April Fools

The end of March and the beginning of April have seen me in fool’s bells. My husband told me a month ago that he thought our cow was pregnant. I went and looked at her myself, being an expert on bovine pregnancy and all, and declared him mistaken. “She’s not pregnant,” said I, “because she’s not nearly as big as she was last time.”

Just a week or so ago, Bossy proved me wrong. Loud moos were heard coming from the creek bed, and our daughters ran up excitedly. “Mom, Mom!” they cried, “Bossy is mooing really loudly! What if she’s having a calf?!”

“She’s not having a calf,” sez I. “She’s probably in heat. But if she doesn’t stop, you’d better go tell Dad. Maybe she’s hurt.”

No more than 15 minutes later, the little girls were back in my office. “BOSSY HAD A BABY!” they yelled.

“No way!” I exclaimed. “I can’t have been wrong!”

And several times since then I’ve been mistaken, too. Mistaken about facts historical and otherwise; mistaken about which way to turn to get to where I’m going; mistaken about my husband’s shaky hand which is (supposedly) not, as I had feared, Parkinson’s but simply nerve damage from using too many tools for too many years. I have been mistaken, wrong, confounded, hasty. Over-reaching, puffed up, vain, and sometimes downright pompous. I’ve been these in front of witnesses. And they have laughed.

I like being wrong when the resulting surprises are good ones. I don’t mind laughing at myself, or having others laugh at me, then. But I have to admit that there are times when I’m mistaken about something and I see my arrogance and it’s not a pretty sight.

Though I’m old enough to have been often wrong, I still think I’m right so much of the time. I must think I have lived long enough to know a pregnant cow when I see one, though (if truth be told) I have known only one pregnant cow in my entire life, and that one is Bossy.  So this month I am an April fool. I’m reminded to not take myself too very seriously, to keep a humble set of heart and mind, to smile, and to be a bit more tentative in my statements, declarations, and pontifications. To be a better listener. To demonstrate my respect for others by recognizing that they could be right!

As promised, I’ll be continuing with the series on leaving home and turning next to the coddled child, to the effects of being smothered or (a tip of my hat to the Librarian from Purgatory, here) to those of having a ravenous mother.

The Advantages of Being Dead

A blogging friend recently wrote about how much easier death would be than living. As I read the comments on her article, all of which had the effect of rendering her death-wishes useless, a perverse love of being dead was kindled in my heart, a fierce allegiance to the rationality of its advantages fueled in my mind. I know this woman to be smart and practical, and not one whose opinions about the benefits of being dead ought to be dismissed. I had to agree with her: sometimes, being dead is better.

“I’m not depressed,” I responded, “merely logical, and I agree that being dead would be a lot easier than being alive.”

“I look forward to being dead,” I continued, asserting that “I could post a list of 100 reasons why being dead has many advantages.”

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, the unluckiest day of the year. It only seems fitting that we should stop and ponder the advantages of being dead.

And so, without further ado, here is my list of 100 advantages of being dead:

1. Dead people don’t have to stand in line.
2. If a dead person does have to stand in line, she doesn’t mind it at all.
3. A dead person standing in line will normally cause others to leave the line, therefore benefitting the dead person by propelling her to the head of the line.
4. Dead people do not pay taxes.
5. Dead people do not need medical care.
6. Dead people do not have to work.
7. If a dead person does have to work, and he is American, he is no doubt protected from being fired by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
8. A dead person who is not American and thus lacks our constitutional protections can be shipped, mailed, dropped or floated into American territory and thus receive the benefits of citizenship without ever needing a green card. The dead card trumps all.
9. Dead people are not concerned with their weight.
10. Others generally speak better of the dead than they did when the dead were alive. Therefore a dead person’s reputation is always better and more romantic than that of the living.
11. Being dead is popular; everyone is doing it.
12. All the great people who have ever lived are dead.
13. The most evolved spiritual avatars meditate on death and are, in fact, dead.
14. Dead people don’t get into arguments.
15. Dead people don’t get speeding tickets.
16. Dead people aren’t obligated to attend events they don’t want to attend.
17. A dead person attending an event they want to attend always makes a big impression.
18. Dead people do not need makeup, stockings, cosmetic surgery, push-up bras, or other appearance enhancers.
19. The hair and nails you had such a hard time maintaining continue to grow after you are dead.
20. But dead people don’t need haircuts or manicures.
21. Dead people do not collect and sort the mail.
22. Dead people do not have to pay bills.
23. Dead people needn’t floss.
24. Dead people still have teeth, but never need visit the dentist again.
25. No more gynecological or prostate exams when you’re dead.

Tremors

I noticed the tremor in my husband’s right hand about six weeks ago. His hand had taken to fluttering like a moth that has spent its energy flitting around the porch light all night long, and by morning is reduced to crawling along the porch, beating its wings in useless efforts to regain a position near the light.

“Why is your hand shaking?” I stupidly asked. “I don’t know,” he answered, staring at his hand as if it belonged to another man. “It’s been doing that lately. Maybe it’s all these years of working with it.” Yes, maybe. Maybe lifting and using a four-pound screw gun hundreds of times a day for 30 years will do that to a man’s hand. “You’d better go to the doctor,” I suggested. “Maybe try alternative medicine first, an acupuncturist.” We all know what medical doctors do: prescribe and cut. Not much else. You might as well go to a blood-letter or have leeches applied as go to a medical doctor.

So to the acupuncturist he went, to Dr. Lee, a medical doctor who had returned to traditional Chinese medicine after discovering that western medicine wasn’t achieving the healing ends he expected it would. “Nerve damage,” he said, and stuck hundreds of needles into my husband over the course of six weeks. “Drink this tea to protect your nerve endings,” he advised. And my husband drank the tea.

After six weeks, the tremor seemed to improve somewhat. But not enough to warrant ignoring it. And then I noticed my husband walking funny. His left arm swings at his side when he walks, but now the right arm seems tucked against his torso, stiff. Something is wrong. I think Parkinson’s Disease. I begin to Google. I begin to feel fear. The more I read, the more fear I feel.

I do the math: my husband is 55 years old. Our youngest child is 10 years old. In 10 years she will only be 20 years old, not even finished with college, if she is even able to go. In 10 years if my husband has Parkinson’s Disease, he may not even be able to work. In 10 years if he cannot work, and he is disabled, we will not have enough money in savings or retirement or in anything that will help us survive. We’ve put everything we have into our children, our home, the church, and other people. We’ve saved for emergencies and stayed out of debt, but we’ve not hoarded money for ourselves. We’ve lost most of our contributions to our 401(k)s like everyone else. And because we own a business that depends on my husband being healthy, an illness or disability could mean we lose all our future income, including our ability to pay for insurance. We could be reduced to living on only a few thousand dollars disability income monthly. There is no way we can survive on that and keep what we have. We might lose everything.

I spent several nights awake in the wee hours, terrified and sick to my stomach. I could see, during those wee hours, how attached I am to my comfort. I recalled why we bought our property and moved out of a smaller and nearly paid-for house into this large house we built with our own hands. I felt a bit tricked by God, for it was He alone who could inspire us to take such a big risk at our ages six years ago, building this house. Sometimes God inspires you to take big risks. We took big risks every time we had or adopted a child. We took big risks when we stepped out by faith and started a business. We took big risks every time we gave sacrificially or invested in others rather than ourselves. We have always done things in large ways. But “the bigger they are, the harder they fall,” they say. Has our time of comeuppance finally arrived? Had we worked all those years for nothing?

During these wee hours of terror, my fear shows me my attachments. Before we had so much stuff, I wasn’t so attached to stuff. When we were poor, I had no aspirations to be rich. The happiest times of my life were spent in the smallest surroundings.

But now that I have large surroundings and lots of stuff, I can see that I want either God or I to be in control of what is given, of what is sacrificed. “We gave it up for the sake of the gospel,” I want to say. Or let the tornado come. Let the house burn to the ground. “Act of God,” I’ll say.

But I do not want a disease to dictate what happens to my husband, my children, or my lifestyle. I do not want to be a Wal-Mart greeter at age 65. I do not want to have to go to work in my 50s. I do not want to work every day. I do not want to spend the healthiest part of the end of my life taking care of my husband and my parents at the same time. I don’t want to caretake people until I die.

I do not want to serve in those ways. I want to choose how I serve. I want my service to God and others to feel good and comfortable to me, to be based on my choices. I don’t want things forced on me, and I don’t want to be imprisoned by “ought” and “should” and “must” all my adult life. I am full of pride and self-will and I can see it so clearly when I’m caught up in my own fear and dread, imagining the worst possible outcome.

The shake in my husband’s hand has sent tremors through my world. It has shaken me to the core, and every day I feel an aftershock. I am as close as I can be to the epicenter of his shaking hand, and my heart quakes.

Tremble, and do not sin;
Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still.
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And trust in the LORD.
Psalm 4:4-5