly, change crept up each street, boarding up windows, every boutique, every beauty shop and every hardware store's sign permanently turned to read "Sorry, We're Closed."  That kind of change came easy.  It was gradual and since no one talked about it, no one had to actually see it happening.

Thing about change is, it's always happening.  

I drive across the street to pick up some Cokes and a frozen pizza for dinner from the local grocer.  The gals at the register say hello as I choose a buggy and go browsing through the aisles, picking up things I never intended to buy.  This store is old, too.  It's dingy and the floors have a peculiar hollow sound under the clomp of my heels.  The produce is limp, spotted bananas, potatoes growing eyes, mold on the blueberries, I decide I'll stop at the farm for fruit.  

I grab my milk and eggs and head to the register, where in line ahead of me a woman I recognize is already waiting.  I'm trying to remember her name when she speaks to me.

"Good to see you again.” She says kindly.  

"You too!" I say enthusiastically.  I'm probably smiling too big as I grapple for her name, or where I know her from.  

I'm relieved when she turns back to her groceries, laying them on the belt that doesn't work anymore.

I too, start to set my purchases on the belt, separating mine from my stranger-friend's with a yellow ruler someone left at the counter for that purpose.  When it's my turn, I use my arm to push everything closer to the cashier.  We make small talk as she rings up my milk and eggs, and I realize I forgot the Cokes.  Too lazy to bother with going back to get them, I tell myself I need to cut back anyway.

"Have a good weekend now!" The girl behind the register whose face but not name I know,  says.  

"You too!" I reply pleasantly.  I can't wait to get my things into the car and head home.  

As I make my way out the door, pushing the buggy with one hand, shoving my debit card back into my wallet with the other, it starts to rain.

Big, warm drops of water fall heavy on my back, soaking my silk blouse until it becomes my epidermis. It sticks tome, a purple skin, translucent enough so my bra shows through it, and every bump and curve of my upper body to boot.

I stand in the open, loading my food into the car, the deluge causing my hair to drip into my face. Now my skirt is soaked as well, the thin white linen like wet paper against my skin becoming cold and uncomfortably heavy. 

By the time I'm done I'm thoroughly wet and exposed. My light summer outfit gives me little in the way of modesty now that it's drenched.  I walk anyway to the buggy stall, with my head held high, dripping hair and running mascara notwithstanding.  Out the corner of my eye I see two men I recognize sitting in an old Buick, watching me.  When I look their way, they do not avert their gaze.  Behind the windshield they must feel like invisible voyeurs.

Sopping wet, I finally open the driver's side door of my car and try to quickly get in, my wet skirt restricting my movement. I immediately steam up the windows with my body heat and warm breath. 

I take a minute to shake out my hair, wipe the water and makeup off my face with a fast food napkin, take a deep breath.  I turn the key, flip on the defrost and the wipers, put the car in reverse.  As I start to back up, I look over my shoulder and see him there, just sitting in his truck, waiting, watching.

The thing about small towns is, you sometimes run into people you used to know.  You see them hiding behind end-caps at the gas station, and in their pickup trucks sometimes.  You should learn to be on the lookout for them, but sometimes you forget.  

I drive home, amused a little that those two guys in the Buick thought they were so hidden as they watched my practically nude body walk across the parking lot.  I feel that sick sensation, deep in my stomach, or in my uterus, or maybe my heart even, when I picture him waiting in his truck like a little kid thinking he’s hidden behind a sapling.

On my drive home I think over the past.  I recall times when I felt less of a stranger, but orbited a much bigger world.  I realize how, as I’ve shut myself off from people, my new world seems increasingly, painfully small.

Maybe I’m merely the shadow of something now. A dream that once was, or a place that used to be alive with movement and color.  Now I am that foreigner--not from 'round here.  Constantly seen, always recognized, but never, ever really known.

By the time I’m home the rain has stopped.  The sun threatens to pop back through the clouds as I unload the groceries and haul them inside.  I try to put them all away before I go change, but the air conditioning chills me to the bone as it permeates my wet clothes.  Home, no mac and cheese, no fresh gossip. No prying eyes or judgmental stares. Just me, in my wet clothes, a pile of groceries at my feet that I probably will never eat.    

Home Sweet Home...Or Not

My Boy. 

My challenge.  To lure him from the comfort of home takes a kind of skill at which I must constantly evolve as his parent.  In an announcement the night before, "We are spending the day out tomorrow."' I tell him so he won't get up and immediately engage in combat on Fortnite, then give me grief about leaving the house.  

Inevitably, while I shower, he connects with his friends and the match begins. 

"Fifteen minute warning," I tell him as I throw open the bathroom door, my hair still dripping.  I know I'll take longer than fifteen minutes to get ready, but still...

"Are you dressed?" I call to him as I load up the car.

"Yes mom!" He answers, the eye-rolling coming through in the tone of his voice.

"Shoes?" I ask. 

"Not yet." He sighs, realizing we really are about to leave home for the day.

In the car we make jokes and listen to history podcasts.  Once in a while he gets animated, telling me about something that happened at camp, or about some element of Fortnite that's similar to the podcast story.

We eat French fries, wiping salt on our pant-legs.  

He is fascinated by the long straight hills on highway 11, leading to the lakes.  When we finally get to the 

swimming hole, he's hesitant to get in.

"Let's just sit on the edge and put our toes in." I suggest. 

"Okay." He reluctantly agrees.  But before I know it, he's climbing on the rocks, out to his waist in his regular shorts after refusing to change into his swimming trunks. 

Whatever makes him happy.

I'm happy.  The cool water on my feet convinces me to change into my new red swimsuit and jump in.  

The rocks challenge me, but once I make it past them I'm swimming in water far deeper than I even want to know.  I remember this, or rather, my body remembers.  It remembers how to tread water,how the lake doesn't burn your eyes like a swimming pool.  My feet remember how to reach themselves toward the deep water beneath me, to find the coolness in its depths   My arms remember to stretch out like wings as I lie back and let the lake  catch me, and I float like a forgotten piece of driftwood for a while.  

My boy.  I have to encourage him to come to me in the deeper water.  On our blowup float we kick around the edge of the shoreline, his confidence growing with every minute we spend in the blue-green waters.  

When we start to pack up to leave he wants to know when we can come back again.  

"Soon," I said.  "Maybe even Tuesday."

"Ugh!" He eye rolls at me. "I really wanted to stay home on Tuesday!"

Where Should I Go But To The Lord?

Today I asked where the Lord was and a preacher came running.

Short of breath, with a damp, sweaty shirt pulled over his body, he said he was there to answer my question.

But he never did say where the Lord was.

He only asked, "What can I do?"

So I one-arm hugged him, despite his sweaty shirt, and said , "You're kind for coming, but there's nothing you can do."

"I'm here to help," he insisted, staring at me through his rectangular new glasses.

"Really," Said I.  "I'm fine."

But in my mind I wondered, was he telling me he's as close to the Lord as I'm ever going to get?

Because I remember long afternoons, much like this one, filled with hard work and music and Nature, that seemed to draw the very breath of God across my own damp skin.  

The Lord seems closer to me in the chirp of crickets and the croaks of tree frogs than in the hot wind of a preacher, hurrying to let me know where the Lord is.

There's a sunset to this day.  Blessed day!  It has an ending abundantly more beautiful than its beginning.  And isn't that the way of life, after all? 

I sit here on my front porch, listening to the night chorus tune up for its performance, to begin in earnest once the sun goes behind that hill over there.  

God's breath is cool, a comfort at the end of a hard journey, even one that only lasts from daylight to twilight. 

The reflection of all things holy, shines back at me from every window.  For it's in the growing, the tending, the dying and the rising up again that the Divine makes itself seen and known.

If one only cares to truly find it, or know it, or take it in.

The Lord abides in the grace it took for me to live this, this minute by minute bit of survival.  In the work of my hands that ache and beg me to quit.  In the fruit of my labors, that bid me keep going.  In the mercy of a sun going down, the heat of a July day finally relenting.

The Lord was in the sweat I washed down the drain as I stood naked before God in my shower, singing to keep from weeping.

The Preacher, well he left as quick as he came, no doubt running off intending with all good will, to carry the Lord with him, on his back or in his sweat or in his gaze. 

But the Lord didn't leave with him, anymore than the Lord hitch-hiked in on his shoulders.  

Bless his heart.  He doesn't know.

The Lord is found, for all of us, wherever we last left her.

Abberation

The driveway seems ordinary at first.  A mailbox sits to the left of it, with a newspaper slot underneath, which usually is empty.  No one really takes the paper anymore, not even country folk.  They've never felt too keen on keeping up with politics or local crime statistics.  Heck, they don't even consider that crime even happens in their neck of the woods.  And when I say woods, I mean woods.  You find yourself put at ease by the smoothly paved drive for about the first quarter of a mile as you wind your way past horses waving their long tails in the sunlight, baby goats butting one another, a few chickens, literally crossing the road in front of you.  Then, and gradually, the pavement turns to just tar and gravel, bumpy, unkempt and crumbling in places so badly that you find yourself dodging potholes.

After you pass the fork where one part of the drive way hangs far to the left and a tree sits right in the middle of your way (I always imagine it's like the Scarecrow) the pavement ends altogether and you're driving on a dirt pathway, marked by ruts made by other vehicles.  The rains of spring-time do a fairly good job of eroding the roadway, leaving gullies and ruts that you must navigate--some of them you must drive straight through, hoping the bottom of your car doesn't drag the ground or that you don't get stuck.

"Whose idea was this anyway?"  He asked.

"Um, I think it was yours." She answered with a smirk.

"Oh yeah."  His boss told him about this place, a smart little cabin by a lake, deep in the woods away from civilization.  He offered the weekend to them, saying they'd come home feeling recharged--that nature would do them good. 

But her husband wasn't a nature freak like the beaus of her past.  He was a city boy, more comfortable on a subway train than in a tent.  Since they met, he took up hiking with her, bought camping equipment, a jeep.  In it, they kept a supply of last minute outdoor gear.  A small tent, a flashlight, a sleeping bag for two, matches.  As they set out for the weekend adventure the small cache of equipment behind the back seat, smashed beneath their luggage seemed inconsequential.  Thanks to the cabin, they wouldn't need it.

No one gave them a clue as to how long the drive up to the cabin might be.  They made that first turn onto the smooth pavement of 132 Pine Knoll Drive at sunset.  As they drove through along the roughly largely unkempt pathway deeper into the canopy of the forest, night time seemed to descend upon them almost  preternaturally.

"I think we need the headlights." She urged.

"I can see just fine and I'm the driver," he quipped.

"Well, maybe you can put them on for me then," She teased,"because I want to see where you're going."  She didn't want to admit it, but she felt nervous.  Her hands were folded tightly on her lap, as though she were trying to keep warm.  Really though, she needed them there so she could feel a sense of control over them.  The last few months their marriage seemed adrift, or more like they were adrift from one another.  Their jobs, the kids, the way life never really turns out the way you plan it took its toll on them day after day. Deep down, she had such high hopes for this time together that she felt anxious about saying or doing something to mess it up.  So she kept her nervous hands in her lap and plastered a smile on her face, hoping that somehow she could infuse the air between them with hopefulness, even romance.

Just as he flipped the headlights on, three deer appeared in the middle of the drive. He slammed on the brakes, the jeep sliding a little sideways across the dirt and gravel roadway.  The deer stood for a moment, frozen, like they say, in the bright lights of the jeep.  He honked the horn at them, waved his arms almost like he was trying to make them laugh, then yelled at them, "Shoo, shoo!  Go away!"
 After the deer sized up their jeep, they went on their way, across the driveway and through the thick woods, their white tails disappearing into a ravine.

"Ah nature!" He said with a big smile. "I'm feeling high already, just from the fresh air." He joked with her.  She knew he'd rather be pacing a city street filled with smog any day than to find himself surrounded by thick forest and the company of wild animals.

"Well I think they are majestic and beautiful."

"They are, They are." He agreed enthusiastically before shoving the jeep back into gear and continuing ahead, hoping that soon they'd reach the cabin--a sign of civilization, or at least some semblance of it, with indoor plumbing and a stove on which to cook dinner.

"I can already tell we are in for a great weekend." She chattered excitedly.  "Breakfast in bed, horseback riding, night swimming, it's going to be amazing."

"Breakfast in bed, huh?" He asked, amused.  "Who's going to get breakfast in bed?"

"Well," She answered sheepishly, "I was hoping maybe..."

"Breakfast in bed it is, my dear. If we ever get there..."  She could sense the irritation in his voice.  The driveway was beginning to seem impossibly long and more difficult to traverse the farther they went.

"Yeah, if we ever get there." she agreed.  "This is a really long driveway."  Her hands, still in her lap, she began to pick her cuticles nervously.  She knew her thinking tended to delve into the irrational at times.  Of course the driveway has an end, she thought to herself it can't just go on like this forever.

On and on they drove as night fell in earnest. Tree frogs and crickets began to serenade them from the darkness as a dampness seemed to soak into their clothes.  Not even  the moon helped to light their way.  The stars were extra bright, with no city lights around to lessen the view of their glow.  She leaned her head against the window of the jeep, looking straight up at the stars, trying to find the big and little dippers.  She remembered doing the same thing as a child, on the rides home at night with her dad.

They rode in complete silence, a tenseness in the air between them, not with one another, but about the situation they were in.   They hung so many hopes on this reunion with nature, with one another.  To fail at it--to end up lost,in it would ruin their entire plan.  She could already imagine the argument, them blaming one another for the wrong turn, the address written down incorrectly, the big joke his boss played on them.

She remained hopeful though, as they rounded one curve after another with no cabin in sight.  He began to wonder if their directions had been wrong.

"We've been driving for about seventeen miles already--slow driving too because this driveway is horrible."  How long had it been since his boss came out here, he wondered to himself.  "We have to be there soon.  Do you think we took the wrong turn?" He asked.
.
"I don't think so.  The directions said, 'turn left at the mailbox marked 132 Pine Knoll' and that's what we did.  Maybe we should have taken the right fork back there at that tree?  Should we turn around?"

"Turn around?" He asked sounding incredulous. "After we've driven all this way? No way, we are committed now.  We either find the cabin tonight or we find a place to set up camp."

"I'll see if my phone has a signal out here." She dug in her purse and found her phone, the phone she promised not to bring.  He didn't even feel annoyed at her for breaking her promise.  He was just hopeful that she could find a signal and perhaps access her GPS so they could see how close they were getting.

"Well?" He asked, stopping the jeep.

"Nothing." She looked worried and disappointed.

"Hey, don't worry," He told her.  "We have this under control. I brought plenty of supplies and if we have to, we can find a place out here in the woods and camp out for the night, find the cabin in the  morning."

"Yeah?" She asked, hopeful.  "We could have a romantic camp out?"

"Absolutely!" He grinned.  "I even brought those candles that keep mosquitoes away.  We can eat dinner by candlelight."

"What dinner?"

"Oh...um, well, I got your favorite chocolate, some graham crackers and, lets see, a can of sausages" His lip curled in a cute sort of way when he said "can of sausages."

They both laughed.

"Okay then." She smiled, "Let's do it.  Let's have a camp out right here in these woods!"

He drove a little further on until he came to a flat piece of road with a small clearing to the right.  "There's enough room for the tent over there," he pointed, "And look at all that fallen brush, perfect for our campfire."

Before long their tent was erected, their campfire glowing in the black of night--the New Moon graciously lending an air of romance to their adventure.They had one flashlight with batteries and the headlamps of the jeep to help them navigate their way around putting up the tent and gathering their firewood. 

Together they ate the bar of dark chocolate, washed it down with lukewarm champagne straight from the bottle.  Cuddled up under a blanket by the fire they talked about nothing and everything.  They ignored the sounds of coyotes in the distance, the crackle of deer feet along the fallen branches in the deep woods around them.  They didn't hear when the mama bear wandered across the drive behind their jeep, stopping to sniff for food before she passed it up, taking her cubs with her into the other side of the forest.

Oblivious to the sound of an owl swooping down to catch a mouse just outside the zipped up haven of their tent, they made love without restraint, the creatures around them, ignoring the noises they made.  Nature accepts nature as it is, the sounds and sights, nothing warranting judgment or diversion.

Aberrations, though, hide among us as much in the perfunctory and expeditious tasks of suburbia as on the wayward path of a driveway that leads to nowhere and an aberration moved among them in the deep forest that night.  Not quite human, not quite beast, it stood at a distance, leaning against a sycamore, waiting for the sounds from the tent to fade, waiting for the lumbering sounds of sleep to take them over as their campfire began to fade under the star-dotted sky. 

News reports all say that the tent was found with all their things inside--a double sleeping bag, a purse with a dead cell phone, a box of unopened graham crackers, some canned sausages and two sets of clothes.  An empty champagne bottle lay on the ground by the smoldering fire, as though it were abandoned in the middle of a game of "spin the bottle."

Their jeep had four flat tires.  The keys for it were never found and there were no footprints on the driveway going in or out.  They had seemingly disappeared into the forest, no sign of either of them anywhere.

Just around the curve from where they stopped to set up camp, the porch light of the cabin still glowed, awaiting their arrival.  Inside the door, a vase of  fresh white lilies sat on the kitchen counter. Beside them, a card in a yellow envelope with her name scrawled on the front, was never opened, never read. Along the edge of the lake, a tall figure walked in a long stride, its footsteps leaving no trace in the mud around the shoreline.  Fog hung heavy over the waters, and the coos of mourning doves began to fill the early summer morning air. 

Sweet Grief

This afternoon I came home hot, tired, and feeling weak.  We had a busy day driving here and there gathering what we needed for Arthur's first birthday party tomorrow.  The stores were extra crowded, it being July 3rd.  The babies dealt with the heat better than us grown folks, and Charlie, the champ that he is, maintained order in the backseat for us as we dragged the children from one place to the other.  We ended up staying out far longer than we anticipated.  Both Sylia and I found ourselves completely drained from the heat, the walking, and the wrestling with two toddlers all day.  By the time I dropped her off, we were both ready to crash; then I remembered a dinner date.  Michele's birthday dinner at Kanpai was at 7:00 and it was already 6:00 when I dropped Sylia off.  I quickly traded shoes with her, put on some fresh makeup and headed out the door.  By the time we reached the end of the driveway I got a text that Michele wasn't able to get to dinner, so I decided I would not go either--I couldn't have made it on time anyway, and without the birthday girl, what's the point?  So we grabbed some drive-thru grub and came home.

As Charlie and I unloaded the car, I noticed my neighbor, Nell, on her golf cart up by her garden.  (She's also the landlord, although our relationship is much more friendly than business.)  I came inside and gave Charlie an envelope filled with the rent money and asked him to run it up to her while I finished putting things away.  In a few minutes he came back, short of breath from running and said, "Nell wants to talk to you."

"About what?" I asked.

"I don't know." He said, "I think she wants to know if Senior Action is closed tomorrow."

"Okay," I siad. "I'll run up and talk to her."

As I approached I took in the sight of her, in her mid-80's, she looked, at a distance, strong and able bodied as she hoed away at the weeds growing up around her tomato plants.  My mind flashed back for a second, to my daddy having us kids hold back the plants while he used the tiller to destroy the weeds growing up around his squash, cucumbers and melons.

"Who put you to work?" I asked, teasing her as I approached. She didn't hear me.

When I finally reached the edge of the garden after tromping through high grass in the back yard, she stopped her working to ask me the schedule for this week.  I told her we'd be open again on Thursday as usual.  I always know, deep down, that when Nell calls for me to come, I am going as a vessel.  I can try to give her friendship, comfort, even rent money, but on days like today all she really needed were some ears, willing to listen, and a heart that could sit with her and hold her grief for just a little while.

People need to tell their stories.  They need a safe person in their lives to tell those stories to-someone who won't brush them off or change the subject or start talking about when their great uncle's wife died in some freak accident.  Nell often needs to walk through her yard and remember her husband. She needs to keep him close somehow and her story--her grief story is one way she's able to do that.

I never knew Bud.  He and Nell were the best of friends from what I hear.  Their children all grown and moved away, Bud died on the afternoon of his brother's funeral.  Nell had only turned her back for a second. When she turned around he was lying on the ground where she last saw him standing. She believes he was headed for the porch swing, but never made it. She turned him over, and seeing his face, knew right away he was gone.  That image of his face remains etched in her memory, a stark reminder of how instantaneous loss can be.Traumatized by that image, her dreams prevented her from his visage for months afterwards. She dreamed of him often, and longed to see him as he was in life, but her mind only let her see him from the neck down.

She turned and sat down on the seat of her golf cart as I leaned against the front of it.  I listened as she spoke from her heart, while I brushed fire ants from my feet, trying to look unfazed by the stinging bites.

"I am half alive." She said to me.  "What I really want to do is go curl up in a corner and cover myself up and just be alone.  But I know I can't do that.  I push myself to get out and do things because I know that's what he would expect me to do."

She told me about a conversation Bud had with their daughter a few days before his death.  "If something ever happened to me, I know your mama would be alright." He told Sharon.  "She would go on and she would take care of you kids and make a good life for herself despite me being gone. But if something happened to your mama, I wouldn't make it."

"I can't quit on life because I know what he expected of me." She said, a far off look in her eyes as she gazed across the vast field--land she owns, among so many other worldly possessions.  I think she would give it all just to have him back again.

One night after a particularly rough day, she said she had a very realistic dream that she and Bud were getting the kids ready to take off on a long road trip somewhere."I remember in the dream, telling the kids to hurry up so we could get on the road early.  Then I went into my bedroom and I could hear Bud in the
 bathroom.  I opened the bathroom door and he was standing there, wiping his hands and face with a towel and I finally was able to see his face. I threw my arms around him. I laughed and cried and just hugged him so tight, and it seemed so real, like I could just feel him in my arms.  I asked him, 'Please tell me this is real, that it's not a dream. Please tell me you are really here with me.'"

"He didn't tell me it was real, but he looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I am always with you."

"Back then there was a towel bar in my bathroom, and I always kept a hand towel hanging there.  He would use it and he'd always leave it hanging there crooked.  I fussed about it all the time, and I'd go behind him and straighten it back up.  When I woke up that morning and went in my bathroom that hand towel was hanging there crooked, just like he'd been there."

Goosebumps popped up on my arms, and tears welled up in my eyes and hers. It seems God gives us sometimes, these little gifts of comfort in the most unexpected ways. I really believe it to be true.

I've listened to her tell his death story many a time, but every time there's something new she has to say.  We talked about how difficult her life became when she lost him, how even 23 years later, she has to push herself and will herself to live.

And I suppose that's what we all do to some degree.  We live with the pain of our losses, carrying them always close to our hearts, perpetually only half-alive without the presence of the ones we've loved. We always hear people talk of "moving on," but today I learned that most of us just carry on as best we can.

The truth is, out of all the emotional experiences life throws at us, grief is the one that sticks to your soul with all the strength of the love we held in our hearts for the ones we carry on without.

Best friends.  Partners for life.  That's what they were.  Through good times and bad, they were a team.  "When you've had the best in life, it's hard to live with something less." She said to me.

"You were very lucky to find a love like that." I said to her.  "Most of us spend a lifetime just dreaming about it."

"I know I was." She said.  "I was very lucky."

Grateful to be her confidant, I stood with her a little longer and listened.  She is teaching me, with every story, that some things in life transform us.  Grief is a pain that doesn't ever really expire, but even so,  it must not define us or prevent us from living.  We often treat it like a race to be run and finished, when it's really just a river that ebbs and flows through life.  We revel in the beauty of our memories, and ache at the pain of our losses, never really knowing or understanding why or when the waves of emotion will rise and fall.

What I've learned best, is that the stories of our losses make up the stories of our lives.  We memorize them, detail upon detail.  The memories keep us close to he ones we cherished, and the aches we feel at their absences become in some way, all we have left of them.

Love sometimes dies, joy often gives way to despair, happiness is always fleeting, but grief?  Grief is ever present.  It never, ever dies.  It just lies beneath the surface, tied to the best and the worst of our memories, memories that even death can never take away.