I sat down to write a different post tonight. I had good intentions and the post started out well, but it mired in the mud of my words about halfway through. I saved it as a draft and turned to do something else, like sorting through our son’s guitar music and miscellaneous papers, things I didn’t deem important enough to take to his children in July.
I recycled the music, and set aside the books on World War 2 (he was very interested in the subject of the Pacific theater: the airplanes, the carriers, Midway Island, and so on). A folder with some Boy Scout awards was all that remained. And a photograph.
His fourth birthday. The cake was John Deere green. I don’t remember taking the photograph or anything else about the day, but I remember that cake and how excited he was.
He wrote a message on the back of it in yellow highlighter. He was trying out cursive. The letters are strained, but the words are clear enough. I ran the photo through my scanner with adjustments for contrast and brightness.
i Love you mom Love Levi P
A gift of passage, perhaps? A note from the past, certainly. A stab to the heart, yes. Because I love you, too, Levi.
I didn’t cry much when I was in Florida visiting his children and his grave, but tonight the tears just flow. It can’t be real. He can’t be gone. His fourth birthday was just yesterday.
What should be his 37th birthday is looming on the calendar. He lived just thirty years after that photo was taken and it just can’t be.
Damn grief. Pour me a shot of Jameson’s and let me sit in the dark with it. Let me remember his laugh, his smile, his hug.
To everything there is a season… Turn, Turn, Turn
I want to say something profound about this cycle of grief, but there are no words left in me. I urge anyone suffering from the loss of a loved one to look up The Compassionate Friends on Facebook or on their website: http://www.compassionatefriends.org. If you are grieving a military loved one look for TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors): http://www.taps.org. You are not alone and you are normal.
Now, where’s that shot of whiskey? (j/k – alcohol is NOT the answer.)
I didn’t sleep well last night. I am currently sipping on a cup of coffee (the real stuff, not decaf) and waiting for the caffeine and acetaminophen to go to work. Lifting my right arm is difficult until the pain killer kicks in.
One week ago, on a warm Thursday morning, I set out to conquer some of the weeds that had started in my flower beds. I missed a good deal of blooms while I was away in Florida, so there is a great deal of dead-heading to be done as well. I dove right in and was making good progress around the largest flower bed. I did a little edging, pulled out errant evening primroses and thinned out their bed as well. I crawled under the Hawthorne and dug out some bothersome wood sorrel and a lot of errant oregano.
My oregano patch is large and unruly, but bees, wasps, and other pollinators love it. This time of year, the air around the oregano hums. But I only allow it to grow within its confines or, like the evening primroses, it would take over the entire yard and choke out all my other beautiful flowers and herbs. I believe this is what triggered the main body of the herb.
I stepped around my weed bucket to leave the area and move on when the oregano wrapped around my left foot. It wouldn’t let go and I was thrown forward. These things always happen in slow motion: My body tipping forward, my hands reaching ahead of me for the ground, my body twisting away from the dreaded oregano plant and the weeding pad looming up to catch me.
It looks harmless. Kindly, even.
I slammed into the arm of that with my armpit and the momentum of my top-heavy torso. BOOM! AHHH! I rolled over in agony, tears on the verge of flowing. My husband came running. I ran into the house and applied arnica.
But I am brave. I brushed it off, said I was all right, and proceeded to work some more in the garden, but away from the oregano now. Ungrateful herb! I worked for maybe half an hour before I realized my right arm was NOT beginning to feel better but was, in fact, hurting more. Of course, there was no bruise to see because: Arnica. But it sure FELT like a bruise throughout my armpit and into my right breast.
Ice. And – oh! I had hydrocodone hiding in the house, a remnant of breast cancer surgery that I never needed to use. I’m not saying the pain went completely away but it certainly eased off considerably. Until nighttime and bedtime. My arm and chest stiffened up, I couldn’t roll over, I could barely get myself back out of bed… You know the kind of pain that just dogs you? Yeah, that.
My husband drove me everywhere. I insisted on going to the big city wide yard sale and the art festival by the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. I was fine, fine. We even stopped and had a beer at one of our favorite haunts (I was careful not to mix the meds). Then night came on again.
I started to worry: had I dislocated my shoulder? It didn’t look like it. I could use it. Visions of a doctor putting in back into place frightened me (more pain?!), but it was now obvious I had DONE SOMETHING. I convinced myself to go to the Urgent Care (rather, have my chauffeur drive me to the Urgent Care as I was now unable to hold the car door open long enough to get seated).
She poked and prodded gently. No, I hadn’t dislocated anything. Of course there was no bruise (Arnica). Nothing appeared to be broken but they didn’t have an x-ray tech available until Monday. She didn’t think anything WAS broken, however: she posited that I had cracked a rib.
And it all made sense. I’ve “been there done that” before. I cracked two ribs on a crate thirteen years ago, almost to the date. I know when because our son was visiting with his first born, and we celebrated Justin’s first birthday here. Justin just turned 14.
I didn’t go to the doctor. I had a stash of oxycontin left over from dental surgery. I knew that even an x-ray wouldn’t help because there is nothing the medical field can do for cracked ribs. You just have to suffer it out. It took nine weeks to heal.
The Urgent Care physician just nodded and smiled. “That’s pretty much what we have here. We could do an x-ray but it probably isn’t going to show anything beyond a cracked rib. I can prescribe some muscle relaxers to help you through the night.”
So now my house mocks me as the dirt, dust, and dog hair pile up. The garden is overrun with dead flower heads and weeds are bravely flourishing. I only travel places if someone else is driving. And sleep eludes me, especially when the dog feels the need to cuddle up against my back and prevent me from finding a more comfortable position. You move a seventy pound mutt in the middle of the night? HA!
I’m trying to learn how to do things left-handed, but it isn’t happening very quickly. I’ll dust and dust mop today – I can do those things with my left arm. The garden is just going to have to wait along with all my plans for the end of the summer.
I managed to type all this and sip my coffee. The acetaminophen is kicking in. Nice weeding weather outside teases me, but I know better. A cracked rib takes a long time to heal. And I am out of the good drugs and down to the Over-the-Counter ones. By my calculations (and prior experience) I have six to eight more weeks of this.
We did a lot of driving one our first day out. We wanted to get as close to Fort Worth as possible. Our second day out included a short but sweet side trip into Fort Worth to see our cousin, Chuck, and his wife, Kathy, but especially to see Uncle “Mike”, our last standing uncle on the Wilcox side. We were treated to a little Texas style barbeque (the pulled pork was great, the sauce was ho-hum).
Uncle “Mike” is a wealth of family history and has been passing that knowledge down. Chuck printed a handful of old family photos for Terry and I and I can’t wait to return the favor with photos he requested that I might have.
The nicest La Quinta we stayed in was in Lawson, Oklahoma. I wandered down to see what was left of the breakfast (nothing). Fort Sill was hosting a graduation that day and all the young soldiers and their families had grazed through and cleaned out the area. A tiny woman in a La Quinta uniform was standing there, contemplating closing down the buffet. We struck up a conversation, mostly about young soldiers, young people, and the challenges they face today.
Miss Betty stood about four foot eight, had dark curly hair tinted with a shade of orange and bangs that curled over her forehead. She was thin, frail, spry, and sharp. She told me a story of how she once gave her last two dollars to an immigrant couple because they had a toddler with them that needed something to drink. She was so touched by their response and thankfulness. We held hands and prayed together, and the last I saw of her was her face peeking around the door to wave good-bye to me. Miss Betty.
That day we saw more wildlife. The heat index was dropping and creatures were stirring, particularly birds of prey. The country we drove across was the southern edge of The Great Dust Bowl and one could see how the dust and dry shaped the landscape. Scrubby trees were planted in an effort to hold the soil, but the land is flat, dry, and baked. We pulled off the road in Duke, OK, to look at some of the houses. A pair of locals started following us (who’d blame them: Florida plates, driving slow through a small town?) and we stopped to yak with one of them. He was a sweet old guy working for the public water system, but he didn’t have much knowledge on the older homes (except there was a rumor about a movie to be made in one of them).
Next stop was Memphis, Texas. The streets are paved in brick. Real brick, not cobblestones.
Picturesque and quiet, the county seat of Hall County. There was a bank on every corner, or at least some buildings that had been banks at one time. A quaint little spot that deserves more investigation!
Driving from Pueblo through Grand Junction was a long and difficult day for me. Memories. My husband and I drove that route one summer on our way to Colorado Springs to meet our first granddaughter. Our son took us along part of that route to see Royal Gorge. Levi haunts these places. He was just beginning to fall in love with Special Forces then and was stationed out of Fort Carson. He joined up with 10th Special Forces Group and was deployed to Iraq for a short time. He lived, loved, got divorced, remarried – all in Colorado Springs. I’m thankful we didn’t go into CS.
On to Provo and one of the worst Days Inns we stayed at. My brother booked it on a promo where it was advertised as a “new” motel. It was not new. It was not easy to locate. There were permanent residents who stared off into the distance and talked to themselves. One stayed busy rearranging rocks. Another paced the balcony after an apparent nightmare, muttering and casting out demons in the middle of the night. The bathroom was too small to turn around in and the water only heated to lukewarm. The coffee maker was missing pieces. The mattresses probably had bedbugs. We left as early as possible the next morning. Pretty certain my brother gave it a minus 5 rating.
It rained sometime during the night and the playa shimmered in mirages.
I am endlessly fascinated by mirages. There really is a mountain in the photo; there really is not a shimmering lake surrounding it. The playa is salt and alkali, alkali and salt. Emigrants to California passed to the north of these flats, camping near City of Rocks in Idaho before dropping down to the southern route through Nevada (which is alkali and brush, brush and alkali, but at least has the Humboldt River meandering across most of the state until it sinks into the ground and disappears altogether.
We decided to take a side trip out to Bonneville Flats where there really was water on the playa – and some racing even was happening. Or not – they were still deciding if there was too much water on the surface or if they could go further out and race.
Next stop was the old Wendover Army Air Base (Utah). I didn’t know this existed.
The museum was overpriced for what little it offered, but we paid anyway and wandered through the displays. I was most impressed with the history of the Enola Gay. I missed something in history classes or they simply did not teach this: the Enola Gay was housed at Wendover Army Base. Of course, we were never taught much about the history of Wendover, excepting that half of the town is locate in Utah (Mountain Time) and half of it is in Nevada (Pacific Time).
We paused in Elko, NV, to find the little house we lived in when our sister was born. It looks so tiny now: a standard white US Forest Service residence. There is a full basement underneath it: we kids had our bedroom down there. In Winnemucca, we paused to snap a photo of the haunted house we grew up in. It was an ungodly pink then, and all one residence. Now it is black (!?) and split into a duplex.
That green space between where I stood to take the photo and the house used to be an uncovered dry ditch full of milkweed and Monarch butterflies in the 1960’s. They buried it the year we moved away and I still hear the echoes of Joni Mitchell singing, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”. I have a rant on that strip of land and I may never forgive those who were in power who decided that Monarchs weren’t worth protecting. My 12 year old self looked into the future and knew. I’d like to subvert the city’s nice lawn and sow some milkweed seeds in that grass!
The last stop was Reno, of course. I met up with an online friend for a quick lunch on Monday, the 7th.I’ve met her before and we always seem to hit it off in person as well as online. I left the restaurant happy but tired – and decided spur of the moment to load up my car and drive home that afternoon. It was ten thirty at night when I arrived home, but I’m glad I went when I did: there was little to no traffic, even on I-5. And to top it off, when I pulled in to the gas station in Klamath Falls, I got an attendant who pumped my gas for me.
This moppet was so excited to see me that he barked and growled at me. “WHO are YOU?”
Gee, thanks, Ruger-puger. I’m your hooman mom and I missed you, too.
106 degrees (Fahrenheit) with a “heat index” (“real feel”) of 120 degrees. That’s 41C and 48.9C. Miserable, in any world.
I love the heat. Bring it on. Ninety and up. Problem is, my body no longer regulates my temperature and heat melts me. I blame this on a heat stroke I gave myself the year we went to get our first Wirehaired Pointing Griffon from Idaho. I have never recovered. I’m also in my mid-sixties and slightly overweight.
Florida was hot. Oregon is hot right now. I am already sweating at eleven AM (Pacific Daylight).
But the trade-off in Florida was getting to see all six of our son’s children in one place, a first for me since his funeral in December of 2020. They have changed so much, yet not at all. Funny, mischievous, nerdy, righteous, smart. See my son’s gestures and facial expressions displayed in their young faces was cathartic and joyous. They are beautiful people.
Our daughter, Arwen, Kaysie, Justin, Erin, Myself. Korinne, Nolan, John, Micah, Miss V (Arwen’s “mini-me”). And only two of the five dogs.
There are also a tortoise, a monitor lizard, and (at the time of my visit): untold number of Fowler’s toads courtesy of the two younger girl cousins.
We spent part of a day at Emerald Coast Zoo (https://emeraldcoastzoo.com/). Justin and I burned out in the heat. The big hit was (as always) the parakeet cage. If you ever are in that part of Florida, you must take the kiddos!
A highlight of the day was getting to see my nephew, his partner, and their four children.
We visited Levi’s headstone and left him an offering of Key Lime Pie and a bottle of whiskey.
The rest of that day was spent “chilling” on Pensacola Beach. the water was warmer than most swimming pools, clear, and calm. The beach was not as crowded as I would have expected and everyone I observed picked up ALL their garbage when they left. All.Their.Garbage.
The coastal birds were not exactly what I was looking for, but they were quite friendly. (Okay, there were Laughing gulls and brown pelicans, but the rock dove was the one who posed for a beach photo.)
Most of our time was spent inside the house with the television on and children sprawled about.
I had four days to spend with these miscreants. Too little time. School has already started for some of them, football practice, cheer practice, music, theater, and those boring “three R’s”. Birthdays have already come and gone and time marches forward, ignorant of our losses, our joys, our pains, and our accomplishments. Time spent with family is the most precious time of all.
I had a brilliant idea back in early March (before I knew I had breast cancer): instead of purchasing airplane tickets to fly to Florida and see all my son’s children together, I would ask my brother if he was up to a road trip. After all, his son had just moved to within two hours of our daughter-in-law and we haven’t been on a road trip together in 14 years. That road trip was to Colorado to see my son’s first born.
I don’t mind flying, but it’s very expensive right now, there have been a number of cancellations and complete mix-ups in the news, and I thought a road trip might be a little cheaper than a solo flight out (and a lot more fun). In the end, I think the road trip cost nearly as much as the flight would have but it *was* a lot more fun – and we saw a lot of the beautiful country contained within the borders of the United States.
I have been living in the State of Oregon for 46 years. No sales tax and no self-service at the gas pump. I pumped gas briefly during the winter of 1978 but someone else has done it for me since then.. This was about to change as our legislation went around the vote of the people and passed a bill allowing self service at most pumps beginning the 5th of August. I figured I had a couple weeks on the road to relearn how to pump gas on fancy “new” (to me) machines.
Also, we had five boxes of “stuff” in my attic that belonged to our son that probably needed to be delivered to his heirs, and since they were all six going to be in one spot… I could easily haul all those boxes in a rental car. Long story short, breast cancer was dealt with and the road trip was on. All I had to do was drive myself the 8+ hours to Reno and home again. And, meantime, my brother unloaded a couple of boxes of his son’s belongings to deliver to Florida as well.
I left home on the 23rd of July. That went smoothly, but getting the rental car on the morning of the 24th was a two-hour ordeal. We only made it as far as Ely, our high school home town. I haven’t been there since 2012 when we finished cleaning out our father’s estate. Ely had a stop light then. Today it doesn’t. (There’s a stop light in East Ely.)
We got serious with travel on the 25th. A short stop in Pioche, NV, to take photos.
We decided to drive through Cedar City, Utah, and down through Kanab, over the Glen Canyon bridge, and on into Flagstaff. The drive from Cedar City to Kanab is a spectacular road through winding canyons formed by sandstone and granite. The walls of the canyon are pink and white with an occasional dusting of coal deposits. Iron is mined near Cedar City. From Kanab to the Glen Canyon Dam, the road takes one over mountain passes and smooth meadows carved out by ancient glaciers. The views can be breath-taking.
We paused to watch a storm build over Arizona.
Glen Canyon is intense. The water in Lake Powell is extremely low. The architecture of both the bridge over the canyon and the dam are a marvel or engineering.
July 26th found us on the road with hopes to make it to Amarillo by evening. HaHaHa. We made it to Tumcumcari, New Mexico, in part because we had to dawdle a little in Winslow and we stopped to see The Crater (Barringer Meteorite Crater). I was not impressed with Winslow, but they do have a bronze statue of Glen Frey near “the Hitchhiker” and that’s pretty cool.
The Crater, on the other hand, is impressive. You can see where it churned up earth long before you reach the site. It was formed around 50,000 years ago, is over 4,000 feet across and over 700 feet deep. You can’t see into the crater bottom without a telescope (or a 300mm camera lens).
It was far too hot to go on a guided tour and we didn’t stay long, but I count it as a highlight of our trip.
We caught up with a storm as we hurried on toward Tucumcari: lightning lit up the sky ahead of us for miles, culminating in this:
We finally arrived in Tucumcari where I booked us a room. An old man and his dog sat outside the lobby in the shade. Charlie, the dog, wanted chin scratches, so I obliged. When I came back out from the lobby, the old man was in a very agitated state: TARANTULA! I don’t think he was amused by my reaction: I hurried to get my camera and tell my brother to get his before the spider moved on. THEN we ushered it off the sidewalk. Texas Brown Tarantula, very common.
We decided we were running short on time, so the leg on the 27th was pretty much a straight drive through to Paris with a couple side trips to drive on the original Route 66. We spent the night in Paris, TX.
The first image is actually in Tucumcari, but the hat on the “Eiffel Tower” replica is ALL Paris, Texas.
July 28 – Our date for arriving in Florida. And we did drive straight through, except for a slight detour in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to tour the area where the battle of Vicksburg happened. Vicksburg is a sobering reminder of a young Nation torn in two, brother vs. brother, nephew vs. uncle, and trenches dug within feet of the “enemy”. It was a bloody siege. The North prevailed with General U.S. Grant defeating Confederate General John C. Pemberton. The day we drove through and looked at the monuments of the different units that fought (and died), the air was close and musical with the song of cicadas. I could imagine the screams of men and horses, the boom of cannons, the smell of gunpowder, blood, and sulphur, and the fear that must have prevailed in those trenches. The battle raged for 47 days.
That was our last tourist stop on the first half of our trip. We arrived at my destination after ten PM on the 28th.
Jaci Dawn 