The Furious Spinner

Up at Cape Disappointment, Foxglove whispered, "Make this, send it. It'll help them to listen with their hearts." Only Foxglove said the name, said who I should make this for. So I walk the road by Linda's house. Foxgloves curve around the road. They haven't sprayed here in years. This is where Linda used to walk. Where we used to walk. The dogs running in front of us. Flowers everywhere. Lovely natural grasses. Tiny streams. What if every road in America looked like this? Beautiful. The foxgloves lean toward me. "Pick me! Pick me!" But I think I want one off the road, even though only the occasional car goes by. Finally I relent and take one blossom off a purple one and another off a white one; they make out in the bowl together. I step away and light shimmers through the trees and spotlights the bowl. Thank you.

As I stay with Foxglove, I realize I need to listen, too. I am too suspicious, too willing to believe the worst of people. Trust is not an easy thing. This will help me, too. Sometimes people just need someone to hear them.

Later, after I walk the dogs and come home, I call Linda. I sit in the dark talking with her. She is in the hospital getting blood transfusions. She hates the hospital. The air dries her out, hurts her eyes and throat. She hates it. She thinks the doctors aren't trying to help her. She's desperate. Has too much paperwork at home. Can't leave her daughter with all this junk to take care of after she's gone.

"I just want one more period of time where I feel good," she says. "Where I can walk in the woods."

I know, I know.

"I'm so discouraged. My spirits are so low."

"Then let me tell you the tale of the two crows," I say.

She is very excited by this story. It is significant to her. I believe she sees herself as that second crow. She asks me to do a journey for her, find out if she should be packing her bags. My stomach twists. Is this information she would really want and why does she think I can get it? But I tell myself to buck up. Do what she asks. See what happens. And essence of Doug fir. She wants me to try again. And get essence from that tree and another tree. The "welcoming tree" by her house. The essence of the forest. I tell her I want to get the essence of her garden. I've never heard of anyone doing that, but I'd like to try. I tell her this essence could live on after we're all dead, for hundreds of years, helping people. She seems to like that idea.

She's so afraid of the hypercalcemia. (The cancer eats the bones, and then too much calcium from the bones is released into the bloodstream.) Last year it almost killed her. She can't stop her mind. She wants someone to save her. I would be the same. She wants to live.

I listen. I hold her in my heart. I hear every word. I listen with my heart, with my whole body.

"Please close your eyes and blow some fresh air on me," she asks.

So I do. Then I murmur, "You are breathing the exhales of trees. Even in the dry hospital air, it's still the exhales of trees. The welcoming tree is holding its arms out for you. You are welcome here. You belong here. It's all right. Everything is going to be all right..."

She tells me she's ready to let go for now. She'll call me later if she needs me. I say good-bye and turn off the phone. I sit and listen to the pulsating darkness.

Then I go up to bed.


2 comments

2 Comments:

So much loss, Kim.

All praise and comfort to good friends and beloveds in all worlds -

By  Theriomorph, at 7:43 AM  

Thank you very much. I was looking in the Carmina Gadelica for a blessing on death--or for inspiration to rewrite one. Most of them were about God, and my friend was an atheist. But I found one called Joyous Death. I think it was said as a prayer (long) before death, but I don't know. And I'm interested in the "oil" reference because I found it in other prayers/blessings about death, too. Must be anointing oil. Here's part of it:

Joyous death

Death with oil,
Death with joy,
Death with light,
Death with gladness.

Death without pain,
Death without fear,
Death without death,
Death without horror,
Death without grieving.


May it be so.

By  Kim Antieau, at 11:03 AM  

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