I’ve been following the nor’easter that dumped heavy wet snow on my dad’s old farm. ( I still have the Pine Plains weather on my phone and he died more than a year ago.) He would have loved the big March storm. I can hear him telling me over the phone that he’s battened down the hatches, checked the generator, stacked extra wood on the porch. There’s a soup bubbling on the stove. He’s filled the bathtub and put new batteries in the transistor radios (he had many) and flashlights. Candles, matches.Shovel by the door.
It’s snowing here too, and we have a winter storm warning through tomorrow morning. “Possible threat to life and property” seems a bit hyperbolic, but it’s exciting to share with you. “Heavy snow followed by heavy rain” the warning warns– “total snow accumations 7 to 14 inches. Winds gusting as high as 40mph”– and my favorite “additional detail” for Haines, Skagway and Klukwan, “hazardous conditions could impact the morning or evening commute.” In the meantime, on the radio my brother-in-law Norm just said to stay home until everything is plowed tomorrow.
I’m my father’s daughter so as soon as the flurries began I stacked wood on the porch, made sure there was plenty of kindling, that the shovel was near, filled a jug with water, walked the dogs and checked on the garage and the little house and talked to my mother-in-law and Chip in Florida. I pulled the old Papa Bob trick of making it all sound worse than it is then pivoted and dismissed the weather as no big deal for a hale and hearty Alaska gal like me.
It’s Lent, the season when I am reminded of my mortality anyway — from dust I came until dust I will return– and when the faithful are urged to spend time in self-reflection, and discern what is of value in our lives, what changes we need to make– how to live a more meaningful life. You know, the little stuff.
I don’t know about you, but I always fall short of my own expectations. (I know, I’m working on telling myself a different story.) Last week I wrote an old friend’s obituary. I am glad that Stephanie, a former Haines mayor and assembly member, has a big part in Of Bears and Ballots and that people will read about her years from now. I am also glad that I was able to share her wise, steady, and a little nutty ways. She made me smile often. I remember showing up at her handmade passive solar farmhouse seeking advice. (She was a flower farmer, among many other talents– special education teacher, childbirth coach, grant writer, clerk. She cut 4-5 cords of her own firewood every year and was a defense short of a PhD from Vanderbilt.)
Anyway, I was right on the edge of losing it over the toxic local political environment and considering quitting the assembly as several others had done during an exhausting, mean-spirited recall campaign. I didn’t know how I would survive the next meeting.
I was worried I might stand up and tell the critics in the front row to do something anatomically impossible and walk out. (Another reason I attend church: I still sometimes wish I had. Me and Walter Mitty.)
I wrote dear old Helen Tengs’ (96) obituary this week and attended her memorials at the Presbyterian Church and Pioneer Bar. Helen had a term that I like that suits Lent perfectly — she used to say she sinned in her thinking. But that’s another story.
Back to Stephanie’s deck on a sunny afternoon, overlooking her woodland glade of a garden, me the mess and she the sage. When I said I didn’t think I could make it all the way through the next assembly meeting, Steph, who was on the assembly with me because she loved governing, and chose to sign up for another term knowing that her time on earth was more precious and limited than ever, blinked behind her thick glasses, paused a few beats and said, “Don’t go,” and laughed.
“What?”
“Don’t go. Stay home.”
“I can’t. I have no excuse.”
“You don’t need one. You are allowed to miss three meetings.”
Clearly, I had not read the fine print in borough code.
And here’s the thing: as soon as I knew there was an option, that I was choosing to attend, I did, and I was fine. Nothing had altered but something in my sight had adjusted to the darkness.*
Stephanie was 75 when she died. She had lived with brain cancer for seven years, but had five good years symptom-free. She spent four of them on the borough assembly because she wanted to. Her goodbye was long and she never had any pain. Her children and friends took very good care of her right up to the end. She gave her body to the University of Washington to help students learn more about cancer, the brain — human beings. Life and death.
Steph was a Buddhist and she read about death all the time. She wasn’t afraid. She died curious.
Photo credit Joshua Scott, Stephanie’s son. The family picked it for her obituary.
*Here is the Emily Dickinson poem that this thought comes from. It’s perfect right now for many reasons.
We grow accustomed to the Dark –
When light is put away –
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye –
A Moment – We uncertain step
For newness of the night –
Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –
And meet the Road – erect –
And so of larger – Darknesses –
Those Evenings of the Brain –
When not a Moon disclose a sign –
Or Star – come out – within –
The Bravest – grope a little –
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead –
But as they learn to see –
Either the Darkness alters –
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight –
And Life steps almost straight.
