TheBanyanTree: Driving without Headlights

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I love this time of year as we sink into darkness and the air is frosty and
the weather person promises a dusting of snow.  I love the oranges and the
reds and the yellows as they fade into a palette of browns.  I love moving
inside away from the chilly wind and sitting myself in front of our
fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate.  I love baking cookies and cakes and
bread.  I cocoon myself in thick colorful sweaters and my summer body
becomes a mystery.

I don’t hunt, but I envy those who do.  Not because of hunting, but giving
themselves an opportunity to tramp around in the woods or fields or swamps
and see nature take down and discard her summer finery to sleep for a while
and begin dreaming of her spring show.

But hunting is dangerous, no matter how experienced a hunter might be.  My
coworker’s husband was deer hunting last weekend, and accidentally shot and
killed his best friend and brother-in-law (my coworker’s sister’s husband)
thinking he was a deer.  It was snowing and in the woods it can be difficult
to see the orange jacket.  Nothing can be more horrible than that - to end a
life without intent.

So I went to my uncle’s memorial service with a heavy heart.  Fall and death
can be synonymous.  My cousins were there and even though some of us hadn’t
seen each other in years, we couldn’t stop touching or hugging.  The strands
of our lives hadn’t broken at all and we were children again.

One of my younger cousins made gift boxes for my uncle’s seven other
children.  There was a book in each one, Chicken Soup for a Father’s Soul, a
small box of my uncle’s hair, some memorial cards, and laminated pictures.

I thought the pictures would be of my uncle in his younger days.  Oh, my, he
was a handsome man, and there were a few of him smiling into the camera with
his cowboy hat on and his western style boots.  But the majority of the
pictures were of him as he was dying.  The pictures showed him as thin,
emaciated, barely conscious, and clinging to life by just a thread as the
cancer rotted him from the inside out.  This was how my cousin wanted
everyone to remember their father.  The last picture was of him in death.
It seemed she was not focused on his joy of living, his beauty as a man, and
the smile on his face, but on his final moments as nothing but a husk
without the corn.

Most of us turned away in embarrassment as she moved about the room trying
to show the pictures to everyone.  My cousin didn’t realize death is a
private affair, not to be photographed and recorded, especially for her
father who would have wanted his children to remember him when he was
strong.

They buried my uncle with my parents and my grandmother (his mother).  The
autumn flowers Ray and I placed on their graves a few weeks ago were still
there and my cousins added the flowers from the service.  They formed a
circle, hand in hand, to honor the dead, and gently rang the little wind
chimes hanging in Grandma’s tree.

The sun slipped in and out of the high flying clouds, while the November
wind chased down the brown leaves.  It’s late fall and an appropriate time,
I think, to lovingly bury our dead, comfort the grieving who are dealing
with the unexpected and unexplained death, and prepare for winter.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, "I'm going to snow. If you have on
a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway."

* Maya Angelou