I'm Fine

Her puttering around the kitchen, getting ready for holiday family diner, looking slight but I've come to know her well enough to not think her frail. I pouring coffee, the son-in-law, welcomed whole heartedly but still a bit of an outsider, just a little. She turns from the stove and moves to stand beside me at the counter. I see a look and think she’s trying to remember. Then I know there’s something wrong. Her right hand reaches for the counter and her face turns down. Gently I say her name and ask, “Are you alright”? She answers, “I’m fine”, a soft sing song voice. I don’t believe her.

Only five foot four, it’s not far from looking down, to face down in the brownies. The surprise is later when I can barely see the nose print and I expected forehead. As she’s leaning I’m moving behind her. As soon as she finishes bending enough to hit the brownies her legs give out. I catch her with two hands and am surprised how light she is. For a fraction too short to verbalize, I wonder what to do. I ease her to the floor.

I might have stopped to wonder then, but I didn't  I can’t find a pulse; I don’t try long, swiftly into the other room for the daughter. Nursing training; years ago but she remembers, prides herself on knowing what to do and I've seen her pressed before, she responds well in the moment. All these years I've never seen her out of a bed or room to room so quickly.

Not long in the kitchen and that small frame is moving, trying to get up but the body’s not ready. She speaks, she seems aware; she says she knows what’s wrong. “I’m fine”, the rise in pitch on the letters i, sing song. We help her up. Seconds and she’s going down again.

I have my phone in my hand. The daughters speaking with her, she doesn't want the EMT’s. Too bad, I've got the phone and I've seen too much to not call. We wait.

We try a chair because she won’t stay down with out being forced and that seems wrong though it may have been right. Seconds and she’s down again, slumped in the chair.

He’s in the bedroom still. I haven’t heard him stir. I think about him but go back to thinking about her.

No sirens, just a loud knock on the door. Five of them, her, the daughter, they fill the kitchen. I stand on the other side of the counter and watch. The daughter hears and points to the back of the house, “Get him before he finds a house full of people”. I turn and find him. I explain, just the basics. He’s past me and moving for her. I know his health is not great but all he has he invests in getting to her. She’s talking of some mysterious thing that happened before; he’s talking of this mysterious thing that happened before. She’s on the gurney and out the door.

Small mid-western town, early Sunday morning, I am surprised to find a bright, modern, well staffed hospital, the prejudice of a city boy. She’s in a bed in the emergency department by the time we get there. He can’t stand long so he parks in a chair below the foot of the bed, the daughter's at her head. Between them are four nurses, a doctor and I didn't count the equipment. I stand near him, near the door moving in and out as they shift machines and nurses back and forth.

Soon there are two daughters. They stand close together, close to her. The nurses bustle about. We wait. It quiets down. She’s getting stronger. Test results to come, we’re all hoping she’ll pass.

The daughters stand near her and talk, with each other, with her. I stand near him and watch. He doesn't hear too well and I know he’s only getting parts of what’s being said. I think about what that’s like, to be close, but removed. He looks at me and mater of factly says, “She’ll be alright. This happened before down in Florida”. I nod. And then a change, this tough old farmer who I’d swear never lets his emotions out, shows fear. “If she goes, I’ll die”, not a question, he has no doubt. Then fear turns to despair as dark and strong as I have ever heard and all he says is, “She’s my heart”. I just look at him not knowing what to say. He turns to look back at her. The daughters haven’t noticed.

I wonder if he’s ever told her, has she heard that terror in his voice? I’m sure she knows. She’s clever.

She’s fine.

Silence of the Prairie

Vast, not a large word but it seems to fit the best. Enormous, immense, colossal, imply mass. Vast has a sound that leaves space for the emptiness.

Flat. You might say gently undulating but you’d feel a sense of doubt. A few small farms but mostly the emptiness is relieved by scattered stands of trees. The mind tries to turn them into hills to ease the monotony of it. Here and there a field in corn stubble. Most are bare, dull, brown.

Some places you feel that the sky is hidden from you, by the place, by the hills, the trees, the buildings. Here it’s like being at sea; the eye is disappointed, unable to reach far enough to take it in. I've seen skies that seemed to be broken by the clouds. Not so this day, dark and light the grays seem melded together, one solid, yes, solid it seems, the texture, the form.

The silence also seems to go on forever. Standing here the wind has only me to break it. I turn my ear to just the right angle to get the sound and then I turn away.

The Hat

Oakland to Salt Lake, uneventful, layover, quiet, loading, sitting, taking off, nothing to speak of, and then.

I hadn't noticed during boarding, I suppose I was reading, but there it was, right in front of me, the one thing guaranteed to make women go soft and strong men cringe, a baby on an airplane.

We were at 30,000 ft and miles away before I heard him. Maybe he’d been sleeping. Now he was restless, maybe tired although it didn't sound like that characteristic tired baby cry, more like frustrated. He was loud enough. Poor mother was trying to settle him down but with little result. He just kept it up. I couldn't see either of them through the seat. I could certainly hear them. Him loud and amazingly steady, I wondered that he didn't seem to need to breath. Her speaking softly and the longer it went on the more desperate she sounded. Trying to sooth him failed, reasoning with him was even less effective. She made a valiant effort.

I took off the hat. I like this hat. I have in mind the first time I saw it in the catalog it had a leather brim but I didn't order till the next year and it came in canvas. Forest green canvas brim and a bold red canvas body. The white ball is great, not just a bundle of yarn with the loops cut short, it feels like some sort of hollow rubber ball wrapped in soft, fuzzy white whatever. Feels great, squeezing it gives you an oddly satisfying emotional response, sort of peaceful, calming.

I put the ball on the top of the seat back and slowly slid it forward. She must have been holding him facing me because the response was immediate. He went quiet.

I slid it down and then back up to the top of the seat and then started it down towards him again. Up and down a couple times and then… yes, a giggle, barely audible but there it was, well maybe a gurgle. I slid it down again and then as I was pulling it back up I felt him. He didn't try and yank it away as I had expected, just a gentle tug. I felt a moment of dread thinking how it would look after he started chewing on it.

We went back and forth a while. I’d pull it up and he’d pull it down, nothing violent, not a sound, just slowly, steadily, and back and forth.

I was surprised when he let go. I had expected a battle to get my hat back. Oddly, I wasn't satisfied. I pulled it over to my side and then pushed it between the seats. I’m already distracted from my book. I’m not ready to give up the game. I peek between the seats and see him smiling and looking and then he grasps it. I pull and he lets it go. I slid it over the top again and immediately he takes hold.

Here we stay. I can’t say how long, but we stay, each of us holding our end. We have no sight of each other, we make no sound but we stay. My mind wanders and I think of the importance of human contact. I wonder if this engagement between us has some sort of meaning. Is this him learning to interact with the unexpected? Is he responding to my hat because it is something new where his mother asking him to quiet down probably isn't.  Is it the soft furriness of the ball, or its squeezy nature, or is it my pressure, pulling? He knows I’m there, he saw me. Is it human contact or is it just the ball? And why on earth am I still pulling on this thing now that he’s gotten quiet? We stay, each pulling just enough to stay engaged.

The noise and jostle of landing breaks the spell. He lets go. I put my hat on and she thanks me over and over, relief plain in her voice.

I’m thankful. He never chewed on it.