My week this week is consumed with sadness.
Sadness for my best girl Joanie and her family.
Joanie was almost five years cancer free when she started getting really bad headaches and was sensitive to light and sound. After some testing, the doctors discovered a couple of tumors in her brain. She went into the hospital in early June and has been there ever since.
Mike and I went to see her Tuesday morning. He wanted to stop by the garage first and make an appointment to have Big Red inspected so we took the back roads through Liberty Corners to Towanda. I took pictures.
Mike parked in the hospital lot and clicked the locks behind us. As we walked toward the entrance, an older couple strolled ahead, maybe twenty feet or so. On the grass to our left sat a black woman with a toddler — two, maybe three years old.
“Hi!” the bright-eyed child called out, looking up with expectant hope on his face and lifting a small hand in greeting toward the couple ahead.
No reply.
“Hi,” he tried again with another, but smaller wave. I couldn’t say if they hadn’t heard, or they were just preoccupied, or maybe they were unmoved by all that sweetness blooming right there beside them.
In my mind’s eye, I imagined the moment if that “hi” had been meant for me. I’d smile and say “Good morning!” in a sing-song voice without hesitation.
When we were closer to him, I looked at that sweet face and smiled — my “good morning” at the ready.
But he didn’t say “hi.”
He said, “Jesus loves you.”
The mom’s head came up and she looked at me.
My “Good morning!” might not’ve been the right response, but it was already out before I could reconsider.
I gave her a soft smile, simple and accepting.
She smiled back.
I took the moment in and stored it away. Later I would reflect on it. But right now, my mind was on Joanie.
I had to stop at the information desk to find out what room she was in.
“639-A. Go down the hall behind you and take the A elevator to the sixth floor,” the elderly receptionist told me.
At the sixth floor, we followed the signs. The door was mostly closed. I knocked and a nurse called out that it would be a few minutes. We sat in the waiting room where we were soon joined by Joan’s daughter, Faith.
“I’ve been staying with her at night but they wouldn’t let me stay with her last night. I slept in the car,” she told us.
Remembering how miserable it was the last time we slept in Big Red, Mike asked, “How did you sleep?”
“Not bad,” Faith said. “Not bad at all.”
After a little chit-chat, Faith tells us, “Mom has been confused lately and some of the things she says don’t make any sense. Just don’t be offended if she says something.”
Faith left to check and see if the nursing staff was done. “You can go in now,” she said when she came back to the waiting area.
We went in and Joanie was happy to see me.
I sat on the edge of her bed, held her hand, stroked her face and hair. “Your skin is so hot,” I said.
“I know. Your cool hands feel so good. Would you put them on the back of my neck?”
I did as she asked. After a bit I got a cool rag and bathed her face, neck, and chest.
“I want to tell you what I want for my funeral,” Joanie said.
“Oh honey. I think you’d better tell your husband or your daughter.”
“I did. But it seems like they’re not listening to me.”
“How about your sister?”
“I told her, too. And Pastor Jay.”
I was not about to promise something on a deathbed that I couldn’t deliver. “If they can’t get it done, I’m not going to have any say.”
“But will you help Ben?”
“Sure I will! Whatever I can do, but sweetness, I don’t want you to go.”
It wasn’t long after that that Ben and Faith came in.
“We’re going to go. I’ll see you in a couple of days, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
I gave her hand a last, gentle squeeze, cupped her beautiful face in my hands, and kissed her, told her I loved her and we left.
We stopped at the Walmart and picked up a few things before heading for home.
When we got home, I gave Bondi a new squeaky toy. She always expects one. I put groceries away but left out a half-gallon of milk and a plain yogurt. Right on the tail of putting groceries away and taking the re-usable shopping bags back out to the car, I mixed the yogurt and milk in a big bowl and got it in the cooker. I’d let it cook anywhere from eight to twenty-four hours, but my normal is around twenty hours. I’d have a fresh batch of homemade yogurt by early the next afternoon.
I like my homemade yogurt but lately I’ve been adding canned, unsweetened fruit to it. That’s pretty good, too, and gives me a serving of fruit, since I know I don’t get the daily recommended servings of fruit a day.
The next day, say, late morning, I’m walking past my yogurt maker and see there’s an inordinate amount of whey. I never get that much whey or that kind of separation either.
I took it out of the cooker, smelled it, and touched the top. It was very firm.
Did I make cheese? I wonder.
I consulted the internet. If it smells okay and tastes okay, it’s probably okay. You can eat it that way or you might be able to stir it back together.
I didn’t detect a bad smell so I spooned it off, thinking I’d have something like cottage cheese. But when I tasted it, I spit it out. It was bad! I took the whole mess out to the cat room and between the cats and coons and possums, it was gone the next day.
I don’t often lose a batch of yogurt.
“Why did it go bad?” Mike asked.
“There’s lots of reasons. The temperature wasn’t right or a strain of bad bacteria got in there.”
Whatever happened, I was out of yogurt until we got back to the store.
“Wanna go with me to check the mail?” my handsome mountain man asks.
“Sure. I’m not doing anything special.”
Mike picked up Bondi and I hooked Raini’s leash on her collar. The mail hadn’t yet been delivered yet so we took a ride and I took pictures for you.
Tiger Swallowtail with only one tail.
Monarch on Bergamot.
Great Spangled Fritillary.
Skipper on Pickerelweed.
And this, my loves, is what’s left after a dragonfly emerges with his wings!
Three bees and a fly on Bull Thistle.
We checked the box when we got back to it and the mail still wasn’t there so we rode out to Vernon’s pond. I found a bunch of turkey feathers and I’m not sure what the others are — but there were a lot of them. Whether something got into a tussle with a duck or goose or if they actually caught a bird and ate it, I’ll never know. One thing’s for sure. Even though I saw a lot of feathers, I didn’t see any blood or guts.
A hummingbird moth, or humbee as Momma called them.
I’m not for sure what kind of wasp this is but one thing’s for sure, she’s making tunnels and cells to lay her eggs. If the picture is good enough, you may see she’s carrying a piece of dirt in her jaws.
I was sitting on the kitchen patio, drinking water after mowing the dog run, when Spitfire creeps up on the other side of the fence. Creeps because he knows if Raini sees him, she’ll give chase. Even if he’s on the other side of the fence, if she charges, he runs. It’s kinda funny because in the house, Spitfire doesn’t run from her all that much, and if he doesn’t run, it takes all the fun out of it for Raini.
I guess when your mind is at rest, and not thinking about anything in particular, it allows other thoughts to float in.
“Jesus loves you,” the little one said. Why did he say that to me and not to the couple ahead of us? I wondered.
Then I remembered something that happened just the night before our trip to the hospital.
I’d gone out with the girls on the last pee before bed. I looked up — and caught my breath. The night sky glittered like diamonds, each star a twinkle, a pinprick of eternity. I could almost see the galaxies and worlds beyond, the ones we glimpse through telescope lenses, too far to touch but close enough to stir the soul. How mighty God must be to speak such a vast, beautiful universe into existence. And not just the bigness of it, but the detail! Every star different and God knows every one by name.
My mind drifted back to Earth. I saw how enormous it is — compared to me, anyway — and how intricately, how delicately it’s all balanced. From the way our planet orbits the sun to the inner workings of every cell of every organism. And there I stood, a tiny speck beneath a vast sky full of stars, surrounded by blinking lightning bugs, chirping crickets, and the wind sighing through the trees, in a backyard, in a state, a country, on a planet crafted by the same hand that flung the stars.
Why would He care about a little pissant like me? I thought.
No lie. That’s exactly what I thought.
God, our Lord, and Savior, Jesus, does love each and every one of us and I believe He sent me the answer through the mouth of a babe.
“Jesus loves you.”
He loves each and every one of us.
My reverie was cut short by a phone call.
I wasn’t the only one mowing that day, but at least I didn’t get stuck like someone did! I think this is a record year for the number of times Mike’s gotten stuck, and the season isn’t over yet!
Mike had me get on the tractor and he operated the golf cart — right into the ditch!
“Now you get on the cart and I’ll lift the back with the tractor and you drive it out,” my engineer, my problem-solver said.
I was a little nervous getting onto the cart leaning so hard. Mike bumped it pretty hard with the tractor. I closed my eyes and gunned it. It worked! I was back on solid ground.
While Mike had the tractor out, he took out a small scrub willow that has been bothering him for a while. Then he had to smooth out the hole he left behind.
“Let’s go back and see Joanie again,” I said to Mike.
“When do you wanna go?”
“Friday?”
“Okay.”
Friday morning comes and Mike opens the gallon of milk we’d bought at the Walmart on Tuesday.
“Taste this, Peg,” he said. “I think it’s bad.”
I didn’t taste it but I gave the milk a stir and could smell it was bad.
Hmmm. Let me see, here. His milk had a sell by date that was still three days in the future and I lost a batch of yogurt. Are the two related? Maybe the cooler both of our milks were in had quit working.
Driving down the road, I call out names of things I know. “Rose of Sharon,” I say passing the bushes of pretty flowers. “Look at all that Bergamot!” The hillside was covered! “Tree of Heaven.” The seed pods turn orange in the fall.
And this is the only other picture I took.
We get to the hospital and I stopped at the desk to find out what room Joanie had been moved to. This time she was on the fifth floor, room 508.
Mike and I get off the elevator and follow the signs to the patient rooms. Walking down the hallway, I was watching the room numbers on the left side and when we got to the end of the hallway, the room numbers had only gone up to 506. We turned around and started reading the room numbers on the other side and found we’d walked right past 508.
The door was open but there was a curtain around Joanie’s bed. There was a hospital worker there, tending to Joanie.
“Hi!” came a sweet voice. I turned and there was Paisley, Joanie’s granddaughter. “They’re giving her a bath right now,” she said.
We went down to the waiting room and sat with Joanie’s husband, Ben, daughter Faith, and Faith’s children Paisley and Wyatt.
After a while, Paisley checked and they were done.
I got to see Joanie, I got to hold her hand and stroke her face. I got to tell her one more time that I loved her, and give her a kiss, but she never woke up.
After we left the hospital, we stopped at Walmart. Customer Service quickly refunded the money for both milks and the yogurt I’d lost. No question asked.
We picked up a couple of things I’d forgotten when we were there Tuesday and by the time we left, it was just past eleven and lunch time.
“Chinese?” Mike asked.
“Okay. They have the stuffed mushrooms here.”
We’re shown to a table, order drinks, and head for the buffet. I start putting a tad of this and a taste of that onto my plate and when I get to the stuffed mushrooms, they looked — old. Like maybe they’d been made the day before. But I do love them, (did I tell you that?) so I took two. The first one was a small one and I popped the whole thing in my mouth — when I got back to the table, not at the buffet — and I think it was bad. Sour. But I championed on and swallowed it anyway. The other stuffed mushroom was larger so I cut a piece off. This time, this one had more filling, this time I knew for sure it was bad. I spit it out right onto my plate. Not very comely, but effective.
I could’ve told them, but I didn’t.
Should I have told them?
Maybe.
But it’s their job to make sure the food is good before they put it out.
“I’m not sure I ever want to go back there again,” I told Mike. And that really isn’t fair. We’ve eaten there numerous times and that’s the first time I’ve ever gotten anything bad.
On the way home we saw a huge amount of smoke on the horizon. “I hope it’s not our house,” I said to Mike. Then I remembered. “I guess everything we have is given to us by the Lord. If He wants it back, He can take it.”
It wasn't our house that was burning, it was a junk yard on fire at Spring Hill.
That evening I’d gotten a message from Faith. Joanie was taking fewer breaths.
I don’t think she ever woke up again.
Early Sunday, around three a.m., Joanie went home to be with our Lord. She was 57.
Let’s call this one done.
Done!
